Instructor | Robert L. Campbell |
Office | Brackett Hall 410A |
Office Hours | Tu Th 3 to 5 PM (and by appointment) |
Phone | (864) 656-4986 |
campber@clemson.edu | |
Web | http://www.robertlcampbell.com |
Teaching Assistant | Katie Lucaites |
Office | Brackett 316 |
Office Hours | Tu Th 12;30 to 1:30 PM (and by appointment) |
klucait@g.clemson.edu |
The purpose of this course is to give you a thorough grounding in the empirical research techniques that we use in psychology. For historical reasons, we call this course "experimental" psychology, but we don't restrict ourselves to true experiments. Survey research, naturalistic observation, and quasi-experiments will also be covered. We'll also give some attention to non-empirical issues; deeper theoretical question in psychology often cannot be evaluated on the basis of empirical data alone. You will get a good deal of practice in writing about your studies—good, clear scientific writing is the goal, not just conformity to the stylistic norms of psychology journals—and in critical thinking about the claims that researchers make.
This is a tough, labor-intensive course. I don't have an attendance policy, because I don't think adults need one. It does not follow that skipping classes is a good idea. There is no textbook. All course materials will be presented in lecture and on Canvas.
Regular attendance at class and lab and timely work on the written assignments are necessary for success in this course. You will be helping to conduct 3 laboratory studies and writing them up: you will be drafting the front sections of your final project (Introduction and Method); you will be preparing an application to submit to the Institutional Review Board; and you will producing a final report of the entire project. (In addition, if you can get us a draft of the Results and Discussion sections for comment a few days before you turn in your final paper, this is likely to be beneficial for you.) Written assignments that are late will have 5 points out of 100 deducted for each day past the due date. It's critical to stay on schedule when there is so much for you to do and for us to grade. If I haven't arrived—or Katie hasn't arrived—within 15 minutes of the scheduled time for a class or lab to begin, you are free to leave.
Instead of tests, there will be a daily quiz, consisting of 1 to 3 questions. (With three class days in most weeks, we will do "daily" quizzes two days out of three, on the average.) You may drop 6 daily quiz grades for any reason (including absences); the daily quiz average will be based on the remaining 21 or 22 quizzes. The volume rules out make-ups, and daily quizzes will not be returned to you; grades for the quizzes will be posted on Blackboard. The final project counts as our final exam.
Your grade will be determined on a contract basis. To receive a grade of A, B, C, or D in this class, you must turn in your IRB submission by the date specified in the schedule below. Each of the other assignments will then count toward your final grade as follows.
Average of 21 or 22 daily quizzes | 31% |
Study 1 writeup | 7% |
Study 2 writeup | 7% |
Study 3 writeup | 12% |
Final project introduction and references | 9% |
Final project method section | 9% |
Complete final project paper | 25% |
Learning objectives for this course:
Laptop policy:
Laptop computers are helpful in this course, and are necessary to do the data analysis in our labs.
If you bring a laptop to the lectures, please use it for class-related purposes, such as taking notes and access course materials. If I notice that you are playing Solitaire on it, viewing Snapchat or Instagram, or IMing, I may ask you not to bring it back to our next class.
We will be using the SPSS grad pack for statistical analysis. It runs on both Macs and Windows machines. The Psychology Department will provide licenses that are good through the end of August 2017; you will receive these during the first week of classes. If you have a different stat package already installed on your computer that you like, you are welcome to use it; however, our consulting ability is limited to SPSS, plus the other stat packages that one of has recently used (SAS-JMP and SOFA).
Cheating policy:
Cheating means providing or accepting information on a quiz (quizzes are meant to be your individual work). Or not being the sole author of your writeups (we encourage you to discuss the writeups and your final project with others, but the actual writing on your lab writeups—and the actual data collection, analysis, and writing on your final project—must be yours alone). If you decide to cheat, we will take action against you according to University policy.
Date | Topic | Items Due |
Wednesday August 23 | Science, Empirical and Theoretical | |
Friday August 25 | Science, Empirical and Theoretical | |
Monday August 28 | Science, Empirical and Theoretical | Tue. Aug. 29 is the Last day to add |
Wednesday August 30 | Hypothesis Testing | |
Friday September 1 | Hypothesis Testing | Tue. Sep. 5 is the Last Day to Drop without a W |
Wednesday September 6 | Hypothesis Testing | |
Friday September 8 | Hypothesis Testing | |
Monday September 11 | Getting Ideas for Research | |
Wednesday September 13 | Getting Ideas for Research | |
Friday September 15 | Ethics 1 [Human Subjects] | |
Monday September 18 | Ethics 1 [Human Subjects] | |
Wednesday September 20 | Ethics 1 [Human Subjects] | Introduction and Reference section for Final Project Due |
Friday September 22 | Ethics 1 [Human Subjects] | |
Monday September 25 | Ethics 1 [Human Subjects] | |
Wednesday September 27 | Ethics 2 [IRBs] | |
Friday September 29 | Ethics 2 [IRBs] | |
Monday October 2 | Ethics 2 [IRBs] | |
Wednesday October 4 | IRB Application Workshop 1 | |
Friday October 6 | IRB Application Workshop 2 | |
Monday October 9 | Ethics 3 [Reporting Data] | |
Wednesday October 11 | Ethics 3 [Reporting Data] | |
Friday October 13 | Ethics 3 [Reporting Data] | IRB Application due |
Monday-Tuesday October 16-17 | FALL BREAK | |
Wednesday October 18 | Ethics 3 [Reporting Data] | |
Friday October 20 | Psychological Measurement | Method section for Final Project due |
Monday October 23 | Psychological Measurement | |
Wednesday October 25 | Psychological Measurement | |
Friday October 27 | Psychological Measurement | |
Monday October 30 | Psychological Measurement | Tue. Oct. 31 is the Last day to withdraw without a final grade |
Wednesday November 1 | Psychological Measurement | |
Friday November 3 | NO CLASS | |
Monday November 6 | Psychological Measurement | |
Wednesday November 8 | Psychological Measurement | |
Friday November 10 | Psychological Measurement | |
Monday November 13 | Measurement and Operational Definitions | |
Wednesday November 15 | Measurement and Operational Definitions | |
Friday November 17 | Measurement and Operational Definitions | |
Monday November 20 | Sampling | |
Wednesday-Friday November 22-24 | THANKSGIVING | |
Monday November 27 | Sampling | |
Wednesday November 29 | Sampling | |
Friday December 1 | Confounds | |
Monday December 4 | Confounds | |
Wednesday December 6 | Single-IV Experiments: Between Groups | |
Friday December 8 | Single-IV Experiments: Between Groups | |
Tuesday December 12 4:30 PM |
FINAL PROJECT DUE |
You should bring your laptop to each lab. We put our data files together using Excel, which we also normally use to find means and standard deviations. For more advanced analysis, we are using the SPSS "grad pack," which runs on both Windows and Mac OS machines.
Date | Topic |
Wednesday August 23 | Literature Searches Taught by Peg Tyler |
Wednesday August 30 | Study 1 |
Wednesday September 6 | Study 2 |
Wednesday September 13 | Study 3 Study 1 report due |
Wednesday September 20 | Study 3 |
Wednesday September 27 | Study 3 Study 2 report due |
Wednesday October 4 | IRB Application Workshop 3 |
Wednesday October 11 | Study 3 |
Wednesday October 18 | Study 3 |
Wednesday October 25 | Final report workshop |
Wednesday November 1 | Final report workshop |
Wednesday November 8 | Final report workshop Study 3 report due |
Wednesday November 15 | Final report workshop |
Wednesday November 29 | Final report workshop |
Wednesday December 6 | Final report workshop |
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