Syllabus for Psychology 207-011: Research Methods

Fall, 2009
University of Delaware
Professor: Beth Morling, Ph.D.
Email: morling@udel.edu
Office: Wolf 217
Phone: 831-8377 (much better to use email)
Dr Morlings office hours: Tuesdays 1-3, Fridays 11:15-12:15
TA: Mary Sedrak (mwsedrak@udel.edu); Marys office hours TBA.
Course Overview:
Psychology majors must learn the content of psychology, but they also learn how psychologists know what
they know. Research Methods is a critical thinking skills class in which the main goal is to help you become
a better consumer of informationboth in psychology and in the real-world. You will learn how to
systematically evaluate the validity of different claims that you might encounter in a future psychology
textbook, in a psychology research article, in the media, or in casual conversation. This class will also teach
you how to plan psychological research that can test different claims. You will learn to articulate the pros
and cons of different research choices and plan research that optimizes these pros and cons.
All assignments and in-class exercises are designed to maximize your learning of the following goals. By the
end of the course, I hope you will be able to:

Identify research claims in both popular and scientific sources, and classify them as Frequency,
Association, or Causal claims.
Use a framework of Four Big Validities (construct, internal, external, and statistical) to ask
systematic questions about the evidence behind different research claims.
Evaluate whether psychologists have measured human behavior reliably and with validity.
Discriminate between experimental, quasi-experimental, and correlational studies, and explain
which claims (Association or Causal) each kind of study can support
Design and interpret experiments that study how different factors interact to cause behavior.
Explain how researchers can improve the ability of correlational studies to support causal claims
Describe when we can generalize from the results of a study, and when generalization doesnt
matter
Apply basic ethical guidelines to research in psychology.
Use two important tools important to the discipline of psychology: the PsycINFO literature search
engine, and APA style for writing and citing research papers.

Required Texts:
Cozby, P.C. (2009). Methods in behavioral research (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Dunn, D. S. (2008). A short guide to writing about psychology. New York: Pearson-Longman.
Assorted other readings and assignments will be distributed via Sakai or the UD library.
Requirements:
We will be managing this class with the help of Sakai (sakai.udel.edu/portal). This syllabus, your quizzes,
lecture slides, and all the assignment details will be posted there. It will be your responsibility to log onto
Sakai regularly to check for assignments and complete your work. You will need to check for new quizzes
in the Tests & Quizzes section and to look for readings and assignments in the Resources section.

There will four exams in the class. On each test, there will be multiple-choice knowledge questions from
the textbook (similar to the quiz questions) and one or two applied, problem-solving questions similar to
the problems we work on during class. The final is cumulative and held during finals week. Do not
schedule your travel plans until the final exam schedule comes out. You cannot make up an exam unless
you contact me in person, in advance, with an excuse that is documented by the Deans office (your
documented severe illness or documented family death). If you miss an exam for one of these reasons, you
will be required to do an make-up exam in essay format, at my convenience.
This is an active learning class in which we will be doing examples, exercises, and problems in small groups
almost every day. If you miss class regularly, you will not participate in these activities and will not learn
what you need to learn to progress in the major. You will be assigned to a study group of five students.
Your group will sit together during class so that you can work together on in-class activities. Your group will
also be producing work related to one group assignment that requires you to evaluate a popular press
report of some psychological research. In daily class activities, your group may turn in a summary or page
of work; all group members who are present on that day will sign the work. Dont sign the page for
somebody whos not in class.
For the most part, I will not be lecturing in class on material that is also in the textbook. Instead, you will be
required to study the textbook ahead of time and take chapter quizzes on the material on Sakai. Each quiz
is a random selection of 10 items from a pool of items, and youll have 8 to 10 minutes to take the quiz.
You can take each quiz again if you want to (the computer will apply the highest score to your grade).
There are 13 quizzes in the class, and you may drop the lowest 3 of them (this policy is intended to benefit
those who have computer problems, add the course late, or simply forget). These quizzes will be available
on Sakai until the day that we will start activities based upon that chapter. This format requires you to
learn the basic material in the textbook before you come to class for the activities.
You will also be required to produce an APA style research proposal. Extensive details will be posted on
Sakai. This assignment will consolidate most of what you will learn in this course.
Distribution of requirements:
Exams 1-4, counting 10%, 15%, 15%, and 20%, respectively
Top 10 Quizzes
Group work in class, including literature review/APA lab
Popular press assignment (group work, shared grade
Research proposal (Individual and group work)
Grading cutoffs:
A
93%
A90%
B+
88%
B
83%
B80%
C+
78%

C
CD+
D
D-

10%
5%
20%

60%
5%

73%
70% (Note: You need a C- for the major)
68%
63%
60%

Policies and Procedures:

Late work, extensions, and assignments. The only acceptable way to turn in assignments is on paper, in
person. DO NOT email your assignments and do not submit written assignments via Sakai (quizzes are the

exception and are done totally on Sakai). I dont grant extensions because they are unfair to other students
in the class, who usually have just as many commitments, deadlines, birthday parties, etc. Late papers will
drop 10% of the grade for every day late (excluding weekends). Computer problemsincluding trouble
getting access to Sakai for whatever reason--do not constitute an excuse for late work, so plan to start your
work early, just in case. I occasionally make exceptions in the case of a documented illness and appropriate
advance planning on your part.
Attendance and Professionalism. Because this is an active learning course, attendance is essential. If you
dont come to class, you cant participate in the daily learning activities we have planned. In addition, exam
questions will be directly related to the things we practice in class. I will track attendance by collecting
work related to the learning activities, and this work counts toward your grade as in class work. Class
time is precious, so in your groups, keep your conversations on topic. I will reply to all emails in which you
sign your full name, use conventional spelling and punctuation, and write with respect.
Academic Honesty. Honesty is one of the core values of the academic community. To spell out the
obvious: All exam work in this class is to be your own. All written work is to be your own. You are
responsible for keeping drafts, references, disk copies, and backup copies of all of your written
assignments, to turn in upon my request until final grades are completed. If I discover that you have copied
all or part of an exam or laboratory report from another source (including another student, a web page, a
textbook, or other published source), you will be reported to Academic Affairs for disciplinary action (I
usually recommend an F-X grade in the course).
If, in your writing, you fail to appropriately paraphrase and cite the ideas of others (specifically, if you use
an authors elegant phrase or sentence and cite the author, but you fail to put direct quotes around the
phrase or sentence you copied), I will ask you to redo the assignment, the assignment will be lowered by
two full letter grades, and I will report it to Academic Affairs. To avoid plagiarizing, you must educate
yourself about appropriate citation procedures and follow them carefully. When in doubt, ask.
ADA Note. Students who have documented physical or sensory disabilities may need accommodations so
that they can succeed in this class. If you have a disability, then it is your responsibility to see me during the
first two weeks of class so that we can make appropriate arrangements. It takes time to set up extended
time tests, so please do not wait until the week of an exam to let me know that you need accommodations.
Schedule of Topics and Assignments (subject to minor changes)
Date

Textbook Chapter /Class topic

9/2 W

Course introduction

9/4 F
9/9 W
9/11 F
9/14 M

9/16 W

Assignment (due before classquizzes will close at

10:00am the day they are due)

Overview and Basic Concepts

Ch 1: Scientific method
Do the practice quiz on Sakai
Ch 1 quiztry it out
Ch 1 Scientific method , group
Chapter 1 quiz (final due date)
introductions
Ch 2: Effective literature reviews
Chapter 2 quiz
Ch 2: Anatomy of a research article,
Find online in the library, print (pdf), read, and bring:
APA style
Sayette, M.A., Reichle, E.D., & Schooler, J.W. (2009). Lost
in the sauce: The effects of alcohol on mind wandering.
Psychological Science, 20, 747-752.
Three claims: Frequency, Association,
Read chapter on Sakai: Three claims, Four validities
and Cause
Optional: Read Goldacre (2005): Dont dumb me down.

(Link on Sakai)
Chapter 4 quiz
Bring Sayette, Reichle, & Schooler (2009) back to class
Ch 12 (read, but no quiz)

9/18 F

Ch 4: Variables, more on three claims

9/21 M
9/23 W
9/25 F

10/19 M
10/21 W

Ch 12: Crash course in statistics

Ch 12: Crash course in statistics
Exam 1
Evaluating Frequency Claims: A happens, N% of the time!
Ch 5: Measurement
Ch 5 quiz
Ch 5: Measurement
Ch 5: Measurement
Ch 6: Observational studies
Ch 6 quiz
Ch 6: Observational studies
Ch 7: Survey design and sampling
Ch 7 quiz
Popular Press Assignment due (Group assignment)
Ch 7: Survey design and sampling
Exam 2
Fall Break
Evaluating Causal Claims (A causes B!)
Ch 8: Experimental design
Ch 8 quiz
Ch 9: Conducting experiments
Ch 9 quiz

10/23 F
10/26 M

No Class Today
Ch 8&9 Experimental issues

10/28 W

Ch 10: Complex designs

10/30 F

Ch 10: Complex designs

11/2 M
11/4 W
11/6 F
11/9 M
11/11 W
11/13 F

Ch 10: Complex designs

Ch 11: Quasi-experimental designs
Ch 11 quiz
Ch 11: Quasi-experimental designs
Research proposal: Intro and hypotheses due
Ch 11: Quasi-experimental designs
Catchup day
Exam 3
Evaluating Claims about Association (A is linked to B!)
Ch 12: Correlations
Ch 12 quiz
Research proposal: Revised Intro and Method due
Ch 12: Correlations: Causation
Ch 12: Correlations: Analyzing
correlational designs
Ch 12: Correlations: Multivariate
methods
Ch 12: Correlations: Multivariate
methods
No Class (Thanksgiving Break)
Ch 12: Correlations: Multivariate
Research proposal: Full paper to peer reviewers

9/28 M
9/30 W
10/2 F
10/5 M
10/7 W
10/9 F
10/12 M
10/14 W
10/16 F

11/16 M
11/18 W
11/20 F
11/23 M
11/25 W
11/27 F
11/30 M

Note: Oct 27 is the last day to drop or add a class

Research proposal: Topic commitment & articles due
Ch 10 quiz
Find (online in the library), print, read, and bring:
Holland, R.W., Hendriks, M., & Aarts, H. (2005). Smells
like clean spirit: Nonconscious effects of scent on
cognition and behavior. Psychological Science, 16, 689693.

methods
12/2 W
12/4 F
12/7 M

12/9 W
Finals
week

Ch 14: External validity: When it

matters, and when it doesnt
Ch 3: Ethics

Research Priorities
Ch 14 quiz

Research proposal: Peer review due back to author

Ch 3 quiz
Ch 3: Ethics
Print (from Sakai), read, and bring
Middlemist, R.D., Knowles, E.S., & Matter, C.F. (1976).
Personal space invasion in the lavatory: Suggestive
evidence for arousal. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 33, 541-546.
Class wrap up
Final research proposal paper due
Exam 4 (Comprehensive final on Chs 3, 12, 14, and 4-11)