Syllabus for Fall 2006
(Class time: MWF 11-12; Lab time: MW1-2:15)
Instructor: Dr. Scharff
Office: EDU 215f, Lab: EDU 117c, TEC Office inLibrary 208H
Hours: M 9 -10, T 10:30 -11:30, W 2:30 - 4:30, R 2 - 3 and byappointment
Phone: 468-1415, TEC 468-1831
Email: lscharff@sfasu.edu
TA: Kathy Yeager
Office: tba Hours: M 9-11, T 2-3, W 2:15-3:15,Or by appointment Email: yeagerkl@titan.sfasu.edu
***How do I checkmy grades?***
Instructions for forwardingyour titan email toanother email account.
Check out the Project Assignments
Tentative SemesterSchedule
Here are some links to onlinereferences regarding APA style writing / referencing that mightalso serve as good resources.
Fall 2005 Research Project: Effectsof homelessness, gender, and family status on prosocialbehavior (presented at SWPA2006)
Spring 2006 Research Project: Self-extensionto vehicles as a function of gas prices
Required Text: Experimental Methodology, 9th Edition ByLarry B. Christensen
Recommended Texts:
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5thEd.
*** Psychological Association. Pyrczak, F., & Bruce, R.(2005). Writing empirical research reports: A basic guide forstudents of the social and behavioral sciences (5th ed.). CA: PyrczakPublishing
Some class announcements and assignments will be sent to you viaemail. I will use your titan account that you are assigned throughSFASU. It will be your responsibility to check your email regularly.It is possible to forward your titan account email to another accountif you prefer (e.g. a hotmail account). I will also send Psychologynews updates; these are optional readings unless otherwise noted.
Course Description and Objectives: This course is designedto introduce you to the study of experimental and other researchmethods in psychology. It is part of the sequence of courses (PSY330, 341, and 497) that prepares our students to successfully enterand complete a graduate program. In this course we will cover thecomplete research process, and how to apply the process to a classresearch project and to an individual proposal that you will write inpreparation for the new capstone course, PSY 497.
I will expect you to come to class prepared by reviewing the textmaterial and completing any assignments due that day. In class wewill discuss the material, and you will be expected to participate inthe discussions and activities. As part of the course, you will usesome of the statistical techniques that you learned in theprerequisite Statistics course (PSY 330). I will assess your learningand understanding of the content material through exams andassignments / projects. Because the projects show your ability toapply the content material, they will be weighted more heavily inyour final course grade.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
Exams: There will be four exams and a cumulative final.They will consist of multiple choice and short answer questions. Forsome of the short answer questions you may need a calculator. (I willlet you know before the exam.) Questions on the exams will be drawnfrom the assigned chapters in the text, as well as from the contentgiven during class or from the assignments. Each exam will be worth60 points and the final will be worth 100 points.
The semester schedule (see the final page of the syllabus) showsthe highly probable topic and exam schedule. I will hand out blank(unlined) paper for the exams. If you prefer to write on lined paper,please bring blank sheets and show them to me prior to the start ofthe exam.
If you require special arrangements for taking exams, and you areregistered with Disability Services, please see me as soon aspossible to discuss this.
NO make-ups will be given except for a DOCUMENTED emergency. (Inother words, weddings, vacations, oversleeping etc. will not qualifyas a legitimate excuse.) In order to qualify for a make-up, you mustcontact me as soon as your emergency allows, and you must take themake-up within one week of returning to class. If you know ahead oftime that you have a university-related conflict, give medocumentation prior to missing the exam.
Assignments and Research Projects: Through the course ofthe semester you will complete three assignments / projects, each ofwhich will have multiple parts. All of them will be linked with thematerial we discuss in class, and the final project shouldincorporate all content we cover throughout the semester. For thisreason, the course content will be loaded toward the beginning of thesemester, and more class time will be available toward the end of thesemester for development and feedback of your projects. More detailswill be given in class when the assignment is handed out; however,here are brief descriptions of each:
The evaluation of your assignments / projects will be basedprimarily on how fully and effectively you complete the assignment.However, I will expect all writing to use the conventions of standardwritten English, which includes usage, punctuation, and mechanics(especially spelling). All assignments should be turned in typed,doubled spaced, using 12-pt. Times New Roman font. In your finalreports, I will expect you to incorporate feedback given to you by meor by your peers. Thus, when you turn in your final reports, alsoturn in all drafts with feedback on them.
Please make a copy of your papers before you turn them in, just incase one of them gets lost. Your final class project paper andproposal paper should also be turned in using an electronic form.Late papers will not be accepted without a documented excuse.
Cheating / Plagiarism:
Cheating will not be tolerated. If you are caught cheating youwill receive a grade of F (zero points) on that exam, assignment, orthe course, at my discretion. Your name and a report documenting theincident will also be given to the dean of your college.
Plagiarism is a form of cheating, punishable (at the discretion ofthe instructor) by failure in the course in which it occurs andpossibly (at the discretion of the Dean) by suspension or dismissalfrom the university.
Plagiarism can take a number of forms, including the re-use ofyour own or another class member's written work without appropriatemodifications and/or without the permission of your instructor.
Plagiarism most commonly occurs when material is taken from asource without proper citation. Whenever material is directly(word-for-word) quoted it must appear in quotation marks and beproperly cited either in the text or in a footnote. In such a case, acitation without quotation marks is not adequate because that impliesthe material quoted is your wording. It is even less acceptable tosimply put the source of the material in a bibliography at the end ofthe paper, with neither quotation marks nor references made in thetext or notes.
Indirect quotations -- that is, points taken from some source butrestated in your own words -- should not appear in quotation marks,but the source from which they came should be cited in the textfollowing the cited material.
If necessary, ask me for further clarification and / or refer toyour text or the APA manual. Remember that a course grade or evenyour undergraduate career could be jeopardized by ignorance in thismatter.
Attendance / Participation / Lateness / Professionalism:Class attendance and participation are vital to your learningexperience. Attendance will not be recorded everyday; however, therewill be 15 attendance points given at random throughout the semester.THESE ARE REQUIRED POINTS, not extra credit points. If you come butdo not participate (e.g. contribute to group activities), I reservethe right to take away your attendance point.
Finally, I expect you to be professional and courteous in yourbehavior. Although I realize that occasional tardiness cannot beavoided, late arrivals disrupt the lecture, which is not fair tothose students who do arrive on time. If you must arrive late orleave early for some reason, please let me know, and sit by the doorso as to minimize the interruption. Other examples of professionalbehavior include turning off your cell phone, not holding sideconversations, and when we are in the computer lab, not using thecomputers for personal tasks such as checking email. Thank you.
Extra Credit: The will be several opportunities for extracredit throughout the semester. Opportunities will include popquizzes, activities, short assignments. The maximum number of extracredit points allowed is 2% of the possible course points (departmentpolicy).
WebCT: All your grades will be posted on WebCT. To accessWebCT, you will use your mySFA ID and password. There are furtherinstructions on the class web page. You will also have all yourassignments returned to you in class after they have been graded.
Remember: If you have any questions over the coursematerial or the assignments, please come discuss them with me or withthe teaching assistant. (It helps to do this before the tests orassignments are due rather than after...) You may also email me atany time.
Grades: You will receive a grade based on the followingpoint system.
Exams (4 @ 60 points each) ------ 240
Final exam ------ 100
Assignment #1 ------ 50
Class Research Project
Research Paper #2
Attendance / Participation ------ 15
Total ------ 700
A Note about the Writing Assignments
Good writing skills are among the most important and fundamentalthat you should develop as a student of higher education (and priorto that). No matter what field you decide to explore, writtencommunication skills will allow other people to clearly understandyou, and they will often open doors that would remain closed if youdid not have such skills. For example, many companies routinelydiscard any resumes that contain even a single spelling mistake orgrammatical error.* That's it &endash; no chance for a secondimpression to overcome the first, negative one. Whether you want towork for someone else or be your own boss, to be successful in thisworld, you will generally need to make a favorable impression onothers: they will need to believe that you are competent andprofessional.
So, in this class writing assignments will be taken seriously ontwo levels. The most obvious will be that of content. Incomplete orsuperficial papers will not receive full credit. The second levelupon which your writing assignments will be graded will be for APAformat (when applicable), correct spelling and grammar. Allmisspellings will receive a 0.5 point deduction, even if they are acorrectly spelled word out of context (e.g. if you use the word"there" instead of "their"). In this age of spell checks oncomputers, there is no excuse for most misspellings (if you don'thave spell check, use a dictionary!). Proofreading is essential tofind misused words and grammatical problems. Major grammaticalproblems (e.g. run-on sentences, sentence fragments, subject-verbdisagreements) will receive a 0.5 point deduction, and minor ones(e.g. awkward sentences, transitions, paragraph structure), a 0.25point deduction.
I realize that this is not an English class. However, good writingskills are fundamental and transcend course topic. Therefore, takethe time to write and proofread your work. These papers cansignificantly help your course grade (especially if you are a poortest taker), or they can hurt it if you do not take them seriously.There are many free resources if you do not feel confident about yourwriting: make an appointment to have me review a paper draft, make anappointment to meet with the TA, go to the AARC in the library, orhave a friend give you feedback.
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* Here is a quote from an interview published in the WashingtonPost, June 2003. The person being interviewed is an assistantdirector of a company who is answering questions about hiringpractices at her company.
"You do have to be able to speak intelligently about what youknow. If you're well-spoken, and can explain it back to me -- I'llrespect that," she says. When Van Loon sees a typo on resume, sheknocks an applicant out of the running. Her reasoning: if a candidatecan't handle the details of his own job search, he probably can'tmeet the meticulous standards of the lab team. "You need very highattention to detail ... I need to know if something is going wrong,"she says.
| Date | Day | Activity / Chapter Reading | Due dates / Exams |
| August 28 | M | Intro / Syllabus / Ch 1 | |
| Lab | Ch 1 / Plagiarism | ||
| August 30 | W | Ch 4 | |
| Lab | Types of Sources / Assign Project 1 | ||
| September 1 | F | Ch 4 | |
| September 4 | M | | |
| September 6 | W | Ch 2 | |
| Lab | Gather non-exp data | ||
| September 8 | F | Ch 2 | |
| September 11 | M | Ch 2 | |
| Lab | Class discuss Project 1 | | |
| September 13 | W | | |
| Lab | Cont. discuss Project 1 / Handout Class Research Project | ||
| September15 | F | Ch 3 | |
| September 18 | M | Ch 5 | |
| Lab | Discuss project / IRB form | ||
| September 20 | W | Ch 6 | |
| Lab | Ch 14 / APA handout / reference citations | | |
| September 22 | F | Ch 6 | |
| September 25 | M | Ch 6 & prep data collection | |
| Lab | Collect data | ||
| September 27 | W | Ch 13 / start project results / analyses | |
| Lab | Cont. project results / analyses | ||
| September 29 | F | Cont. project results / analyses | |
| October 2 | M | Review for exam | |
| Lab | How to write results section | ||
| October 4 | W | | |
| Lab | Discuss paper questions | ||
| October 6 | F | Ch 7 | |
| October 9 | M | Ch 7 | |
| Lab | Feedback @ drafts / peer review | | |
| October 11 | W | Writing abstracts / paper feedback | |
| Lab | Content exercises | ||
| October 13 | F | Ch 8 | |
| October 16 | M | Ch 8 | |
| Lab | Assign Individual Proposal Project | ||
| October 18 | W | Ch 8 | |
| Lab | Content exercises / Exam Review | ||
| October 20 | F | | |
| October 23 | M | Ch 9 | |
| Lab | Discuss topic ideas | | |
| October 25 | W | Ch 9 | |
| Lab | Discuss topic ideas | ||
| October 27 | F | Ch 9 | |
| October 30 | M | Ch 10 | |
| Lab | Discuss projects | ||
| November 1 | W | Ch 10 | |
| Lab | Discuss proposals / bring draft | ||
| November 3 | F | Ch 10 | |
| November 6 | M | Ch 11 | |
| Lab | Discuss projects | ||
| November 8 | W | Ch 11 | |
| Lab | Discuss proposals | ||
| November 10 | F | Ch 11 / review | |
| November 13 | M | Exam 4 (Ch 9, 10, 11) | |
| Lab | Discuss projects | ||
| November 15 | W | Presentation Guidelines | |
| Lab | Peer-review | ||
| November 17 | F | More project feedback | |
| November 20 | M | | |
| Lab | Work on ppt in Computer Lab | ||
| | |||
| November 27 | M | Answer questions | |
| Lab | Individual Presentations | ||
| November 29 | W | Individual Presentations | |
| Lab | Individual Presentations | ||
| December 1 | F | Individual Presentations | |
| December 4 | M | Individual Presentations | |
| Lab | Individual Presentations | ||
| December 6 | W | Individual Presentations | |
| Lab | 497 poster session (time tba) | ||
| December 8 | F | Wrap up / Review | |
| December 13 | F | 10:30 - 12:30 | |