As someone who was trained as a researcher, it is a joy to teach students not only about the process of research design and data collection, but also to share that research is not a perfect enterprise. Human researchers bring their biases to both research design and interpretation of data. However, studying how people and animals think and behave becomes an opportunity to systematically learn about the way our world has been designed by God. It is my belief that understanding the research process helps undergraduate social science majors have a feel for the necessity of data collection in order to understand the way our society, and the humans within it, operates.
Useful links for this course can be found below:
Beaman library Psychology research resources
Lipscomb Student Scholar Symposium
APA style and formatting:
How to dissect and read peer-reviewed research articles:
Open-access data sources (general topics; some may require you to register or create an account):
SAMHSA data
COVID-19 data (NPR)
COVID-19 data (State of Tennessee)
Tennessee Department of Education
Tennessee Mental and Behavioral Health data
Metro Nashville Public Schools open data
TIBRS crime reporting data (State of Tennessee)
Environmental Justice Index data
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease data resources
ProPublica ("free" access are labeled with a green box)
Kaiser Family Foundation (national health issues)
IPEDS (Data about Universities)
Equity in Athletics (US Dept of Ed)
UMich Institute for Social Research
Public Datasets (google doc collection)
AAUP (university professors) data
National Opinion Research Council (NORC)
Nashville district data dashboard
Nashville affordable housing dashboard