Introductory Research Methods

About

Introduction to Experimental Psychology (PSY301W) is the course following Quantitative Methods in Psychology (PSY205) as part of the three-course methods sequence required for all undergraduate psychology majors. The course catalog describes this course as:

Introduction to research methods in psychological sciences will include ethics, sampling, and research design applicable to neuroscience and clinical, social, developmental, and cognitive psychology. Writing will focus on the literature review section of an APA empirical paper--finding, reading, summarizing and integrating primary source material—along with review of basic statistics.

The description, however, belies both the breadth and depth of the material covered in this course. The course covers a variety of research methods that are used in psychology, specifically: surveys, observations, experiments (single subject, one independent (IV) and dependent variable (DV), more than one IV, and more than one DV), and correlational designs (quasi-experiments, cross-sectional, repeated measures, and longitudinal designs). The course content also covers ethics, sampling, validity, reliability, and reproducibility/replication of empirical findings. Along with research design, this is a writing intensive course that gives students the opportunity to learn and practice writing consistent with the expectations for producing and dissemination research in psychology.

The course is designed around a general premise of practice, feedback, and more practice.

As such, students are required to complete homework assignments most class meetings. The homework assignments are integral steps to prepare students for completing and writing about three projects. The projects—an observational study done as a class, an experimental study done in pairs, and a grant proposal completed individually—are designed such that each project builds on the skills from the prior project while challenging students to integrate new information about research design.