57.496.01, Fall, 1995
Research Methods: Social Science Psych.

Brian T. Yates, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
323 Asbury Building
The American University
Washington, DC 20016-8062

Voice: 202-885-1727 (& 24-hour voice mail), 301-942-8594 (home & fax: no papers!).

E-mail: BYates (Eaglenet), BrianYates@aol.com (Internet), BrianYates (America On Line)

Office Hours:
appointments: (arrange with me at lecture or call)
Asbury 323 (then first door on left).

Teaching Assistant:
John Chamberlain, Clinical Ph.D. student.
Office hours: 10:00 am - 11:00 am on Mondays and 11:30 am to 12:30 pm days in Asbury 213, and to-be-arranged.
Messages: 202-885-1710
e-mail: JC7704a@American.edu.

Lecture/Discussions:
Mondays and Thursdays, 11:20 am - 12:35 pm, Beeghly Hall 1.

Required Materials
Texts:
Goodwin, C. J. (1995). Research in psychology: Methods and design. New York: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-59385-0. (A good, thorough, basic introduction to research design, methods, and writing.)
Kazdin, A. E. (1992). Research design in clinical psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. ISBN 0-205-14587-6. (A more sophisticated and clinically oriented tome for the inspired scientist-practitioner.)
Recommended:
Yates, B. T. (1982). Doing the dissertation. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, Publisher. ISBN 0-398-04650-6.
InterNet Resources:
I hope that those of you cruising the Net will search, find, and relay useful sites for research ideas, methods, analysis tools, and dissemination. There are several peer-reviewed electronic journals in psychology, and I get some of them via InterNet. We'll experiment with exploring and using these. There also are some psychology student news groups you may wish to view or join.
Lecture Notes:
This is the first offering of this course, so lecture notes will be developed as the course proceeds. The recommended text covers some of the lecture material, too. (As indicated in the course schedule, below.)

Psychology Major Credit

If you are a Psychology major, this course counts as an elective. It is recommended for students considering a career in psychology, and is especially important for students anticipating graduate study in psychology or related social sciences.

Prerequisites

Interest in understanding, critiquing, and doing research is especially important. Experience always helps, too, but you'll be getting some in this course as well!

Course Purpose

I want to teach you the art of doing good, useful research. The concepts, strategies, methods, skills, and particulars that you acquire in this course should help you:
(a) understand the implications and limitations of research reported by others and yourself, and
(b) propose, plan, conduct, analyze data from, write-up, publish, and receive grant support for research in your chosen area of inquiry.
That's a tall order! The following schedule of lecture/discussions, readings, exams, and writing assignments that should let us approximate these two lofty goals.

Schedule

Date Day Reading Lecture Topic
7 Sep Th n/a Course structure.
Why & What: Purposes, Ethics, and the Introduction
11 Sep M Syllabus.
Goodwin: Ch. 12 (brief!), 1.
Kazdin: Preface, Ch. 1. 		Philosophy of research in psychology. Why do this stuff? Can you make money doing it? When not to do research....
14 Sep Th Goodwin: Ch. 3.
Kazdin: Ch. 4.
(Yates: Ch. 1.) 		Types and purposes of research. How to get ideas for research, and how to winnow them.
18 Sep M Goodwin: Ch. 2.
(Yates: Ch. 2.) 		Ethics of research with humans and animals. How to do research while respecting human and animal rights
21 Sep Th Goodwin: Ch. 5.
Kazdin: Ch. 14. 		Institutional Review Boards, Human Subjects Committees. Filling out the forms, surviving the review, adapting your research.
25 Sep M Goodwin: Ch. 6.
Kazdin: Ch. 6.
(Yates: Ch. 3.) 		Developing research ideas, asking questions, and multidimensional thought.
28 Sep Th Goodwin: Ch. 7.
Kazdin: Ch. 2, 3. 		Finding the answers that other researchers found to similar questions.
Lit. searchin': PsychLIT, Dissertation Abstracts., ALADIN, and more. Meet at 11:20 sharp at the Bender Library Reference Desk to do some on-site work! (Elizabeth Carroll x3849).
2 Oct M Goodwin: Ch. 8.
Kazdin: Ch. 5. 		Concretizing hypotheses and translating hypotheses into designs: The tools and the alternatives.
5 Oct Th Goodwin: Appendix A.
(Yates: Ch. 4). 		Writing up the Intro.
9 Oct M Goodwin: Ch. 9.
Kazdin: Ch. 11. 		More design options.
12 Oct Th writing... Introduction (and References) due. Presentation of your Intro. in class.
16 Oct M (review) Exam 1: Why & What
How: the Method
19 Oct Th Goodwin: Ch. 10.
Kazdin: Ch. 7. 		Power analysis and subjects.
23 Oct M Goodwin: Ch. 11.
Kazdin: Ch. 8.
(Yates: Ch. 5.) 		Method: Validities and reliabilities.
26 Oct Th Goodwin: Ch. 4.
(Yates: Ch. 6.) 		Instrumentation and measurement
30 Oct M Kazdin: Ch. 9.
(Yates: Ch. 7.) 		Planning your Method, writing it up.
2 Nov Th Kazdin: Ch. 10, 12. Grasping the tools for discerning the answers granted to your questions. Using SYSTAT for Windows (your $20 statistics software package, and SPSS for Windows). Meet in the Social Science Research Lab., Hurst Hall 2nd floor at 11:20 sharp.
Aha! the Results and Discussion
6 Nov M writing... Method due. Also present your Method in class.
9 Nov Th Goodwin, Appendix B.
(Yates: Appendix B.) 		A primer in statistical testing.
13 Nov M Kazdin: Ch. 13 Analyzing data and understanding them.
16 Nov Th Analyze data and draft a write-up of your findings.
(Yates: Ch. 8.) 		Writing up data analyses: Strategies that minimize stress while fulfilling your hypotheses.
20 Nov M Make tables and figures to understand and communicate your findings better. Creating and using tables and figures.
21 Nov Tu Ditto. Integrate into your Results section. Research Practicum I: Feedback on your Tables & Figures, help in creating them. (At A.U., Tuesday classes are suspended and Thursday classes meet instead.)
23 Nov Th (no class) Thanksgiving in the U.S.A.
27 Nov M More data analyses. More data analyses.
Dissemination
30 Nov Th Kazdin: Ch. 15. Writing the Discussion: Implications. Dissemination: Presentation, publication, fame.
4 Dec M (Yates: Ch. 9.) Discussion of data generated by Methods.
7 Dec Th writing... Results & Discussion due. Presentations.
11 Dec M review... The rest of the presentations.
18 Dec M review... Second Exam: Readings & lectures since the last exam. 11:20 a.m. to 1:50 p.m. in our classroom.

Examinations

Each exam has two parts: Short Essays and a Long Essay. Choose 5 out of the 10 Short Essay questions and 1 of the 2 Long Essay questions. Each Short Essay is 0 to 10 points, and the Long Essay is 0 to 50 points, for a total of 100 possible points on each exam. Exam questions are drawn from lectures, class discussions, and readings.

Writing

After we cover material relevant to each part of an APA research manuscript, you'll write up that section in APA style and submit it for grading and comments. This should be a completely new manuscript that you have not written previously in any form. I'll "cook" some findings for you, or you can use data that have been collected previously by yourself or others but which have not been written up.

The idea of this manuscript is to make the readings and lecture/discussions more directly relevant. Although you can use this assignment to develop a thesis or dissertation proposal, you may obtain similar education benefit from a simpler and shorter proposal.

Each written assignment will be scored 0 to 100. Outlines and scoring areas are detailed in the three attachments to this syllabus. In written assignments, grammar, spelling, neatness, and thorough use of APA style, all are important as is their content! Papers must be typed or printed via computer, and they must be turned in by class on the day they are due. Late manuscripts will lose 5 points each day they are late. Manuscripts received at least a lecture before they are due will receive 3 extra points.

Please retain a copy of each of your written assignments. Also, don't "slip" any papers "under the door." Some have never found their way to my hands!

Plagiarism

Unfortunately, a very few of my past graduate students have needed the following made explicit.

Your writing must be completely original, done for the first time, by you and only you. All material drawn from other sources, whether a direct quote or a paraphrasing (a "putting in your own words") must be placed within quotation marks or indented using APA format, and must be followed immediately by a reference citation. To do otherwise is plagiarism, which is a violation of the Academic Integrity Code of The American University. Also, your work in this course should not duplicate work done another course in which you are concurrently enrolled.

All suspected plagiarism, including paraphrasing without quotation marks and without reference citation, will be reported to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences with a recommendation for disciplinary action.

Grading

Your course grade score is the simple average of the 2 exams (each 0 to 100), the 3 written assignments (each 0 to 100), and a score passed on your class presentations and participation (0 to 100 total). Grades are A (92-100), A- (90 to 91.9), B+ (88 to 89.9), B (82 to 87.9), B- (80-81.9), C+ (78 to 79.9), C (72 to 77.9), C- (70 to 71.9), D (60 to 69.9), and F (below 60). When determining the final grade I'll consider class and course listserv participation, and improvement in exam and paper scores.

Make-Up Exams, Illness

Make-up examinations are permitted only if you are severely ill at the time of the examination. All illnesses must be certified by a health professional (ideally, a physician) in writing within one week of the missed exam. I reserve the right to contact the health professional personally, and to reject any certification. Missed exams not qualifying as "make-ups" will receive a zero score. Also, no "early" exams can be given.

Students who have been acknowledged to have a valid reason to take the make-up examination will take a different exam covering the same material that the missed exam would have covered. See me for details. The same short-essay/long essay format will be used as in my other exams. I really don't want to do any of these.

CAS|Psychology| Student Info.| Syllabi| Old Syllabi| 57.496.01

Created by: Dr. Brian Yates (byates@american.edu)
Psychology Web Page Information: cl1779a@american.edu
Psychology Department Information: psychology@american.edu
Last rev.: 1/25/96