Psychology 3100-200

Fall 2017
Monday Wednesday Friday 12:20 PM to 1:10 PM
Lectures are in Brackett 214
Labs are in Martin E305
Psyc 3101-201 Wednesday 2:00 to 4:00 PM
Psyc 3101-202 Wednesday 4:00 to 6:00 PM

August 22, 2017

Instructor Robert L. Campbell
Office Brackett Hall 410A
Office Hours Tu Th 3 to 5 PM (and by appointment)
Phone (864) 656-4986
Email 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)
Email 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.


Class Schedule


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

Lab Schedule

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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