Designs are fun (with student comments in quotes)

Research methods has more to it than mean differences

“I learned about more types of research designs than I expected”

“There are other and better ways to measure distribution besides T tests”

"I learned that doing psych research requires far more statistics than I anticipated."

"That the more simple you can make your design while still getting important findings and information across the better."

Some people found they actually enjoyed the challenges and promises of designing good research.

"I never thought experimental design would be a topic of interest for me or even that it mattered much in the first place. Generally I would think that it didn't really matter because this is the way the experiment was done and it showed results so why question it but that is not a way I want to think anymore."

"There are so many way to design a poor experiment, but it doesn't matter because there are also many ways to design a good one."

Students realized that design makes or breaks the meaning of any dataset.

"The most important thing I learned is that design choices and data analysis choices greatly influence whether or not the conclusions of a study should be supported."

Back to Surprises, back to Research Methods or back to In the Classroom