University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychology PSY 0035: Research Methods Lab Fall 2015

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1 Day/Time: Weds 6:00pm 9:20pm Location: 305 Old Engineering Hall Website: Department of Psychology PSY 0035: Research Methods Lab Fall 2015 Instructor: Alba Tuninetti Office: 651 Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) Office Hours: Wednesdays, 3-5 pm and by appointment Course Objectives The laboratory component of the Research Methods course is intended to complement the material learned in the lecture, and provide students with an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in conducting scientific research in psychology. Laboratory exercises will include designing research projects, conducting literature searches, collecting and analyzing data, writing up the results of studies, and substantially revising written reports. Overall, the lab sections are an opportunity for students to begin to understand the process of conducting research while working in an active, collaborative environment. Research Methods is a (W) course at the. This means that coursework associated with this class is writing intensive. In addition to learning about conducting psychological research, you will also learn how to write about psychological research using APA guidelines and develop an effective, professional writing style. Thus, you will be expected to undertake the following activities related to improvement of writing skills: 1) You will turn in rough drafts of your papers to your lab instructor prior to paper due dates. Your instructor will provide suggestions, which you will be expected to implement prior to turning in your paper. 2) You will complete a substantial revision of one of your papers after they have been graded initially. The revision should be more extensive than just correcting the editorial errors identified by your lab instructor, and this requirement is reflected in the paper grading process (see below for more detail). 3) You will participate in additional writing-related activities during class time. It will be very important for you to take advantage of these and other writing-related resources, which may be offered to you over the course of the semester, as your instructor will be grading your papers and other assignments on the assumption that you have done so (i.e., there will be no grade inflation in labs). Grading Your lab grade will be calculated by dividing the number of points you earned by the total number of possible points. Your grade for the lab will constitute 40% of your overall grade for Research Methods. However, you must pass both the lab and lecture components in order to pass the course. The lab grade is determined by your in-class attendance, and by your performance on 8 Assignments. Please refer to the table below for the point-value of each Assignment.

2 2 Activity Description of Activity Possible points Participation Attendance & Participation 100 Assignment 1 Ethics 10 Assignment 2 Statistics assignment 20 Assignment 3 Draft Paper 1: Method & Results 20 Library survey Survey on Library tutorial 5 (Bonus points) Assignment 4 Draft Paper 1: Introduction 20 Assignment 5 Draft Paper 1: Discussion, Abstract, References 30 Assignment 6 Full Paper 1 (with substantial revisions incorporated) 80 Assignment 7 PowerPoint presentation in class (on paper 2) 20 Assignment 8 Full Paper Total: 400 Participation Participation (and attendance) is mandatory. A sign-in sheet will be circulated during the beginning of each class to record who is in attendance. If you are more than 10 minutes late, you will receive only 50% of your participation points. In order to earn full participation points, you must attend the entire lab session, complete assigned exercises (in class and at home), actively contribute to group projects, and maintain focus on laboratory activities during class. If you are sleeping or otherwise not engaged in the class, instructors have full discretion to assign 0 participation points for the day. If you must miss a lab, you will not be able to earn participation points for that day. There are no make-ups for participation points, you are not permitted to make up missed labs by attending other sections. You can, however, miss two classes without any penalty. You MUST let the instructor know that you are using your free missed classes beforehand. Important: The free missed class does not apply to assignment due dates. You still have to turn in your assignments on time even if you miss a class. A penalty will be applied to late assignments (even on no penalty missed classes). If you miss a lab meeting for any reason, Assignments and course materials can be found on CourseWeb on the Friday following the week s lab (e.g. if you miss class, Friday afternoon you should be able to access all the material for the week). It is your responsibility to find out what information you may have missed. Papers You will be required to complete two papers throughout this semester. Paper 1 will be broken into the major sections of an APA style paper and you will receive feedback on each section, which you will then incorporate back into your draft in preparation to turn in a fully revised and polished paper (Assignment 6). Paper revisions are expected to be substantially improved from their original documents. Thus, they are worth as much as the original paper and will be graded separately from the original paper. The second paper (Paper 2) will not be graded in sections. At this point in the class, it is expected that you will be able to work independently on your paper without extensive feedback on each section. You may turn in drafts a week in advance for comments from your instructor and you will also perform and receive peer review on Paper 2 prior to the due date.

3 3 Papers must conform to APA style, as outlined in the APA Publication Manual, 6 th Edition. The APA Publication Manual, 6 th Edition, is a required text and will be used extensively in the labs. If you have any questions regarding APA style, please ask them before you submit your assignment! Lab Partners Assignments 1-6 are to be worked on independently. However, since research is a collaborative process, you are strongly encouraged to work with a partner on the second research paper and the accompanying PowerPoint presentation (Assignments 7 and 8). If you choose to work with a partner, you must adhere to the following conditions: Both partners should sign the paper to indicate equal contribution to the work, and partners should also indicate which sections they were responsible for. If you choose to work with a partner on the second paper, you must make that decision prior to beginning work on the paper, and stick with the same partner until the paper is turned in. You will not be allowed to change partners after work has commenced. You may not work with your classmates on the other assignments. Working with your classmates on any other assignments will be treated as plagiarism. Late Assignments Assignments are considered late if not turned in by the beginning of class on the due date. Late assignments will be deducted 10% per day late, including weekends. If you are unable to turn in your assignment on time, please inform me BEFORE your submission is late. You may submit your assignment late by attaching it to an to me and CCed to yourself. Please note that you are responsible for ensuring that the and attachment are sent to me excuses regarding malfunction will not be accepted (hence you have to cc yourself). You are still required to submit Assignments on time if you missed the lab session in which it was assigned (even if you use your free pass for that lab session). Communication Please feel free to me at alt63@pitt.edu. I will try reply to students within 24 hours, Monday through Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. If you do not receive a reply in 2 weekdays, send the message again, as messages do get lost in cyberspace or are re-routed to the spam-message mailbox. is great for specific questions that do not require long, complicated explanations. If you have a more involved/complicated question or one that requires a more lengthy explanation, please see me during office hours or by appointment. The Research Methods website on Courseweb ( is another important avenue for communication in your lab section. I will post announcements on Courseweb and under the Course Documents menu you will find lab Assignments as well as materials posted for the lecture section. If you encounter any problems using Courseweb, contact the CIS Help Desk (624-HELP), Professor Rottman, or me. Disabilities If you have a disability that requires testing accommodations or other classroom modifications, please notify the instructor and the Disability Resources and Services office no later than the second week of the term. You will be asked to provide documentation of the disability to determine the appropriateness of accommodations. Call (voice) or (TTY) to schedule an appointment. The office is located in 140 William Pitt Union.

4 4 Other Lab Policies We will be using the APA Publication Manual often in lab, so please bring it with you. You may use the computers in the lab during class. Outside of lab hours, please do not ask other lab instructors to let you use the lab and use other campus computer labs instead. You may not use the lab computers to print for personal use! Do not plan to print your homework or papers from lab! Leave settings on the computers as they are! Do not change the screensaver, wallpaper, etc., and do not download any programs onto the machines. Visiting social networking websites/ websites not related to the research methods class is NOT allowed during lab hours. This applies to accessing such websites on the lab computers, as well as your personal devices including laptops, cell phones, ipods etc. Similarly, texting and making calls during lab time is not permitted. If I you engaging in the above activities, I may request you to leave the lab, and you will lose your attendance points for the day. You may eat and drink in the front area of the class, but not near the computer terminals. Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated and will be dealt with according to university policy. Pitt s academic integrity policy can be found at *** Plagiarism is the improper use, or failure to attribute, another person s writing or ideas. It can be as subtle as the inadvertent neglect to include quotes or references when citing another source or as blatant as knowingly copying an entire paper verbatim and claiming it as your own work. All of the following are considered plagiarism: Turning someone else s work in as your own Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not! Turnitin is a new technology called document source analysis, which uses a set of powerful algorithms to make a digital fingerprint of any text document and then compare it to millions of other sources on the Internet and from previous courses at Pitt. All lab assignments and lab reports will be submitted electronically and reviewed by Turnitin. Your lab instructor will give you specific instructions on how to do this later in the term. Additionally, your lab instructor will also be carefully checking the content of your lab reports against the work of your classmates and the articles you cite. If it is determined that any part of your lab summary and/or lab report was plagiarized, you will receive a zero for the assignment, and the incident will be reported to the student disciplinary board. To be safe, just do your own work, write your own papers, and give proper credit where it is due. Also avoid excessive quoting of the work of others in your papers this is also considered to be a form of plagiarism! See above and APA Manual Sections 1.10 and 6.01 for more information about this.

5 5 Tentative Schedule of Lab Topics and Assignments Week Date Objectives Assignments 1 Sep 2 No class 2 Sep 9 -Introduction & Syllabus -Experiments 1: Hypotheses, IVs and DVs, Operationalization, Research Ethics (ICE 1 Hypotheses) - Experiments 2: Data - Collect data (Stroop Effect) - How to write a paper 1: Parts of a research paper 3 Sep 16 -How to write a paper 2: APA style (ICE 2 APA) - Create Title page for paper - Statistics Review 1 (ICE 3 Stats Review) 4 Sep 23 - Statistics Review 2: using SPSS & Graphs in Excel -Library tutorial on literature searching -Two key papers on Stroop Effect provided, independently search literature for 3 more papers (ICE 4 Lit Review) 5 Sep 30 -How to write a paper 3: Creating an annotated bibliography, Methods section overview (Continue ICE 4) Hand out Assignment 1 This week, talk about data and generate some data. Assignment 1 due Hand out Assignment 6 (Paper 1) Hand out Assignment 2 (Stats) Assignment 2 due (Stats) Hand out Assignment 3 -How to write a paper 4: Making an outline, writing the introduction (ICE 5 Good and Bad Intro) 6 Oct 8 -How to write a paper 5: Writing a Discussion Section -Examples of good Discussion section (ICE 6 Discussion) -How to write a paper 6: Elements of an effective Abstract (ICE 7 & 8 Abstracts) -Reference section handout -ICE Scientific writing 7 Oct 14 - Data collection (Active Touch) - Factorial Design 8 Oct 21 - Factorial Design Statistics (SPSS, ANOVA) (ICE 9 ANOVA) 9 Oct 28 -Develop research idea for paper 2 (ICE 10 - study options) Assignment 3 due (Method & Results) Hand out Assignment 4 Assignment 4 due (Intro) Hand out Assignment 5 Assignment 5 due (Discussion/Abstract) Remind about Assignment 6 Design Study 2 this week - Choose study 2 topic (ICE 11) - Design study 2, conceptualize, make data collection plan

6 6 Week Date Objectives Assignments 10 Nov 4 - Determine pilot data collection procedure, make groups, Assignment 6 due (Entire Paper 1) collect or discuss pilot data Start data collection for Paper 2 -Finalize study 2 design: Hypotheses, materials, measures - Begin Data collection -Discuss Assignment 8 and Peer Review process 11 Nov 11 - Lit search/review for study 2 (ICE 12: Lit review 2) Write a draft of your methods section -Continue data collection, analyze data and discuss results - If possible, start data analysis in class 12 Nov 18 - Data analysis (ICE for our data) Write a draft of your results and introduction sections - Paper 2: Peer review of Method draft - How to design an effective PowerPoint presentation 13 Nov 25 - Thanksgiving break (no class) Write a draft of your discussion 14 Dec 2 - Paper 2: Discussion peer review - In-class presentations Assignment 7 (presentation) due 15 Dec 9 - In-class presentations - Final thoughts, discussions Assignment 8 (paper) due 12/10 in hard copy and to Turnitin.com You can find important dates (fall break, add/drop, etc) here!

7 7 Frequently Asked Questions: What if class is cancelled? I will post this information under Announcements in Courseweb and send out an . Do I need to make an appointment for office hours? Where are they? No, please feel free to stop in. Remember that immediately before and after an assignment, office hours can be pretty busy so you may want to come close to the beginning of office hours. I will generally hold office hours in my office or Panera Bread. If I am in Panera, I will post a note on my door. Oh shoot, I made an appointment and now I can t make it. What to do? Please as soon as you know you won t be able to make it. I am failing the class. Is it too late to talk to you? It is never too late! It is better to talk to me once you first sense you are having difficulty, but I am happy to help you at any point. Please don t wait until after final grades are posted to talk to me. I am charming/student athlete/celebrity look-alike. Can I get a few points to boost my grade? Nope, sorry. I am committed to your success; however, I will not change grades. Grades are earned, not given. It is my priority to teach you and for you to learn and part of the learning process is knowing when you need help and figuring out how to adjust your strategies to meet the challenge. I think I might have a learning disability. Who can I talk to? We have a wonderful center on campus called the Disability Resource Center ( They can help you get the FREE services you need. Please keep me informed-you are entitled to testing accommodations, and I want to be sure you get any resources you want/need. There is no need to struggle in silence. I have been feeling down in the dumps. Is there anyone I can speak to? Absolutely. Everyone has periods when they are down or feeling super anxious. You are entitled to FREE counseling services through the counseling center at Pitt ( Please contact them for additional information. Again, there s no need to struggle in silence. I will be happy to contact them for you if you ask me to. I have a million questions can I ask them even if I am afraid they are silly? YES. Please! It would be silly to not to. NOTE: I will make every attempt to maintain the schedule indicated in this syllabus; however, I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE CHANGES TO THIS SYLLABUS if it is necessary in order to ensure that the course s learning objectives will be met. If I absolutely must make a change, I will notify you at least one week in advance, via , in class, and on Courseweb. You will be responsible for any changes.

8 8 Name: Phone: Name: Phone: Write down the name and contact information of at least 2 other classmates. How to write a professional FYI: Below is an example of what your s should look like to all of your professors/potential employers, etc. Written communication is incredibly important for displaying yourself in a good light, and I want to help you do this well. It s one of the most important things you can ever learn. Dear Alba (or Professor Tuninetti), I am writing to ask if you and I could meet to go over Assignment 2. I am worried that I am not doing well in class and want your feedback. I am not available to meet during your office hours; however, I am free on Tuesday from 9:00-11 am and Thursday from 1 pm-3 pm. If these times do not work for you, can you please let me know your availability for Friday? Thank you, Your first and last name