This study sought to determine if a woman’s appearance influences perceptions of her ability to perform a job. Undergraduates rated photographs of women as part of a 2 (Career: office assistant vs. CEO ) X 2 (Appearance: professional attire vs. sexual attire) design. Participants rated photos along several dimensions such as grade point average, organizational […]
Exemplar Study: Texting to Ostracize (Factorial Design) Read More »
This study sought to determine if a woman’s appearance influences perceptions of her ability to perform a job. Undergraduates rated photographs of women as part of a 2 (Career: office assistant vs. CEO ) X 2 (Appearance: professional attire vs. sexual attire) design. Participants rated photos along several dimensions such as grade point average, organizational
This research focused on the brain functioning of people in love. Participants who rated themselves as being intensely in love, viewed a photo of their beloved, did a distracter task, and then viewed a photo of a neutral acquaintance while researchers took functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI). Each participant repeated the procedure six times. When
Exemplar Study: Must Be Love on the Brain (Within-Subjects/Repeated-Measures Design) Read More »
This multigroup experiment examined the use of an obscenity on thepersuasiveness of a pro-attitudinal message and on perceptions of thecommunicator. Participants watched one of three versions of a video inwhich the speaker advocated lowering tuition at another university. In thefirst version, the speaker used the word “damn” at the beginning of themessage. In the second
Exemplar Study: Can Using Obscenities Make You More Persuasive? (Multigroup Design) Read More »
This article indicated that being excluded from social groups leads todecreases in prosocial behavior. Participants received either no feedback on apersonality measure or one of three types of false feedback that indicated afuture full of rewarding relationships, loneliness, or unfortunate accidents.Participants receiving the social exclusion feedback were unwilling tovolunteer for further lab experiments and, after
Exemplar Study: Social Exclusion and Prosocial Behavior (Multigroup Design) Read More »
To evaluate the effect that a helpful message from a server might have on restaurant tips, the server either wrote a message about an upcoming dinner special on the back of the dining check or left it blank. Dining parties who received a check with the helpful message tipped a higher percentage of the final
Exemplar Study: Tipping in Restaurants (Two-group Design/Simple Experiment) Read More »
This is a collection of books that can help with moving your research methods or statistics course online. Although they may not address methods and stats specifically, instructors can easily adapt the ideas in these books to their own courses. Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes by Flower Darby & James M.
Resources: Best Books for Teaching Online Read More »
A website dedicated to creating charts depicting ridiculous correlations (like the one in the picture–clearly we must stop putting Nicolas Cage in films!). You can also pick two variables of your own from a list including topics like: interesting causes of death, sunlight by state, marriage and divorce rates. A great way for students to
Link: Spurious Correlation Examples Read More »
This is a brief in-class practice activity (created by Raechel Soicher) to help students review different types of measurement for dependent variables as well as identify scales of measurement. Raechel recommends teaching about the different ways to measure a dependent variable before giving students the opportunity to review using this brief worksheet. She provides definitions
Practice: Measuring Dependent Variables: Types and Scales of Measurement Read More »
One of the challenges instructors face when discussing conceptual and operational definitions of variables is helping students to understand that the operational definition of a variable involves measuring the variable in a concrete, quantitative manner. The practice activity asks students to identify the relevant variables of interest and then suggest ways that these variables can
Practice: Having Fun with Operational Definitions Read More »
Instructors should assign this problem (about how many hours per week they played video games and their GPA) to students as in-class practice or homework after students have learned how to calculate a Pearson r correlation and test for significance. The activity leads students through determining the hypotheses, calculating the correlation coefficient, making a decision
Practice: Calculating the Pearson r Correlation (Video Games and GPA) Read More »
Instructors should assign this problem (about scores on a math and a spelling test) to students as in-class practice or homework after students have learned how to calculate a Pearson r correlation and test for significance. The activity leads students through determining the hypotheses, calculating the correlation coefficient, making a decision about the null hypotheses
Practice: Calculating the Pearson r Correlation (Math and Spelling Ability) Read More »
Instructors should assign this problem (about how height and running speed in the 40 yard dash) to students as in-class practice or homework after students have learned how to calculate a Pearson r correlation and test for significance. The activity leads students through determining the hypotheses, calculating the correlation coefficient, making a decision about the
Practice: Calculating the Pearson r Correlation (Height and Running Speed) Read More »
Instructors should assign this problem (about how temperature impacts mood) to students as in-class practice or homework after students have learned how to calculate a t-test for independent means and test for significance. The activity leads students through determining the type of statistical analysis to use, the hypotheses, calculating the t-ratio and effect size (if
Practice: Calculating the t-test for Independent Samples/Means (Temperature and Mood) Read More »
Instructors should assign this problem (about how taking research methods impacts GPA) to students as in-class practice or homework after students have learned how to calculate a t-test for independent means and test for significance. The activity leads students through determining the type of statistical analysis to use, the hypotheses, calculating the t-ratio and effect
Instructors should assign this problem (about drugs and learning) to students as in-class practice or homework after students have learned how to calculate a t-test for dependent means and test for significance. The activity leads students through determining the type of statistical analysis to use, the hypotheses, calculating the t-ratio and effect size (if appropriate),
Practice: Calculating the t-test for Paired-Samples/Dependent Means (Drugs and Learning) Read More »
This resource (created by Dr. Suzanne Wood and Vanessa Chan with support from an Instructional Resource Award) describes five writing assignments designed to help students build critical thinking skills related to reading empirical research. Each activity has an overview, guidelines for students, and a rubric for instructors. This is a fantastic activity for students taking
Assignment: Reading and Evaluating Research Read More »
Project Syllabus is a peer-reviewed list of syllabi provided by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. There are several examples, which will allow you to pick and choose the ideas that will work best for you. Please click here for a list of the syllabi.
Link: Project Syllabus (Statistics) Read More »
Project Syllabus is a peer-reviewed list of syllabi provided by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. There are several examples, which will allow you to pick and choose the ideas that will work best for you. Please click here for a list of the syllabi.
Link: Project Syllabus (Research Methods) Read More »
This lecture introduces students to several different ways of measuring behavior as the dependent variable. Several types of behavioral measures are shown, including: behavioral trace, behavioral observation, and behavioral choice. The goal of this lecture is to get students to see other types of measuring DVs, aside from self-report. This starts with a quick overview
Lecture Slides: Measuring Dependent Variables Read More »
