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Research

Psychology 318W
Research Methods in Psychology
Spring 2021

Course Description:

From the Course Catalog: 

"An examination of research principles and techniques in psychology. Experimental design and interpretation is stressed. Students learn to locate and read technical articles and to report on research projects in the style of the American Psychological Association. This is a writing intensive course. "

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From the Syllabus: 

"It is the overall goal of this course to build on your previous experience in PSYC 317 and other classes and build skills in reading, interpreting, conducting, and reporting research. You will learn to critique scientific claims, assimilate information from scientific research to form logical and novel research questions, understand the research process and methods of psychological research, and ethically collect, analyze, and report research findings. Through this class, you will be set up top become a contributor to the field of psychology and a critical interpreter of research claims encountered in you everyday lives." 

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This course and lab work consisted of 3 tests, 6 laboratory assignments and a final group project. The group project (reproduced below) was in the style of a scientific research paper using existing research and mock experimental results to simulate the actual process of producing scientific literature. The course covered topics such as: 

  • Formulating research proposals

  • APA format

  • Hypotheses

  • Experimental research design

  • Survey research

  • Control techniques in experimental design

  • Formulating methods sections

  • Statistical analyses

  • Research validity

  • Creating tables and figures

  • Qualitative methods

  • Mixed-design methods

  • Ethics in scientific research

Example of work:

Skills Learned: 

  • Working in a team structure

For this class, the majority of our grade depended on working in a team structure for the group project. In addition, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this class was completely remote and our group was able to functionally complete the work using zoom/google meetings and email communication. Not only were we successful despite the less-than-ideal conditions we were forced to endure, but we excelled to the point that our instructor, Dr. Olenick, asked to use our paper (seen above) as an example to future classes. 

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  • Communicating Verbally

Communication was exceedingly important for this project and while some of the communication between our team and the teaching assistant happened over email, a large part of our communication happened virtually through zoom or google meetings. Verbal communication was vital during this course as the back and forth of live conversation aided in the development of our ideas, even if it was still remote in nature. 

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  • ​Demonstrating Technical Knowledge

The technical knowledge I learned in this course included: Logical fallacies, conditions of causation, experimental and descriptive research design, correlational research, APA style formats, survey and interview techniques, research validity, phenomenology, and data collection and analysis.

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  • Analyzed Quantitative Data

This course required the analysis of quantitative data for the group project. We used our knowledge gained in PSYC 316 (Scientific Reasoning in Psychology) and PSYC 317 (Quantitative Methods) as well as statistical methods learned in STAT 130M (Elementary Statistics) to analyze the mock data presented to us for the project. For this data we used a one-way ANOVA analysis. 

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Looking Towards the Future: 

There are two main ways in which this class will impact my future education- and career-based goals. The first is the immense teamwork required for this course. Most university courses that require teamwork, only require that teams work for a singular project, usually at the end of the semester. While this class also only required a single team-based project, this project was worth nearly 50% of the final grade and took place between weeks 2-15 (virtually the entire semester). Team-building exercises and assignments developed the different aspects of team structured work and this was the first course I had taken which mirrored what teamwork in the workforce would look like. The second way in which this class would impact my future goals is in the research design and writing skills employed in this class. One day, I hope to continue my education with either a Masters or a PhD (or both). This class showed how developing and writing research would unfold. We learned how academic writing takes place including how to develop a hypothesis, employ research techniques, obtain and analyze data, and how to write an academic paper which shows the process and results of said research. When the day comes that I decide further my education, I think the lessons I learned in this class would be invaluable in those pursuits. 

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