Psy 302: Precept Assignments

The precepts and their respective readings and assignments are meant to familiarize you with the research methods used in social psychology, allowing you to gain a critical perspective on the positive and negative aspects to each methodology.  For the entire semester you will focus on one area or question on which your assignments will be based.  You have the opportunity to express a topic preference on your precept sign-up sheet.

All assignments are due the Friday before the designated precept, so that they can be reviewed and commented on by class time.  Place them in the Psy 302 folder in Amanda's mailbox, opposite the secretarial center, by 5pm.

Your final research project will involve collaborating with 2-3 other students to devise a field research study, collect data, and then write it up in APA format.  The paper will be due on Dean's Date.  More details later in the semester.

                          Week:  9/28  |  10/5  |  10/19  |  11/9  |  11/16  |  11/23  |  11/30  |  12/7  |  12/14

Week 9/28: Introduction to Experimentation

No reading/assignment for precept.  By 9/25, you will be assigned to a topic.  Skim through the pages in the Lord text that pertain to your topic and start thinking about what question(s) you will want to explore in your assignments.

Week 10/5: Ethical Issues

• Read the McKenna handbook, Chapters 1 & 3, as well as Appendix C.
• Formulate a psychological question(s) to investigate that pertains to your assigned topic.  Do not worry about creating a perfect question; just make sure it is a psychological question.
• Short paper (1-2 pages; due Fri., 10/2):  Propose your question(s) and how you might study it(them).  Consider what kinds of ethical issues may be involved with doing the research you propose and suggest what procedures you would use to deal with the issues.

Week 10/19: Questionnaire Studies

• Read the McKenna handbook, Chapter 4.
• Taking into consideration my comments on your proposed study/questions, establish and describe a clear psychological hypothesis that can be tested (preferably, but not necessarily, with college students).
• Design a one-page questionnaire that will help you examine your hypothesis; this questionnaire should not simply be a survey of opinions.  Be sure to make your items as clear as possible (e.g., define any ambiguous terms, provide clear labels for your response scales).  Pilot-testing the questionnaire on a roommate or friend could help you determine if your items make sense.
• Tell me the rationale behind your questionnaire, i.e. which question(s) correspond to which variables.  What results would you predict? Finally, what could you actually conclude from your results, if they were in line with your hypothesis?
• The write-up, just like your questionnaire, should not be more than one page. Two pages total due Fri., 10/9, by 5pm.
• Revised assignment is due Fri., 10/23, by 5pm.

 

Week 11/9: Observational and Participant Observational Studies

• Read the McKenna handbook, Chapters 2 & 12.
• Propose an observational study that would help you investigate your topic questions/hypotheses.  Please write-up a concise, but thorough description of how you would conduct this study: what exactly you would be observing/recording, where you would conduct this study, and what, if anything, you would do to make yourself inconspicuous while making your observations.
• Construct a one page "data sheet", which is roughly the form that you would use during your observations.
• In your write-up, also explain what specific findings you would expect and what you could conclude from such findings.  What are possible alternative explanations for your results?  Mention any other shortcomings you see in your study (Remember: no one study is going to answer all your questions perfectly; it can answer some questions, but then lead to some new questions that another study can address).
• The total write-up should not be more than two pages.  So, two to three pages (write-up and data sheet) are due Fri., 11/13, at 5pm.

Week 11/16: Archival Research

• Read the McKenna handbook, Chapter 11.

Week 11/23: Field Experiments

Read the McKenna handbook, Chapters 9 & 10.

Get together in groups of 3 or 4 (preferably from your precept), and come up with a hypothesis that you think would be interesting and feasible to test in a field experiment. It might be helpful to look at the topic that you have been assigned to, but don't feel limited by that. Make sure this is a study you could actually conduct (i.e., not too complicated). Your final project is going to be based on this study, which means you are going to spend a lot of time on it : try to make it something that you really find interesting. Next week in precept, you should hand in a two-page write-up (one per group) describing clearly what your hypothesis is, and how you plan to test it in a field experiment. Be concrete and specific in your methods.

Some tips: It's not necessarily a bad idea to look into the textbook, the McKenna, or to remember anything you heard in lecture, to come up with your hypothesis. It doesn't mean taking one that's already tested as is, but you could take one that you like and give it a new twist. Psychlit can also help. Of course , you can also come up with one that's unrelated to anything you've heard about so far. As for agreeing on a study for the group, you might want to get together from the start, or (probably better) to each come up with something individually, and then meet to decide which to keep. That's really up to you.

Week 11/30: Field Experiments and the Lab

• Read the McKenna handbook, Chapters 8 & 13.
• Then discuss with your group an alternative interpretation for the results that you anticipate in your field experiment, and design a laboratory experiment which would address this issue. In other words, design a laboratory experiment that would rule out another possible cause for your effect than the one you hypothesize. Write up a one or two-page proposal, one by group, and hand it in in lecture. Make sure you are specific in your design and operationalizations. You could show which patterns you expect, much like the 2x2 tables I've been drawing on the board in precept this week.

  You should hand in one paper per group, due on Monday, 12/7, in Lecture. This will be graded, and all members of the group will get the same grade. However, since this a group project, I expect the quality of papers to be pretty good. I thus recommend that you make sure you contribute to the group, because I will give low grades if there are problems with the lab study design, or if you're not in effect ruling out a valid alternative hypothesis. Also, I expect this paper to be on time.

Week 12/7: Lab Research

• Read the McKenna handbook, Chapters 5 & 6.

Week 12/14: From Research to Writing

• Read the McKenna handbook, Chapter 7 & Appendix A.