PSYC 404: Advanced Experimental Design and Analysis

Specific Course Objectives:

• Define Science (scientific method).
• Define the four goals of science (describe, predict, explain and modify) and recognize what kinds of research can address each.
• Differentiate basic research from applied research.
• Differentiate hypotheses from theories, and indicate how they are used in the research process.
• Describe the basic ethical issues that guide research, including assessing risk, informed consent, use of deception, IRB's, confidentiality, anonymity, assigning of extra credit or other incentives, debriefing, plagiarism.
• Differentiate conceptual definitions from operational definitions.
• Differentiate descriptive (non-experimental) from experimental research designs and what may be concluded from each.
• Describe the basic methodologies, including advantages and disadvantages of non-experimental designs including case studies, naturalistic observations, surveys, correlational designs.
• Differentiate populations & samples and describe how they relate to the issues of representativity and generalization.
• Describe how to do various types of sampling (probability sampling, random selection, vs. convenience or opportunity sampling).
• Define and explain issues in questionnaire construction (e.g., wording, open- vs. closed-ended questions, rating scales, bias).
• Differentiate independent and dependent variables.
• Describe random assignment (purpose and techniques).
• Describe experimental groups, control groups & placebo control groups.
• Describe the various experimental designs: Between-subjects designs (e.g., independent groups design, matched groups design).
• Describe within-subjects (repeated measures) designs (include order effects, carryover effects, counterbalancing).
• Explain factorial designs (also factors, levels, main effects, interactions).
• Describe manipulation checks and pilot tests and their purpose.
• Describe floor and ceiling effects.
• Describe nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales of measurement and how they can be used.
• Differentiate quantitative vs. qualitative observations.
• Describe, define, and differentiate different types of reliability (including inter-rater, test-retest, and inter-item reliability) and validity (face, content, predictive, and construct) of research.
• Distinguish internal validity from external validity.
• Describe extraneous variables & confounding and indicate how to control each.
• Describe how physical variables are controlled through elimination, constancy, balancing.
• Describe subject variables: Individual differences (e.g., personality, response set) and how these variables might be controlled.
• Explain different kinds of social variables: e.g., demand characteristics & experimenter bias-use double-blind procedures.
• Describe quasi-experimental designs (ex post facto) & pretest-posttest designs (ABA design).
• Demonstrate an understanding of basic statistics: descriptive (mean, median, mode, variability) vs. inferential, variability, null hypothesis, significance (alpha) level, Type I & II error, one-tailed and two-tailed tests, ANOVA, Pearson r correlation coefficients, graphing.
• Indicate the importance of replication.
• Demonstrate an understanding of APA format & the various parts of a manuscript.