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Psychology 85-340 (Section A)Research Methods in Social PsychologyTues, Thurs, 10:30-11:50AM, Baker Hall 336BProfessors: Dr. J. David Creswell E-mail: creswell@cmu.eduOffice:354L Baker HallOffice Hours: T/TH after class, or by appt.Office Phone: 412-268-9182Dr. Chante Cox Boyd Email: coxboyd@andrew.cmu.eduOffice: 343 Baker HallOffice Hours: M/W 11-12; T/TH 1:30-2, or by apt.Texts:Pelham, B. W., & Blanton, H. (2013). Conducting research in psychology: Measuring the weight of smoke. (4th edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Selected research articles will be posted for download on Blackboard websiteCourse Overview: In this course, you will develop skills that will enable you to be an effective conductor and consumer of social psychology research. Regardless of your life and career paths, it is very important to learn how to think about and interpret information that you come across – claims about how to be healthy, how to make financial decisions, who to choose as a life partner, or which shirt will make the best impression at a job interview. Your ability to think about information can sometimes have somewhat trivial consequences (e.g., how do I go about picking out a toothpaste?), or quite significant consequences (e.g., how do I go about selecting a life partner?) As it happens, social psychology is interested in all these questions (and more). The research from social psychology is fascinating, fun, and useful. This course is designed to introduce you to how that research is conducted: what questions social psychologists ask, what methods we use to answer those questions, and how we evaluate the evidence from our research. In this course, you will learn not only how to evaluate social psychological research, but how to conduct your own empirical research to address unanswered questions.Course Themes and Learning Objectives:Social psychology relies on empirical scientific studies to understand human behavior. In this course, students will be asked to identify social psychological phenomena they are interested in, read and analyze the existing social psychology literature, devise novel and testable hypotheses, design a study that tests these hypotheses, and communicate those findings. Specifically, by the end of this course:Students will be able to read and evaluate social psychology literature. Students will be able to identify and describe methodological concepts and features for experimental design. Students will be able to develop testable social psychological hypotheses. Students will be able to design and conduct an experiment with real human subjects to test these hypotheses, and analyze the data collected to evaluate their findings.Students will be able to communicate their research, via a presentation and an academic poster, as well as an APA-style research report.Course Format:Conducting research involves your full participation and creativity. This course will be hands-on. There will be a set of lectures and laboratory sessions that will lay the foundation for what you need to know about experimental research methods in social psychology. This background will be in service of guiding you in completing all aspects of a rigorous and novel social psychology experiment. In this course, you will be expected to work effectively with others. The skill of working well with others is essential to being a good scientist and citizen. Scientific endeavors are increasingly becoming collaborative and multi-disciplinary (though this skill will serve you well no matter what career you pursue). Accordingly, you will conduct your experiment with a small team of your classmates. Teams will be determined by your instructor and your interest areas. We expect each team to designate a team leader who will facilitate work among the team members and report back to the instructors once per week about team progress on their experiment. We also expect the team leader to organize a 1-hour team meeting outside of class each week; this team meeting will ensure timely completion and coordination of experiment activities during the semester. We have found that the success of experiments in past classes has mostly been due to effective teamwork among all team members!Course readings and this syllabus will be available on our course Canvas page (). Research in social psychology suggests that if course lecture slides are available for download then students do not take as detailed of notes and learning is hindered, so course lecture slides will not be provided during the course. Powerpoint slides may be offered in the day prior to exams, to facilitate filling in notes.Your course experiment involves some extra costs. Running your experiment often requires printed materials, and you may want to offer some type of incentive for your participants to participate in your experiment (e.g., candy, money), so you should budget about $40 per team member. You will also be required to create a team poster (cost is about $35 per team). Course Assessment:Every effort will be made to give you feedback about your work in this course, and this will come from your instructors and your classmates. You will find that your instructors have very high expectations for your effort in this course, and care a great deal about helping you meet those expectations. Plenty of support will be made available for you to do well in this course. Class Participation and Attendance. 5% of final gradeThis is a hands-on course, and thus class participation and attendance is required in every class. You will be asked to sign in on an attendance sheet at the beginning of each class. Your creative and enthusiastic participation will go a long way in making this class interesting and rewarding, so please share your ideas and questions! Team Experiment I: Theoretical Rationale/Hypothesis. 5% of final gradeYou will have the opportunity to run an experiment on a research topic of interest to you and your fellow team members. Your project must be an original experiment that builds on what is currently known in the field of Social Psychology. This will be done in close collaboration with your team and your instructors. Class time will be set aside to work on your project with your team (you will collect your data on your own outside of class time). Early on in the course, your team will submit a single 3-page double-spaced theoretical rationale and hypothesis paper (one paper per team and this should be no more than 3 pages, including references). This paper must include: theory grounding your hypothesis and a brief description of previous studies conducted in the area (you should cite at least 5 previous studies), your study hypothesis or hypotheses, and a figure depicting your expected results. Your grade on this paper will be based on your ability to describe a creative and testable hypothesis that builds on existing theory and empirical findings in social psychology, and a clear testable and directional study prediction(s). Team Experiment II: Oral Presentation and Poster. 20% of final gradeAt the end of the semester, each team will present its findings in a 20-minute oral PowerPoint presentation, and every member of the team must participate. Your grade on the team project will be based on its creativity, methodological rigor, integration with previous findings and theory in the area, and the clarity of the oral presentation. You will be graded by your team as well as by your instructors. You will also make an academic poster in your team describing your experiment and findings, and this poster will be presented in a formal Psychology Department poster session (this will be done with all of the other Psychology Research Methods classes, and will be open to the public!). All members of the team must attend this poster session, which will be held on Thursday December 6th from 4:30-6pm on the third floor Baker hallway. Exams. 35% of final gradeThere will be two exams in this course, and the exams will test you on all material covered up until the exam day (this also means that the second exam is cumulative). Each exam will evaluate your understanding of all assigned textbook chapters, assigned readings, lab activities, and lectures. Because individuals differ in the type of question they are best at, to be fair, the exam will consist of multiple-choice, fill in the blank, and short answer essay questions. Final paper. 35% of final gradeAlthough you did the project as a team, you will each write an independent paper on the project. You will turn in a final APA-style research report by 10am on Tuesday of finals week. You will prepare a concise paper based on the findings of your study. This paper’s Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion sections has to be 10 pages or less (double spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins), but note that your paper will be expected to also include a title page, abstract, references section, a figure captions page, and supporting figures and tables. Your instructors are happy to talk with you about your paper and answer any questions you may have during the writing process. Your final grade will be determined by a weighted contribution of the following categories:Class Participation/Attendance 5%Team 1: Theoretical Rationale and Hypothesis5%Team 2: Project and Oral Presentation 15%Exam 110%Exam 2 25%Academic Poster5%Final Paper35%Final letter grades will be assigned based on these cumulative weighted point cutoffs:90.0% + A80.0-89.99B70.0-79.99C60.0-69.99D- 59.99%RAdditional Course PoliciesAcademic Dishonesty. Cheating of any kind will not be permitted in this class. As mentioned before, plenty of support is available for you to do well in this course – all you need to do is ask. Children at Lecture. Students are expected to attend every lecture – and both your family and your education are extremely important. Sometimes unforeseen difficulties arise in finding childcare for the day, or something comes up and your plans fall through. Regardless of the reason, if you need to bring your child with you to a lecture, please feel free to do so rather than missing class.Students with Documented Disabilities. If you have any form of disability that affects your ability to participate in this course, then please let your instructor know as soon as possible so that acceptable arrangements can be made. Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Disability Resources, who will work with you to develop a final Student Individual Accommodation Plan. Students should contact the OAE and send any Accommodation Plans as soon as possible. This is because time is needed to coordinate accommodation, and last-minute notices might not provide enough time to make the necessary arrangements. Care of Yourself. Do your best to maintain a healthy lifestyle this semester by eating well, exercising, avoiding drugs and alcohol, getting enough sleep and taking some time to relax. This will help you achieve your goals and cope with stress. All of us benefit from support during times of struggle. You are not alone. There are many helpful resources available on campus and an important part of the college experience is learning how to ask for help. Asking for support sooner rather than later is often helpful. If you or anyone you know experiences any academic stress, difficult life events, or feelings like anxiety or depression, we strongly encourage you to seek support. Counseling and Psychological Services (CaPS) is here to help: call 412-268-2922 and visit their website at . Consider reaching out to a friend, faculty or family member you trust for help getting connected to the support that can help. Please reach out to me, I am your instructor and I am also here to provide support. If you or someone you know is feeling suicidal or in danger of self-harm, call someone at CaPS immediately, day or night. You can also call the Re:solve Crisis Network (888-796-8226). If the situation is life threatening, call the CMU police (412-268-2323) or call 911. Course Lectures, Labs, Readings, and Due Dates:DateLecture TopicIn-Class Lab ActivityReadings (to be done before class)Due at Start of ClassTues Aug 28Course OverviewIntro to ResearchThurs Aug 30Experimental Design: Correlation Class experiment, Reading the literatureChp 1, Chp 6Tues Sept 4Experimental Design: ExperimentsHow to do a literature searchChp 7, Article 1 (Bargh et al., 1996), Article 2 (Bartlett, 2013), Article 3 (Dunn et al., 2008)Thurs Sept 6Theories and hypotheses: ISimple and elegant experimentsArticle 4 (Gino et al., 2010)Article 5 (Whitchurch et al., 2011Your target articleResearch Summary of your target articleTues Sept 11Theories and hypotheses: II Form teams, identify topic areas and background readingsChp 2 (pp.29-57)Article 6 (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006), Article 7 (Bos et al., 2008)Thurs Sep 13Helping ExperimentTeam work: background readings/hypothesesTues Sep 18The Independent VariableTeam work: develop hypothesesChp 92 Testable Hypotheses Thurs Sep 20The Dependent VariableMain effects & InteractionsChp 4Tues Sep 25Experimental Design: Putting it all togetherTeam work: finalize study predictionsChp 5Thurs Sep 27ValidityArticle discussion; Take home Exam 1Chp 3, Article 8 (Crum & Langer, 2007)Tues Oct 2ReliabilityTheory and hypothesis paper developmentThurs Oct 4Exam 1Tues Oct 9Alternatives to Experiments: ITeam work: study measuresChp 8Team theory and hypothesis paperThurs Oct 11Alternatives to Experiments: IIIRB certification; Team work: study measuresTues Oct 16Team work: design experimentsThurs Oct 18Research EthicsTeam work: prepare materialsArticle 9, Kramer et al (2014)IRB CertificateTues Oct 23Being a good experimenter, debriefing Team work: prepare materialsChp 2 (pp.57-65)Article 10, Zhong & Leonardelli (in press)Final instructor approval of study materialsThurs Oct 25Data Collection (no class)Tues Oct 30In Baker (332P) Computer LabData entry in SPSSData Collection and EntryData Entry HandoutThurs Nov 1Data Collection (no class)Tues Nov 6Statistics Data collectionChp 10Thurs Nov 8In Baker (332P) Computer LabAnalyzing dataAnalyze team dataComplete data collectionTues Nov 13Writing a good journal article Analyze team dataChp 11; Article 11, APA-perThurs Nov 15EXAM 2Tues Nov 20Presenting your workMaking an academic posterThurs Nov 22Thanksgiving Break: No ClassTues Nov 27Team work on academic posterThurs Nov 29Team work on oral presentationTurn in academic posters for feedbackTues Dec 4Team Project PresentationsThurs Dec 6Team Project PresentationsThurs Dec 6(4:30-6pm)Poster Presentations (3rd Floor Hallway of Baker Hall)(wear professional attire for poster presentation)Tues Dec 11Final Paper Due by 10:00 AM in David Creswell’s faculty mailbox ................
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