Topic Outline

Asking the hard questions.

Under each main topic, you’ll see a brief list of concepts and subtopics that you can use to help you organize what you read.

On the right of each subtopic list, you have the readings that will introduce you to that topic. All of the references are in our Class Drive, or are links to online articles and videos [underlined link is clickable].

Where there are numbers, it just means that you only have to read or watch a particular range of pages or timestamps for the resource. Those marked with asterisks* are required references—the rest are supplements that you can look at in your spare time when you want to learn more about the topic.

Also, our class is a hybrid between walkthrough lectures and writeshops. So, for every major topic, we'll first look at the principles underlying research, then tackle your literature review part by part, from choosing a topic to planning and writing it out.

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH

The Science of Psychology

Scientific Research

WHY WE KEEP ON ASKING

WALKTHROUGH Why We Do Research: Beyond Commonsense Psychology • The Context & Goals of Psychological Research • Sources of Knowledge • The Scientific Method • Pseudoscience & Scientific Literacy

WRITESHOP What is a Literature Review? • Choosing a Research Topic

Intellectual Humility* (Resnick 2019) [Vox]
Gravetter C°1 (5–25)*
The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research (Schwartz 2008) [Journal of Cell Science]

WRITING

Writing a Literature Review for Psychology* [PDF Univ. of Washington]
Generating Good Research Questions (Price et al. 2015) [OpenTextBC]
Sample Lit Reviews: Philippine Research (Clemente 2011), Social Media & Loneliness (Nowland et al. 2008), Diskarte (Morales 2017)

Pseudoscience & Scientific Rejectionism: Quick Cases

A Rough Guide to Spotting Bad Science [Compound Interest]
(Anti-)Vaccination
- Debunking Anti-Vaxxers [AsapSCIENCE]
- The Side Effects of Vaccines - How High is the Risk? [Kurzgesagt]
- Penn and Teller on Vaccines
Astrology
- Panic in the zodiac [The Guardian]
- Pseudoscience Debunked: Astrology [David Pakman Show]

The Research Process

FROM PLANNING TO PUBLICATION

WALKTHROUGH The Benefits & Costs of Doing Research • Conducting Research: From Choosing Questions to Sharing Answers • Parts of an Empirical Research Article

WRITESHOP Using (Re)search Engines • Reading Researches: Filtering for Theoretical Relevance and General Quality

Plano Clark C°1 (13–23)*

WRITING

Galvan C°3*
Critically Analyzing Information Sources [Cornell]
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria [Univ. of Melbourne]
Writing for Psychology (5–12) (on critical reading) [PDF Harvard]
A Brief Guide to Writing the Psychology Paper [PDF Harvard]
Is Wikipedia Actually Credible? [VIDEO link]

THEORY, PHILOSOPHY, & METHODOLOGY

The Art of Asking Questions

Theory & Philosophy of Research

ROAD MAPS & GUIDING SIGNS

WALKTHROUGH The Nature & Purpose of Theories • What Makes a Good Theory? • Research Paradigms & Worldviews

WRITESHOP Understanding Research Frameworks: Concept Mapping • APA Citation Style: Citing Sources, In-text Citations, & Reference Lists • Annotated Bibliographies: Summarizing & Paraphrasing

Creswell C°1 (3–11, 16–21)*
What We Should Expect from Theories in Social Psychology (Van Lange 2013, 40–45)
Complex Research Terminology Simplified [VIDEO link]
Karl Popper, Science, & Pseudoscience [CrashCourse Philosophy]

WRITING

APA Formatting and Style Guide* (sections on citations) [Purdue OWL]
Annotated Bibliographies* [Univs. of Guelph / Toronto]
Summarizing a Research Article* [PDF Univ. of Washington]
Concept Maps: Creswell (2008, 2014), Univ. of Queensland (8, 18–19)

Methods & Methodology

MANY WAYS TO DO THE SAME THING

WALKTHROUGH Taxonomies of Methods • A Few Common Methods You Might Encounter

WRITESHOP Integrating Theories, Worldviews, & Methods: Reading Articles from Different Paradigms

Plano Clark C°s (2), 6, 9, & 12* (you can skip the sample study given at the end of the chapter)

Theory & Methodology: Research Case Studies

FIELD IN FOCUS: ICTS AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Reliance on Facebook for news and its influence on political engagement (David et al. 2019)
ICTs in political engagement among youth in the Philippines (David 2013)
Constructing collectivity in diversity: Online political mobilization of a national LGBT political party (Soriano 2014)
Strengthening citizen agency and accountability through ICT: An extrapolation for Eastern Africa (Zanello & Maassen 2011)

These case readings will make more sense when you understand how theories influence the interpretation of research findings, and how paradigms/worldviews help shape the methods used in research.
You'll be reading these papers and processing them as a group, but feel free to browse through all four in your free time.

ISSUES & CONSIDERATIONS

What Makes Good Research, Good?

Reliability & Validity

MAKING SURE THAT WE ARE SURE

WALKTHROUGH Types of Reliability & Validity • Reliability & Validity in Qualitative & Quantitative Research

Current Issues| Reliability: Chance Findings • Validity: Things (Un)Accounted For

WRITESHOP Connecting Methods with Findings • Literature Outlines & Thesis Statements: Defining the Scope of Your Research

Morling C°s 3 & 5 (124–144)*
Determining Validity in Qualitative Inquiry (Creswell & Miller 2000, 125–129)
Spurious Correlations (Vigen) [DEMO link]
Why Rich Kids Are So Good at The Marshmallow Test (Calarco 2018) [The Atlantic]
Why Stanford Researchers Tried to Create a ‘Gaydar’ Machine (Murphy 2017) [NYTimes]
Criminal Machine Learning (Bergstrom & West 2017) [CASE link]

Writing Outlines & The Literature Review

Outlines: Galvan C°s 4 (43–46) & 9 (99–102)*
Guide to Writing Thesis Statements* [PDF Univ. of Washington]
How to Make an Outline [PDF Univ. of Washington]

Sampling & Generalizability

DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK

WALKTHROUGH Types of Sampling • Appropriateness of Sampling Methods

Current Issues| External Validity: Generalizing Across Times and Cultures

WRITESHOP Evaluating Researches for Reliability, Validity, & Sampling Quality: Are They Studying What They Meant To? Do Their Findings Apply To Us?

Morling C°s 7 & 14 (438–451)*
Most people are not WEIRD* (Henrich et al. 2010) [Nature]
Research Trends in the PJP (Clemente 2011) [Philippine Social Sciences Review]
On the Use of College Students in Social Science Research (Peterson 2001, 458–459)
Psychology is WEIRD (Brookshire 2013) [Slate]

WRITING

Research Quality: Galvan C°s 6 & 7*

Ethics & Scientific Integrity

DOING & BEING GOOD

WALKTHROUGH Defining Ethics: Participant Welfare & Scientific Integrity • The Belmont Report & Basic Ethical Principles • The PAP Code of Ethics & Research Practices

Current Issues | The Reproducibility Crisis & The Credibility Revolution • Participant Welfare: What Is Consent? • Scientific Rigor: Questionable Research Practices

WRITESHOP Academic Integrity & Avoiding Plagiarism • APA Stylistics, Grammar, & Mechanics

Ethical Issues in Psychological Research with Human Participants (Miller 2003, 124–144)*
Morling C°4 (89–105, 110–112)*
Cornell Emotion Contagion study [The Atlantic, The Guardian]
Robert Sternberg: Citations & Plagiarism [InsideHigherEd]
PAP Code of Ethics (Resolution No. 11, s. 2017: 25–31)

WRITING

Galvan C°12 (148–151)*
Peer Editing/Reviewing [Univ. of Washington]
Bullock C°s 49 & 50
Univ. of Washington Writing Guides [link]
(see also Galvan C°s 5, 10, &11 for tips on writing the actual paper)

Resources on the Replication Crisis

Morling C°14 (425–437)*
Repeat After Me* (Naro 2016) [The Nib]
The Replication Crisis [CrashCourse] (suggested)
Psychology experiments in top journals—are they true? [GAME 80000 Hours]
For more info on this topic, go to The Credibility Revolution

Psychological Research: Current Issues and Future Directions

INTEGRATIVE CASE STUDIES

Daryl Bem Proved ESP is Real (Engber 2017) [Slate]
Sliced & Diced (Brian Wansink, by Lee 2018) [BuzzFeed News]
The Lifespan of a Lie (Philip Zimbardo, by Blum 2018) [Medium]
The Mind of a Con Man (Diederik Stapel, by Bhattacharjee 2013) [NYTimes]
The War to Free Science (Elsevier, by Resnick & Belluz 2019) [Vox]
- Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science? (Buranyi 2017) [The Guardian]
- Science's Pirate Queen (Graber-Stiehl 2018) [The Verge]
When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy (Dominus 2017) [NYTimes]

Readings in this section will be assigned to groups for discussion—but you’re all encouraged to read all of them. They're opinion-editorial pieces which demonstrate how psychological research has been reevaluated by the general public in light of the replication crisis.

MAIN REFERENCES

Bullock, R., Goggin, M. D., & Weinberg, F. (2016). The Norton field guide to writing (with readings and handbook (4^th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, & mixed method approaches (4^th ed.). London: SAGE.

Galvan, J. L., & Galvan, M. C. (2017). Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences (7^th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Gravetter, F. J., & Forzano, L-A. B. (2012). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4^th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.

Morling, B. (2018). Research methods in psychology: Evaluating a world of information (3^rd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

Plano Clark, V. L., & Creswell, J. W. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide (2^nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Readings from these references are referred to in the outline using the surname of the first author, and the chapter (and inclusive pages) from that book.

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