Psychology 313: Laboratory in Social Psychology

Laboratory in Social Psychology
Psychology 313

Spring 2009 Syllabus

M & W, 3:00 - 4:50p; Room 2057 BSB

Instructor: Office Address: Office Phone: Office Hours: Email: Home Page:	Dr. Jim Larson 1046-C BSB 413-2642 M & W 5:00p-6:30p, and by Appointment jlarson@uic.edu http://www.uic.edu/~jlarson/
Teaching Assistants: Office Address: Office Hours: Email: Office Address: Office Hours: Email:	Mr. Jared Majerle 1049 BSB TBA, and by Appointment jmajer2@uic.edu Mr. Nick Aramovich TBA, and by Appointment naramo2@uic.edu

Overview

Welcome to Psychology 313, Laboratory in Social Psychology! Unlike most other courses in psychology, where the objective is to introduce you to what psychologists have learned about human behavior, the purpose of a lab course is to give you experience with how psychologists learn about human behavior. Thus, the assignments, projects, readings, mini-lectures, and discussion topics that are part of this course are all aimed at helping you develop a core set of research skills, and deepen your understanding of the research process ... as it applies to social psychology. In short, the goal is for you to learn how to become a researcher in social psychology!

As part of the course we are going to do three major research projects, including a final project that you can really call your own. As a result of completing these projects, and the course as a whole, you should become a more savvy consumer of research, which is to say, you should be better equipped to critically evaluate research results that are produced by others. Moreover, knowing how to do research will enable you to become a skilled producer of empirical knowledge yourself.

You will learn a lot of new skills in this course, including how to come up with a good research idea, how to turn that idea into a scientifically testable hypothesis, how to design a study to test your hypothesis, how to collect data, how to analyze that data using computer software, how to write a clear, succinct report of your research, and how to present your research. As a result, you will learn to think like a researcher – which means thinking critically and smartly. And I hope that you will have fun doing all of this! We will learn about the ins and outs of conducting research in a collegial, collaborative atmosphere very much like the atmosphere found in many research laboratories, including my own. This will prepare you well for a variety of experiences beyond Psychology 313, including graduate school, but also for many kinds of jobs in industry where you might be expected to work with data.

Because this is a lab course, there will be relatively few traditional lectures – very few class periods will be devoted simply to me presenting information in a lecture format. Instead, much of our class time together will be devoted to brief demonstrations, discussions, mini-lectures, planning and preparing projects, collecting data, organizing and entering data into computer files, analyzing data, and using computer software (e.g., Power Point) to create presentations of your project results. You will also be expected to describe your research results in several written lab reports (though much of this writing will be done outside of class). As you can see from the schedule given below, the last six weeks of the semester will be devoted almost entirely to your final project (designing it, running it, analyzing it, and writing it up). You will also have a number of readings to do from the two required texts, from several papers and chapters that will be posted to the course website, and from your own search of the literature (which will be needed when you design and write up your projects).

My hope is that by the end of the semester you will BE a social psychology researcher!

Prerequisites

All students must have taken Psychology 100 (Introduction to Psychology), Psychology 242 (Introduction to Research in Psychology), Psychology 343 (Statistics Methods in Behavioral Science), and Psychology 312 (Social Psychology). Concurrent enrollment is acceptable in Psychology 312, but not in the other three courses.

Attendance

To a greater extent than in other courses, this one requires you to be an active participant. Regular attendance is essential. In addition, because we will design, prepare for, run, and analyze studies and demonstrations in class, it is important that you show up for class on time, and that you contribute in a meaningful way to class activities. Further, in the case of joint projects (i.e., projects involving two or more students, or even the whole class), it is essential that you do your fair share of the work, and that you complete that work on time and in the expected manner. To a degree, we are all dependent on one another in this class, and the overall success of the class depends on everyone doing her or his share. Therefore, it is crucial that every student treat the course in a responsible, professional manner, and fulfill his or her obligation to others in the class.

Requirements and Assignments

Grades will be based on the quality of your research projects, and on the effort that you put into them.

A General Note about Research Participation: By enrolling in this course, you are agreeing to conduct your own research and to participate as needed in the research conducted by other members of the class, including research demonstrations conducted by the course instructor and TAs. Research participation, in other words, is part of the normal educational practices in this class, and not a part of formal research that will generate data that will be professionally presented or published, or otherwise generalized.

I.	Class Participation (13%). Because attendance and active participation are essential both for your own learning and for the success of the class as a whole, these will be evaluated and will make up 13% of your final course grade (out of 100 points, where 90-100 = A, 80-89 = B, and so on). It is easy to get an A on this part of the grading -- simply show up, participate actively, and do so on a consistent basis. If You Miss Class: For each of the first three unexcused absences you will lose 1 of the 13 percentage points given for class participation. For more than 3 unexcused absences, you will lose at least 10 percentage points, which is equal to one full letter grade for the course as a whole. Other Stuff: You will also lose participation points if you are observed surfing the internet, texting, or reading email during class, or if you engage in other blatantly non-course-related activity (see expectations under “Miscellaneous” below). Note that if this sort of behavior occurs repeatedly, you will be asked to leave the class.
II.	Research Project 1 (25%). During the first four weeks of the semester (marked in red in the schedule below) we will do a Campus Climate Survey project. Of all the things you might do research-wise in a future job, conducting some sort of survey is by far the most likely. This project will thus give you some practical experience with survey research. Our objective will be to assess UIC student attitudes toward the UIC campus, which includes, but is not necessarily limited to, the degree to which they feel a sense of belonging, acceptance, safety, and security (both physical and psychological) while on campus. We will work together as a class to develop an appropriate questionnaire, every student will be responsible for collecting a portion of the data, every student will have access to and independently analyze the data collected by the entire class, and every student will independently write a short research report describing the project and what was found (6 to 8 pages of text, not including title page, abstract, references, tables, figures, and/or appendices). By working through an entire project from beginning to end in a relatively short span of time, I hope you will gain an early appreciation for all of the many activities that are involved in carrying out a research project. A preliminary draft of the written report is due by Noon on Friday, February 6th (hard copy only will be accepted). That draft will be edited and handed back to you within one week, after which you will be asked to revise the paper, and turn in a final draft at the beginning of class on Monday, February 16th. The preliminary draft is worth 15% of the grade, and the final draft is worth 10%.
III.	Research Project 2 Worksheet (2%). You will read a journal article in preparation for the second research project. As part of this, you will complete a worksheet that will help you identify the most important features of the research described in that article.
IV.	Research Project 2 (25%). During next five weeks of the semester (Weeks 5-9, marked in green in the schedule below) we will conduct a study that extends in some interesting way the research described in a published article. We will work together to develop a theoretically interesting way to extend the published study, then collectively develop an appropriate set of materials for the study. Again, every student will be responsible for collecting a portion of the data, and every student will have access to the all of the data collected by the entire class. That way, students will be able to run all of the necessary statistical analysis themselves. Finally, every student will be expected to write a report describing the project, what was found, and what it means (8 to 10 pages of text, not including title page, abstract, references, tables, and/or appendices). A preliminary draft of the written report is due by Noon on Friday, March 13th (hard copy only will be accepted). That draft will be edited and handed back to you within one week, after which you will be asked to revise the paper, and turn in a final draft by Noon on Monday, March 30th. The preliminary draft is again worth 15% of the grade, and the final draft is worth 10%.
V.	Research Project 3 (35%). During the last six weeks of the semester (marked in blue in the schedule below) students will work in 2-person teams to conduct their own study. This project will be much more independent than the first two, but your professor and TA will still work hard to help you with it. For this project, you will propose, conduct, analyze and write up a study of your own design. You will choose the topic. You may choose to pursue (a) something you were curious about based on the first two projects, (b) an extension of some piece of published research that you know about, or (c) an interesting idea you thought up on your own. In all cases, however, your idea must be rooted in some existing social psychological theory, and it must be linked in some way to at least two published articles that you find on your own. You are free to use whatever research methodology seems most appropriate for answering the question or testing the hypothesis that you have. Thus, it can be a survey, an experiment, an observational study, or even an archival study (examples of the latter two will be described in class). Suggestion: Keep a “research ideas journal” starting on the first day of the class, and jot down all of the thoughts you have related to possible studies that you might like to do. If you do this, then by the time this project rolls around you will probably have several good ideas to pursue! Depending on to particular nature of your study, your research participants may be other p313 class members, the members of other classes (e.g., the Cognitive Lab), or perhaps other students from around the university (or beyond). The first participants you run should be other members of our class. It is usually necessary to run a few participants in order to work out the kinks and determine if your research procedures are working the way they should. These are called “pilot participants.” If all goes exactly as planned during this pilot testing phase, then you can keep these data for “real.” But often you will find that something about your procedure or materials needs "tweaking." If so, then you must toss out the data from those pilot participants, revise your procedure, and run it again. Also, note that if your classmates are aware of your research idea, they may still be run as pilot participants, but in this case you definitely should not keep them for "real" -- you have to toss them out. Each research team will write a brief (2-3 pages) project proposal, accompanied by a consent form. This is due no later than Wednesday, April 1st. Data collection may not begin before the proposal is approved by the professor or TA. The proposal will be graded, and so should be a well written, logically organized, and provide detailed description of exactly what you plan to do. The two members of each team should jointly develop and write their proposal, and both will earn the same proposal grade (worth 5% of the overall course grade). On the last day of class (Wednesday, April 29th) we will hold a class-long research fair, for which each team will prepare a poster describing its project and what was found. Your poster presentation will be graded. (You will also be asked to hand in a copy of your poster slides). The two members of each team should jointly develop their poster, and both will earn the same poster grade (worth 5% of your overall course grade). Note: Don’t fear the team grading on the Proposal and Poster -- your professor expects everyone to do well and there will be plenty of opportunity for you to demonstrate your own work as well as your ability to work effectively as a team member. It is actually quite easy for your professor and TAs to see the relative amounts of work done by each team member, so if your partner really is not pulling his or her weight on this project, we will notice and grade accordingly. In addition, each team member will independently write a report describing the study (worth 25% of your overall course grade). There are no page limits for this report, but the report must be complete, and it must follow APA style (which you will learn in the class). Furthermore, unlike the previous two projects, you will turn in just one draft of the written report for Project 3, not two. If you wish, you may ask your TAs or professor for comments on an early draft of your Project 3 report, but this is not required, If you do want comments you must ask for them before the last week of class. There simply is not enough time to read every paper during the last week of classes and still leave you time to make revisions based on the comments received. The report is due by Noon on Monday, December 10th (first day of exam week). Every student is expect to write his or her own report independently. CAUTION: DO NOT WORK ON THE PAPER WITH YOUR PARTNER! Your paper and your partner's paper will be graded one right after the other, so it will be very obvious if you have worked together, even on small parts of it. Of course, you and your partner will be writing about exactly the same study. Further, you will have already worked with your partner to develop your proposal and your poster presentation. However, do not get lulled into thinking that either of these constitutes a paper. The paper will look a LOT different. It must be very, very good, because it will be graded with higher standards than anything you have produced thus far. Further, it will count a lot more than any single thing you have turned in so far. Thus, there is a lot riding on this report. You will have learned a lot since you wrote that first project report. Therefore we will expect far more from you in this last paper -- primarily in terms of content, but also in terms of style. It is the culmination of all that you have learned in this class, and we expect you all to shine!

Summary of Grading

Percent of Course Grade	What Will be Graded
13%	Attendance, Participation, and Sincere Effort
15%	Project 1 Written Report: Preliminary Draft
10%	Project 1 Written Report: Final Draft
2%	Project 2 Reading Worksheet
15%	Project 2 Written Report: Preliminary Draft
10%	Project 2 Written Report: Final Draft
5%	Project 3 Proposal
5%	Project 3 Poster
25%	Project 3 Written Report

Note: Grading will be done on the standard 0-100 scale, with 90–100 = A, 80–89 = B, 70–79 = C, 60–69 = D, and below 60 = Failure. (Normal mathematical rounding rules apply: e.g., 89.4 = 89; 89.5 = 90.) Thus, you will always know exactly where you stand because there is no “curve.”

Reading Assignments

The reading assignments for this course will be drawn from a mix of substantive works and reference works. Their purpose is to help you complete your research projects successfully, which includes not only running those projects, but also writing them up to share with others. The readings are listed in the table below. Caution! Be careful not to get behind in the reading, and do not skip any of them. If you do, it will show in the rest of your work.

Two reference works are required for the course. These are listed below. These can be purchased from the UIC bookstore, or from your favorite online source. Also very important are (a) old social psychology textbook and (b) your old statistics textbook (see below). Finally, other items that you will be asked to read will be posted on the course's Blackboard website for you to download.

       Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Feeney, B. C. (2009). A simple guide to SPSS for Windows, Version 16.0. Belmont CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.

       American Psychological Association (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th Ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

       Your Old Social Psychology Textbook. I hope you didn't sell it to a book buyer! If you did, I strongly suggest that you check out a similar book from the UIC library (it doesn't have to be exactly the same), or borrow a copy from a friend. I will assign no specific reading from this, but it can be an invaluable resource for research ideas, including ideas about interesting variables to study and creative methodologies to employ.

       Your Old Statistics Textbook. Again, if you've sold this, I strongly recommend that you check out of the library a comparable text, or borrow one from a friend. Although we will rely on computer programs to perform the statistical analyses, those programs assume that you know what the various statistics are, when to use them, and how to interpret them. If you have forgotten any of this, you can brush up on what you need to know by referring to your textbook.

Week Number	Day & Date	Activities
1	M 1/12 W 1/14	-- Intro to course and review of syllabus -- Research methods review -- Brief in-class experiment -- Begin Design Work for Project 1 READING: 1. Haddock (2004). [Finish before class on 1/14] 2. Kirkpatrick & Feeney (2006). Chapters 1 to 8, 11, 13, 14, Appendices. A, B [These are very short chapters. Read completely by end of Week 2.]
2	W 1/21	-- Brief in-class experiment, continued -- Finalize Project 1 materials and prepare for data collection READINGS: 1. APA Publication Manual: Ch. 1
3	M 1/26 W 1/28	-- Review of descriptive & inferential statistics -- Introduction to EXCEL and SPSS -- Enter and analyze Project 1 data -- Introduction to APA Style READING: 1. APA Publication Manual: Ch. 2 2. APA Publication Manual: Ch. 3, plus proofreading marks on p. 337-338 [Just skim this material so that you know generally where to look for things when you have specific questions in the future.]
4	M 2/2 W 2/4	-- Finish Work on Project 1: Preliminary draft of written report due by noon on 2/6. -- Introduction to PowerPoint -- How to read a journal article: The four questions: 1. What is the central question? 2. How was it tested -- what was manipulated (IV) and what was measured (DV)? 3. Operationally, what was found -- what happened to the DV as a function of the IV? 4. What does #3 mean (or what did the author(s) say it means)? READING: 1. TBA. [Finish before class on 1/14. Think of related research ideas as you read.]
5	M 2/9 W 2/11	-- Worksheet for TBA reading is due at the start of class on 2/9 -- Discussion of the TBA reading -- Begin design work for Project 2 -- Receive back edited preliminary draft of Project 1 report READING: 1. APA Publication Manual: pp. 348-355, & Appendix C
6	M 2/16 W 2/18	-- Final draft of Project 1 report due at the beginning of class on 2/16. -- Mini-Lecture: Research ethics, the UIC IRB, and informed consent process and documents. -- Finish design work -- Prepare materials READING: 1. APA Publication Manual: Chs. 4 an 5 [Just skim these chapters so that you know generally where to look for things when you have specific questions in the future. Note the very useful sample paper on pp. 306-320.]
7	M 2/23 W 2/25	-- Data collection -- Data entry -- Begin data analysis -- Mini-Lecture: Observational Research
8	M 3/2 W 3/4	-- Finish analyses -- Begin write-up -- Mini-Lecture: Archival Research
9	M 3/9 W 3/11	-- Finish work on Project 2: Preliminary draft of written report due by noon on 3/13. -- Begin thinking of ideas for Project 3 -- Teams for Project 3 assigned
10	M 3/16 W 3/18	-- Begin work on Project 3 -- Project team members meet with each other, and with professor & TA, to pick a topic and begin planning their research. It is important that every student come to class with potential research ideas. -- Receive back edited preliminary draft of Project 2 report
	Spring Break
11	M 3/30 W 4/1	-- Final draft of Project 2 report due at the beginning of class on 3/30. -- Continue developing Project 3, -- Project proposal and draft informed consent form due by 4/1 -- Begin data collection (but only after project approval)
12	M 4/6 W 4/8	-- Continue data collection
13	M 4/13 W 4/15	-- Code, enter, and analyze data
14	M 4/20 W 4/22	-- Finish analyzing data -- Prepare project poster presentation and paper.
15	M 4/27 W 4/29	-- Finalize project posters and paper -- Research Poster Fair on 4/29 (hand in printed Power Point slides from poster)
Finals Week	M 5/4	-- Project 3 written report due by noon on Monday, 5/4.

Miscellaneous

1.   To be fair to all students, there will be no exceptions to any policies except as noted in this syllabus, so read this syllabus carefully.

2.    No late work will be accepted – not at all, not even for partial credit. The only exception that will be made is in the case of a documented personal emergency (e.g., serious personal illness or family death). If you do have such an emergency, please e-mail Professor Larson as soon as possible, preferably before the assignment in question is due. He will work with you to help you complete your assignment. Otherwise, no "incompletes" will be given, and late work (e.g., papers) will not be accepted. We will, however, accepted papers early.

3.   Students who miss a class are still responsible for all notes, announcements, and handouts for that class. If you miss a class, you should get the notes from another student. The professor reserves the right to give unannounced extra credit for in-class assignments, or to give unannounced quizzes. There are no make-ups for missing these opportunities, or for missing class demonstrations, projects, etc. that occur during class time.

4.   In fairness to the vast majority of students who take their college career seriously, no form of cheating will be tolerated. If you cheat on any assignment in this class you will fail the entire class, and judicial charges will be filed. Cheating includes, but is not limited to, any form of plagiarism -- which includes using the ideas of others and claiming them as your own, copying the words or ideas of a fellow student or of any other author and using them without attribution in your papers, and copying word-for-word even short passages from written work that you are using as a reference (even if you include a citation) -- handing in work that you have handed in for another class, handing in papers you’ve gotten from the internet or from other students, etc. Cheating also includes misrepresenting the amount or type of work you have done on a project, making up data instead of collecting it scientifically, etc.

5.   Asking questions during class is always welcomed! But talking to other students during a lecture disrupts the classroom, bothers other students, and distracts the professor. Other disruptive behaviors include coming to class late, leaving class early, eating or drinking in class (this is not allowed in our computer labs), using your cell phone in any way (turn it completely off), using the computers in a way that is not directly relevant to the course (including surfing the internet, checking your email, and looking at My Space listings, etc.). So, please be respectful, and understand that anyone who disrupts the classroom in these or other ways will be asked to leave and will be dropped from the course.

6.    If you have any problems or concerns at any point during the semester, Professor Larson and TAs Jared Majerle and Nick Aramovich are here to help you. Please come see one of us about a problem before it morphs into into a major disaster. Definitely do not wait until the end of the semester to bring up a problem that came up weeks earlier. We will work with you closely during class, and we will be available if you need to speak with us during office hours (or by appointment if you have another class during our office hours). We care about teaching, and we care about you. But, please remember that we have many other job obligations, so as much as we genuinely want to help every student, it is often impossible for us to accommodate students on very short notice (e.g., the day before a paper is due).

Students With Disabilities

Students with disabilities who require accommodation for access and participation in this course should contact the professor as soon as possible after the start of the semester. All such students must be registered with the Disability Resource Center (DRC). Please contact DRC at 312-413-2183 (voice) or 312-413-0123 (TTY).

LAS Course Drop Policy

Students may drop courses without penalty during the first ten days of the semester (through Friday of Week 2). From Week 3 through Week 6 students are entitled to a total of four "late drops" during their enrollment at UIC. To "late drop" a course, students must see an LAS advisor. The LAS Advising Office is located on the third floor of University Hall. Advisors may be seen by appointment (996-3366), or during advising walk-in days (Tuesdays, 8:30a to 11:30a and 1:00p to 3:00p).