SYLLABUS
This syllabus can be found online in the Howdy schedule of classes.  You can also lick here for a printer friendly version of it as well.

REQUIRED TEXT

White, T. L., & McBurney, D. H. (2013). Research methods (9th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage.

➔ NOTE.  The 8th, 7th, and 6th editions will also be acceptable; just make sure you are referencing the correct chapters and corresponding sections.  And the author list for these previous editions is "McBurney, D. H., & White, T. L."

RECOMMENDED TEXT

Arthur, W. Jr. (2020). PSYC 302 Research Methods in Psychology lecture notes. [These lecture notes can be obtained at: http://people.tamu.edu/~w-arthur/302/

APA. (2009). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington DC: APA.  https://apastyle.apa.org/products/4200067

PREREQUISITES
Majors only; PSYC 107 and PSYC 301

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Research techniques in psychology.  Laboratory exercises applied to specified research-related problems in psychology.

UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING SCHOLARS
Each course has an Undergraduate Teaching Scholar who, amongst others, will be serving as a teaching assistant for the course. They are:

Leslie Garcia (lesliebritney@tamu.edu) => PSYC 302 906-910
Bailey Clark (bailey.clark20@tamu.edu) => PSYC 302 912-915

WITHDRAWAL FROM THE COURSE
Policy governing withdrawal from the course is in accordance with current University regulations (see Student Rule 17 for details http:/student-rules.tamu.edu/rule17). 

LEARNING OUTCOMES
The objectives of this course are to provide you with an introduction to the scientific research process, the research designs and methods commonly used in psychological research, and an understanding of how to communicate in the writing style of the discipline.  At the end of this course, successful students will be able to:

• Demonstrate a basic understanding of the methods, techniques, and procedures essential to good research design.  In short, by the end of the term, you should have a reasonable working knowledge of basic research methods and design concepts and principles.
  
• Demonstrate research skills developed through a combination of lecture and "hands-on" experiences in the lab.
  
• Understand and apply each step in the research process including the literature search, generating hypotheses, operationalizing variables, choosing the most appropriate research design, collecting and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and writing the research report.
• Apply these skills to become more informed consumers of research studies presented to the public in the media and other outlets.
• Apply these skills to enhance understanding of material covered in advanced courses (i.e., 300-400 level courses) in psychology and other disciplines that use the scientific approach and empirical research methods.
• Be better prepared to conduct research as part of a future job if warranted.
  
• Apply these skills as a solid foundation for graduate study in psychology and other scientific fields.

COURSE STRUCTURE
The course consists of lectures and one 2-hour lab each week.  Both are required.  Class lectures will focus on basic principles of research design, drawing on examples from various research areas in psychology and other disciplines.  Although the material covered in the lectures may parallel the topics covered in the textbook, it will not necessarily duplicate the textbook word-for-word or topic-for-topic.  In other words, the lectures and textbook will supplement each other to produce a more complete coverage of the material than either would by itself.

It is expected that students would have read and reviewed the pertinent material in both the textbook and lecture notes before the topic is covered in class.

Lab.  The lab is integral to your learning experience in this course; attendance is therefore mandatory.  Labs will be taught by your lab instructor and will meet in Rm 201 in Milner Hall.  The lab section of the course will consist of computer modules/exercises and multiple writing assignments which will comprise disciplinary-specific scientific reports.  Your lab instructor will provide a lab syllabus along with further information on these assignments, which are intended to provide you with opportunities to apply and communicate basic research methods and design in the style of the discipline.  Papers are expected to be the product of the person submitting them and no one else.  In other words, although students may jointly work on some parts of the paper such as the literature review, the written text must be the student's own work with no collaboration by others.  Cases in which papers appear to be similar will be treated as possible instances of plagiarism and will be handled according to university regulations (see http://aggiehonor.tamu.edu/).  Papers and assignments should be submitted on the scheduled due dates.  Your lab instructor will establish penalties for late assignments and papers in accordance with University regulations (see http://student-rules.tamu.edu/rule07).

EXAMINATIONS AND GRADING POLICIES
Final course grades will be based on performance on the following:

       1.   Exams (75%)

There will be four (4) exams covering material from the lectures, textbook, and handouts.  The fourth exam will be a comprehensive final that will be administered on the University-scheduled finals date.  The other three exams will be non-cumulative and the specific exam dates are noted below.  Although the exams will use a predominantly multiple-choice format, there may be some write-in and fill-in questions as well.

       2.   Lab (25%)

Details pertaining to the lab requirements, computer modules/exercises, writing assignments, and grading criteria will be provided by your lab instructor in class and in the Lab Syllabus your lab instructor will distribute.

IMPORTANT: BECAUSE THIS IS A WRITING INTENSIVE COURSE, YOU CANNOT PASS THIS COURSE (PER UNIVERSITY RULES ABOUT W COURSES) WITHOUT EARNING A PASSING GRADE (60%) ON THE WRITING COMPONENTS.  In other words, if you fail the writing lab component of this course, you will fail the entire course, irrespective of your final grade in the lecture component.

FINAL COURSE GRADE.  The distribution of scores across the various course components in terms of their contribution to the final course grade will be as follows:

The assignment of final course letter grades will be based on the scale presented below.  I use standard rounding rules to round to whole numbers (i.e., .5 or higher rounds to the next whole number).

Exam CONTENT AND Dates
The  content domain for each of the three exams is noted in the "Course Outline" section below.  You will need to bring a Gray Scantron and a #2 pencil to class on exam day.  The dates for Exams 1, 2, and 3 are as follows:

Exam 1 = February 18^th
Exam 2 = March 24^th
Exam 3 = April 21^st

Make–up Exams
Attendance at exams is mandatory.  Illness, death in the family, or other traumatic events unfortunately are part of life.  However, to help manage the course and maintain some level of fairness across all students in the class, the policy concerning make-up exams is in strict accordance with University policy (see http://student-rules.tamu.edu/rule07).  So, if you have an excused absence per this policy, then I will make arrangements for you to take the missed exam during office hours; however you must contact me no later than one class period after the missed exam.  If you do not have an excused absence, the comprehensive final exam may be counted double (i.e., for one, and only one missed exam), if you inform me no later than one class period after the missed exam that you would like to do so.

CLASS ATTENDANCE
Because the vast portion of the material covered by each exam will come from the lectures, class attendance is mandatory.  However, attendance will not be directly monitored and there will be no direct penalty for absences.  That being said, if you miss class, please do NOT send me an email asking "Did you do anything important today?" or "What did we cover today?"  It is YOUR responsibility to obtain lecture notes from a classmate if you miss class.  So, identify a friend and exchange contact information on the first day!  In addition, as previously noted, outlines for the lectures can be found at http://people.tamu.edu/~w-arthur/302/

Please ensure that your cell phone (and its usage) does not disrupt class.  If your phone has to be on during class for emergency reasons, then please ensure that it is set to a silent mode.

Finally, you do not have my permission to electronically record (either audio and/or video) my lectures.

LAB ATTENDANCE
Lab attendance is mandatory and will be monitored by your lab instructor in accordance with Student Rule 7 (see http://student-rules.tamu.edu/rule07).  Again, your lab instructor will distribute a lab syllabus that provides more detailed information about the lab attendance policy.

Course Outline 
(The lecture notes for specified topics will be posted as we progress through the semester.)

Updated April 13^th, 2020
©2020 Winfred Arthur, Jr.

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