Research Experience in Psychology, Spring 2024

Class Information	Instructor Information
PSYCH 4705		Helen C. Harton, Ph.D.
Bartlett 34; 2080		Bartlett 2080
tba		273-2235; harton@uni.edu

Office Hours: W 2-3; Th 11-12; F 1-2; whenever I’m around

Course Information

Course Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, you should be able to:

· Demonstrate an understanding of the scientific literature relevant to a hypothesis or research question;

· Collect, manage, and/or analyze empirical data or obtain an existing dataset to test a hypothesis or research question;

· Demonstrate knowledge of ethical principles in research;

· Present a research project to others;

· Participate actively in discussions about research; and

· Use research tools and programs (e.g., SPSS, Qualtrics, SONA, mTurk, salivary cortisol analyses, biometric equipment)

Instructor Course description: You will work on one or more research projects. You must have or obtain IRB training, participate regularly in research team meetings, and present your research at at least one conference. You will be involved in at least one project as a co-PI. In a small group with other students, you will help design a study, collect data, analyze the data, and present it at a conference. I will help and advise you during all the steps of the project. You will also help with other projects in the lab though providing feedback on designs and results and helping collect and/or analyze data.

Course Catalog Description: Conduct a supervised research or scholarly project. Highly recommended for students planning to enter graduate programs. Majors with an overall GPA of at least 3.50 may earn departmental honors if their projects are deemed worthy of honors by the department. May be repeated for a maximum of 12 credit hours. Prerequisite(s): PSYCH 1001 (400:001); PSYCH 3002 (400:101); 15 hours in psychology; junior standing; consent of instructor.

Benefits of Research Experience:

• Gain a better understanding of the scientific process through hands-on experience with impactful psychological research
• Learn content knowledge about an area of interest
• Learn more about opportunities within the field
• Learn technical skills important for psychology-related fields
• Enhance critical thinking
• Gain professional communication skills (writing, oral presentations, informal communication)
• Build a relationship with faculty mentor
• Begin building a professional CV
• Practice organizational and time management skills
• Learn leadership and teamwork skills

Course Policies

Missed Meetings Policy: We will have regularly scheduled meetings to discuss the progress of your project. When you miss a meeting, you affect the progress of the entire research team. You may miss one meeting per type (i.e., large group, small group) for good reason (e.g., illness, conference presentation, religious observance, self-isolation) per semester without any penalty (make sure to let me know ahead of time to check with group members for any assignments). Meetings will occur face-to-face, but we can meet virtually if required. If you have a need to miss more than one meeting, talk to me.

Academic Ethics Policy Statement: Students must observe the Academics Ethics Policy (http://www.uni.edu/policies/301). You should adequately cite your sources on PowerPoint slides and in your presentations and papers. You should not use another’s words on your slides or in your presentation without proper attribution. All sources should be ones that you’ve read directly; do not cite secondary sources.

Open Science Policy: My lab is committed to open science principles. As such, all studies will be pre-registered, materials and data will be made public where possible, and we will strive for transparency and ethicality in all our projects.

Harassment Policy: You do not have to put up with inappropriate treatment (e.g., verbal, physical, or sexual harassment) of any kind. If you have problems with a lab member, participant, or conference goer (or other person you interact with through your lab assignments), please let me know. It is important to note that if you do report it to me, I may have to report it to the university. If you are not comfortable talking with me about the issue, you can talk to the department head, Adam Butler.

Authorship Policy: For small group projects, authorship is determined by the amount each person in the group contributes to the project. For conference presentations, I will usually take last author, but for manuscripts the order may change based on contributions, especially to writing. See APA guidelines for more information on authorship order.

Credit Hour Statement: This course meets the Course Credit Hour Expectation outlined in the Course Catalog. Students should expect to work a minimum of 2 hours per week outside of class for every course credit hour. You should expect to work a minimum of three hours per week (including meetings) for every course credit hour for undergraduate credit and four hours per week for graduate credit.

Required Readings

Required readings can be found at https://osf.io/f2atg/. They include:

· Harton Lab pre-registration form

· Harton Lab Manual

· Introduction to OSF

· Lab inclusion-exclusion (of data) document

· Qualtrics basic information

· Harton, H. C., & Nail, P. R. (2008). Political orientation and contemporary racism in America. In M. A. Morrison & T. G. Morrison (Eds.), The psychology of modern prejudice (pp. 51-75). New York: Nova Science Publishers.

· Harton, H. C., & Bourgeois, M. J. (2004). Cultural elements emerge from dynamic social impact. In M. Schaller & C. S. Crandall (Eds.), Psychological foundations of culture (pp. 41-75). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Students will do also readings relevant to their projects as well as general readings relevant to psychology methods or lab topics.

Course Elements and Expectations

Small Group Project: You will work on a small group project with 1-3 other students. In this project, we’ll work together to design a study related to one of my areas of research interest (e.g., social influence, political psychology, research ethics). We will design and collect in the fall and analyze and present in the spring.

Lab activities: As a member of my lab, you’ll also work on projects that benefit others in the lab. For example, you may be asked to give suggestions on a questionnaire, pretest a study, or serve as a confederate.

Meetings: You’ll schedule a half hour meeting with me each week for your small group project. We’ll also have one, hour-long large group meeting per week. You are expected to attend and participate actively in these meetings.

Presentation: You will submit to one or more conferences in the fall and present at one or more regional, national, and/or local conferences in the spring. Presentations may be posters or oral presentations.

Open Science Requirements: You will create an account on OSF and keep all of your study materials up-to-date there. All studies will be pre-registered and gain IRB approval before data collection begins. Materials and data will be made public where possible. All data will be independently analyzed by at least two people, and files will contain proper and clear documentation.

Data Blitz: Toward the end of the semester, you will do a 5 minute presentation on your project for the lab.

Final Grade Determination

Grading in the course is based on the quality of your participation (e.g., punctuality, meeting attendance and participation, preparation, ethical behavior, attention to detail, pre-registration, data cleaning, data analysis), timeliness (e.g., meeting deadlines), and your outputs (e.g., quality of poster and presentation). If you do everything well, you will earn an A in the course. Deficiencies in one or more areas will result in a lower grade.

Course Schedule

These are general time guidelines for the small group project. Other assignments related to the large group will arise as needed (e.g., helping as a confederate).

Week	Tasks/Topic
1	Finalize studies; post pre-reg, begin collecting data
2	Continue data collection
3	Data cleaning
4	Data analysis
5	Data analysis (two people need to complete independently)
6	Data interpretation; submit to Inspire
7	Work on introduction for poster
8	Work on method and results for poster
9	Work on discussion; Revise poster
10	Further poster revisions
11	Present at Inspire; Discuss feedback from the conference
12	Make final changes for MPA; Present at MPA
13	Discuss feedback from MPA
14	Double check files; Make sure everything is uploaded to OSF. Report back to lab
15 (finals)	Last chance to complete any needed tasks

Resources and University Policy Statements

Further information and required syllabus statements related to free speech, non-discrimination, student accessibility services, and the Learning Center are available at https://provost.uni.edu/syllabus-statements.