Introduction to Research Methods

Introduction to Research Methods

Overview

  • Module co-ordinator: to be announced
  • Course unit value: 15 credits
  • Assessment: one practical. Time allowed: 2.5 hours. The practical paper has three compulsory sections. Section A: Short answers to ten questions about experimental design and statistical analysis. Section B: Comments on the results and design of simple experiments. Section C: Theoretical and practical questions on experimental design and analysis

Description

Aims

  1. Provide students with an understanding of the rationale for, and methods of, psychological experimentation
  2. Give students a knowledge of how to analyse and interpret data from univariate studies
  3. Give students an understanding of the different sorts of behavioural measures (data) that may be collected in an experiment and of the relative merits of each sort of measure
  4. Allow students to appreciate the differences between simple univariant experimental designs
  5. Provide students with an ability to write-up an experiment clearly and concisely in accordance with the notes on writing laboratory reports.

Course content

Basic statistical and experimental design for psychological research. Execution and reporting of experiments; use of computers in psychological research, including on-line experimentation and statistical software packages.

Learning objectives

On successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

  1. Define basic statistical terms (e.g., mean, standard deviation, z-score)
  2. Define basic experimental terms (e.g., dependent variable, repeated measures design)
  3. Interpret and manipulate probabilities for simple combinations of events
  4. Summarise data using appropriate graphs and tables
  5. Use SPSS to perform and interpret the outcome of the following statistical tests and procedures: Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney/Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test, Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks test, Related test, Unrelated test
  6. Describe the circumstances under which each of the above statistical tests is appropriate.

Recommended reading

  • Howitt, D and Cramer, D (2005) Introduction to Research Methods in Psychology London, UK: Pearson/Prentice Hall
  • Howitt, D and Cramer, D (2005) Introduction to SPSS in Psychology London, UK: Pearson/Prentice Hall
  • Howitt, D and Cramer, D (2005) Introduction to Statistics in Psychology London, UK: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Source: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/modules/PSYC/PSYC032H4.html

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