Research (Thesis), Spring 2024
Class Information |
Instructor Information |
|
PSYCH 6299 |
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 two-course series, you should be able to:
·
Analyze, critically evaluate, and integrate previous research;
·
Design a study to assess an original hypothesis or research
question based on previous research
·
Collect, manage, and analyze empirical data or obtain an existing
dataset to test a hypothesis or research question;
·
Demonstrate knowledge of ethical principles in research through
practices such as ethical interactions with participants, concern for privacy
and participant well-being, proper documentation of sources, pre-registration,
and transparency in materials, data collection, and analyses;
·
Present and defend your research project; and
·
Write a scientific paper describing your research project.
Instructor Course Description: You will complete a Master’s Thesis. 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 required to meet with me face-to-face at least once per week to
review your progress. You will read and review past literature, design the
study, collect data, analyze the data, write up a thesis, and defend it
publically. I will help and advise you during all the steps of the project. You
will also help with other projects in the lab.
Course Catalog Description: Research. Prerequisite(s): consent of department.
Course Policy
Information
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) per semester without any penalty (make sure to let me know ahead of time to check with group members for any assignments). Meetings will generally occur face-to-face, but we can meet virtually under approved circumstances. 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: You are expected to be
first author on your first year project presentations, indicating that you have
done the majority of the work. If the project is later published in a journal,
you would also likely be first author, but authorship may change depending on
how much work you are willing to contribute to the manuscript. 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.
Since this is a graduate course, the expectation is that you will work
approximately 4 hours per week outside of class for every course credit hour.
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.
You will also do
readings relevant to your projects as well as general readings relevant to
psychology methods or lab topics.
Course Elements
and Expectations
Research Project:
You
will design and carry out a research project. Some of the steps along the way
include a successful proposal meeting, followed by a list of changes (signed
and submitted to the psychology office). Then you will get IRB approval if
needed and pre-register the study. After you collect data, you will analyze it
using best practices and write up your thesis and revise it until it is ready
to go to the committee. Make sure you run statcheck
at this point as well. After the thesis defense, final changes are likely. Then
you will turn it in to the Graduate College (when you have all the signatures
of the committee members) and they will do additional reviews before the thesis
is finalized. I ask that all my students order a copy of their thesis for me to
keep (in addition to the copies you’ll make for the library and the psychology
department).
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 thesis. 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. To get a grade in the fall, you need to have successfully
completed your proposal meeting, gotten IRB approval, pre-registered, and
collected your data. To get a grade in the spring, you need to have
successfully defended your thesis.
Course Schedule
These
are general time guidelines. 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 |
6 |
Data
interpretation; submit to Inspire |
7 |
Work
on introduction updates |
8 |
Work
on method and results sections. Do poster for conferences. |
9 |
Work
on discussion; Revise poster |
10 |
Revise
thesis document |
11 |
Present
at Inspire; Discuss feedback from the conference. Revise document. |
12 |
Make
final changes for MPA; Present at MPA. Revise document. |
13 |
Discuss
feedback from MPA. Continue revisions. Get thesis to committee. |
14 |
Double
check files; Make sure everything is uploaded to OSF. Report back to lab |
15
(finals) |
Schedule
thesis presentation. |
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.