Discovering the Scientist Within

Article: Benefits of Mixed Methods (or Why You Should Include Qualitative Methods in Your Research)

05. Qualitative Research, Research Methods / /

This article “The Benefits of a Bigger Toolbox: Mixed Methods in Psychological Research“from the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research was written by Debi Brannan Western Oregon University and advocates for integrating quantitative methods with qualitative methods. The article describes: What Are Mixed Methods? Benefits and Challenges of Mixed Methodology, Data Collection Strategies, and the […]

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Careers in Research Methods, UX, and Statistics

01. Why Statistics Are So Important, Research Methods, Statistics / /

Arizona State University has a fantastic site where the post videos and career information (e.g, estimated salaries and suggested coursework) for a range of potential psychology careers, including statistics. On the research methods and user experience career page, they explain “In the fields of applied research, you will utilize your knowledge of research methods to

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Jamovi Assignments that Teach Climate Change

*Statistical Software Packages, 08. Statistical Significance, Confidence Intervals, Effect Size, & Power, 09. Introduction to t-Tests: The Single Sample t-Test and t-Test for Dependent Means, 10. t test For Two Independent/Unrelated Samples, 14. Correlation, Poster Presentations, Statistics / , , , , /

Kimberly A. Barchard (LinkedIn), Matthew R. Helm, John D. Watt , Kaelyn Griffin, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas have created a series of Jamovi assignments. These 10 assignments include step-by-step instructions to take students from the basics of opening data files to the complexities of creating a professional conference poster (complete with literature review, method, results, graph, and

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Developing a Good Elevator Pitch

Communicating Psych Science, Paper Presentations, Writing for a Non-Psych Audience / , , /

Being able to communicate your study’s purpose quickly and effectively is important. Often we need to share our science with non-experts, so being able to capture others’ interest in an engaging way from the start, helps them see the value of our work. Elevator pitches are traditionally thought of in the context of a job

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Videos: What Is a p Value?

08. Statistical Significance, Confidence Intervals, Effect Size, & Power, Statistics / , , , /

Knowing what p values tell us can be tricky to teach. Here are several videos that help explain exactly what p-values are (and aren’t) able to tell us. Each video essentially covers the same content so which one you use can be a matter of personal preference.

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Write with Purpose: What Do You Want Your Paragraph To Do?

Communicating Psych Science, General Writing Tips, The APA Style Research Report / , , /

Students often have the greatest anxiety about writing the Introduction and Discussion sections of an APA style paper. Part of the problem is that they struggle with writing properly constructed paragraphs. This guide from the University of Newcastle not only describes several types of paragraphs, but outlines what the topic, supporting, and concluding sentences should

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Video: Misunderstanding Scientific Studies (with John Oliver)

01. Psychology as a Science: Thinking Like a Researcher, Communicating Psych Science, Research Methods, Writing for a Non-Psych Audience / , , , /

On this short (4:05) clip from Last Week Tonight, John Oliver outlines how to be a better consumer of scientific information (e.g., don’t give too much significance to individual studies) and how communication to the public can misinterpret findings altogether.

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Principles to Improve Instructional Videos’ Effectiveness

Communicating Psych Science, Research Methods, Statistics / , , , /

This is an article on The Effortful Educator from Blake Harvard (Twitter: @effortfuleduktr) that reviews “Five ways to increase the effectiveness of instructional video.” Going forward, because more of us will need to create videos for our courses, we should learn as much as we can about making those videos as effective as possible. In

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NOBA: Statistical Thinking

01. Why Statistics Are So Important, 05. Probability and the Distribution of Sample Means, Statistics / , , , /

A chapter by Beth Chance and Allan Rossman that introduces several key topics in statistics such as: distributions, p-values, confidence intervals, samples/populations, and drawing statistical conclusions . This chapter could serve as an introduction to the topic or as a refresher for students in a more advanced course. You can access the full chapter here.

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NOBA: Research Designs

02. The Research Process: Ideas to Innovations, 04. Psychologist’s Toolbox: Sampling, Measurement, Reliability, & Validity, 07. Correlational/Survey Research, Research Methods / , /

An article by Christie Napa Scollon that outlines the basics of research designs in psychology, including information about experimental vs. correlational design. This reading would be a good introduction to the topic, or a good review for students who previously took a methods course. You can access the full chapter here.

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NOBA: Conducting Research in the Real World

04. Psychologist’s Toolbox: Sampling, Measurement, Reliability, & Validity, Research Methods / , , , , , , /

An article by Matthias Mehl that advocates for taking our research out of the lab and exploring phenomena in the real world. The discussion touches on topics like internal/external validity, ecological validity, sampling, as well as several specific/specialized methods related to capturing daily information from participants. The chapter also includes information about conducting research online

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NOBA: Why Science?

01. Psychology as a Science: Thinking Like a Researcher, Research Methods / /

This article by Ed Diener provides a brief primer on the science of psychology. The article focuses on defining science, showing how it applies to psychology, discusses ethical considerations, and why science is so useful in psychology. In any psychology course, but especially research methods, this article would provide students with a really nice introduction

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Article: Teaching the Foundations of Psychological Science

Research Methods, Statistics / , /

This chapter from Regan Gurung (Twitter: @ReganARGurung) and Drew Christopher, discusses all aspects of teaching research methods and statistics in psychology from why students need the course, how to organize the course, highlight resources, and discuss challenges in teaching these important courses. Citation: Gurung R.A.R., Christopher A. (2020) Teaching the Foundations of Psychological Science. In:

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Video: How-To Create a #BetterPoster

Communicating Psych Science, Poster Presentations / , , /

An in-depth presentation from Mike Morrison (you can find him on Twitter @MikeMorrison) about the need for a #betterposter. If this doesn’t convince you that we need to revamp how we present scientific information at conferences, nothing will. Want to find templates for creating better posters? Click here. The next video is a deeper dive

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Student Guide to SPSS and APA Style Writing (v.12.0)

02. Frequency Distributions and Visual Displays of Data, 03. Measures of Central Tendency & Variability, 09. Introduction to t-Tests: The Single Sample t-Test and t-Test for Dependent Means, 10. t test For Two Independent/Unrelated Samples, 11. One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), 12. Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (RM-ANOVA), 13. Factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), 14. Correlation, 16. Chi-Square Tests, Communicating Psych Science, Statistics, The APA Style Research Report / , , , , , , , , , , /

This guide (created by Gary Lewandowski; Twitter: @LewandowskiPhD) is a free resource that can substitute for the APA Manual and SPSS guides. The Student Guide leads students through data analysis in SPSS with step-by-step instructions and screenshots for setting up the analyses and interpreting the output. For each analysis, students also see an example SPSS

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APA Style (7th Edition): Annotated Sample Papers (Professional & Student)

Communicating Psych Science, The APA Style Research Report / , , , , , , , , , /

One of the most helpful resources instructors can provide for students is a solid example. To facilitate learning APA Style, the APA has provided several sample papers for both professional and student formats. Here are two annotated examples: Professional Paper – Annotated Version (Sample Only Version) Student Paper – Annotated Version (Sample Only Version)

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APA Style (7th Edition): Avoiding Several Types of Plagiarism

*Open Science, 03. Ethics: Making Ethical Decisions in Research, Communicating Psych Science, The APA Style Research Report, The Writing Process / , , , , /

Students can always use additional information about plagiarism as a refresher. In this handout from the APA, they distinguish between word plagiarism and idea plagiarism, as well as discuss “patchwriting.” (which may be a new concept for students) You can find the handout here.

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