PSYC520 / PSYC720 : Research Skills in Practice 2
Module Outline
Credit Weighting: 20 Credits
Module Leader: Julien Besle Teaching Staff: Julien Besle, Michael Verde, Clare Walsh.
Aims
The module aims to support students through a simple research cycle and deliver a basic understanding of the research process in psychology. Statistical analysis techniques are taught in workshops with the aim of providing the student with an understanding of the analysis procedures appropriate to a range of research designs for testing differences. In addition, the module aims to introduce students to issues in conducting psychological research such as research project management.
Expected Outcomes
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Develop a simple research question with a high level of guidance from a supervisor and translate it into a study.
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Develop a basic understanding of the importance of ethical issues in research.
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Understand the basic principles of research management.
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Run, analyse, evaluate, and report psychological research.
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Analyse the results of studies using multifactorial ANOVA, and relate them to the relevant literature that motivated the work.
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Execute the statistical methods taught and interpret the output.
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Communicate the outputs of research through written and oral presentation means.
Teaching Arrangements
Two two-hour workshops per week, for 12 weeks. Students work in small groups (about 7) within large workshops of a about 100 students. Each workshop is run sufficient times to accommodate the whole cohort. In each week, the first (large) workshop will be staffed by one lead teacher and four teaching assistants, and the second (small) workshop will be staffed only by teaching assistants. The same staff members are present every week. A brief summary of the provisional schedule for each week is below; a much more detailed guide may be found on the Research Methods in Practice website.
Assessment
| Element | Description | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Written report to format and length described here | 80% |
| Practical | Group oral presentation (10 mins) | 20% |
| PsyLab activities | Pass a minimum of 11 PsyLab activites | Pass / Fail |
For the assessment deadlines, please see the Deadlines document on the Programme page of the DLE.
Marking Criteria
There are detailed mark schemes for both the presentation and the report. The conditions for passing each PsyLab activities are specific to the activity, and are expressed within the activity itself.
Academic Dishonesty
University of Plymouth regulations and policies apply to this module. See also the section on Academic Dishonesty in the Stage Handbook.
Provisional teaching schedule
Week 1: Select topic and learn about statistical power
Week 2: Define question, outline design and learn about data preprocessing
Week 3: Finalise experimental design
Week 4: Build experiment
Week 5: Upload experiment and begin to learn about ANOVA
Week 6: Collect data and finish learning about ANOVA
Week 7: Finish data collection
Week 8: Analyse data
Week 9: Write a presentation
Week 10: Give presentation
Week 11: Planning a report
Week 12: Critique and support
Indicative Reading List
The reading materials have been developed in-house and released under a Creative Commons licence, see Research Methods in Practice and Research Methods in R. Primary sources (journal articles) will also form a major part of the reading, but will likely be different for each group. Only open-access journal articles will be used.