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Research Methods in the Classroom

Page history last edited by Elisa Geiss 2 years, 7 months ago Saved with comment


Activity: Example of observational research ("Rabbit Season"), (Courtesy of Madelynn Shell via STP Facebook Group 1/22/14)

Have students watch this cartoon (http://vimeo.com/8965484) and count the number of violent acts. Do not define violent acts ahead of time so students get vastly different numbers. After comparing students' observations, the class can discuss operational definitions for violent acts, decide upon one, and watch the cartoon again.    

 


 

FreeIAT

Using the free software at FreeIAT, you can create your own implicit association tests.  With faculty supervision, this could provide some interesting lessons for a Research Methods course.


Instructor's Guide to Using Research Methods and Statistics Concept Maps (2013)

from the Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP): 

Click here


Basic Research Methods Materials:  A Compendium

(Original content compiled by Mitchell Handelsman from suggestions collected via the PsychTeacher Listserv) 

 

Saville, B. K. (2008). A guide to teaching research methods in psychology. Malden, MA: Blackwell. (here)

Stanovich, K.E. (2010). How to think straight about psychology. Pearson (here)

 

Materials, activities and methods to help students differentiate between empirical methods (case study, naturalistic observation, survey, correlation, experiments)

 

I use Stanovich's, How to think Straight... as my introduction to methods in the class and we usually run an assessment study in the class.  It typically involves using the Psychology as a Science questionnaire on some student sample so class students can get a sense of the beliefs, values, and attitudes held by scientific psychologists. All my materials are online and to take a look at what I do, go here:  (Eric Amsel)


Links

 

How Science Works
Research Methods 
Research Methods in Psychology

(Steve Jones)

 

Useful for additional ideas, illustrations, and resources:

http://teachpsychscience.org/

http://topix.teachpsych.org/w/page/19981033/Research-Methods-Video

http://opl.apa.org/

(Kristie Campana)


Methods and Techniques:

 

What I do is put the different research questions on index cards, hand each group of 3 students a card, and let them work in small groups for several minutes. Then we go over it together. I usually have 2-3 groups per card, so groups may come up with different answers. Students like it and it seems to really help them distinguish the different observation methods. You could probably add on if you wanted to get experiments in there, too. I teach observational methods on one day and experiments on another to help keep them distinct in my students’ minds. (Elaine Perea)

 

There are hundreds of good psychological and social science  research sites on the Web if you Google them. My students enjoy the sites that are on-going research projects.

Here are sources for the

Ten most and Twenty most unethical psychology experiments

 

(Original content compiled by Mitchell Handelsman from suggestions collected via the PsychTeacher Listserv) 


Brief Demonstrations of Sampling Techniques (created by Raechel Soicher using Jing)

Simple Probability Sampling

Systematic Probability Sampling

Stratified Probability Sampling

Cluster Sampling

* I would appreciate any feedback you have on these, including if you find them useful or not.  soicher@arc.losrios.edu)


 

TeachPsychScience.org

Resources for teaching research methods. 


Factorial Research Design

Available through STP's OTRP, "This interactive application provides supplemental instruction on factorial research designs that students enrolled in a Statistics or Research Methods course in psychology can complete as homework or on their own. It consists of 10 pages of definitions, examples, and images, and 11 quiz questions that help students measure their understanding of the design. At the end of the application, students can print a certificate to indicate their completion of the exercise."


Teaching Research Methods in Intro Psych

Add your tips and suggestions for teaching methods in Intro.


Using Single-Case Design and personalized Behavior Change Projects to Teach Research Methods.

Looking for a research experiment for your students that does not take a lot of time. The author describes how do this in a 6-week course.

Morgan, D. L. (2009). using single-case design and personalized behavior change projects to teach research methods. Teaching of Psychology, 36(4), 267-269.

 

Lakin, J. L., Giesler, R. B., Morris, K. A., & Vosmik, J. R. (2007). HOMER as an acronym for the scientific method. Teaching of Psychology, 34(2), 94-96. 10.1080/00986280701291317


Teaching Psychology for Sustainability: Research Methods

Looking to incorporate environmental issues into your courses? Check out these "lecture discussion topics; class activities; multimedia resources; suggested readings for students..."

 

Correlations

Experiments


In Class Examples:

 

io9.com's "Packages sealed with "Atheist" tape go missing 10x more often than controls" (via notawfulandboring.blogspot.com)

An example of a company using a simple research method in order to investigate whether or not branding a box with the word "Atheist" leads to more of those boxes going missing. 

 

Dogbert demonstrates how NOT to collect data via phone surveys (via notawfulandboring.blogspot.com)


 

Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences

Contains a repository of measurement instruments used to collect data. Can be useful if students are creating their own research study with surveys. (Courtesy of Elisa Geiss)

 

 

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