Week 2 Blogging Spotlight – Topic: Research Methods

Microphone stands in spotlight by kjeik, on Flickr

Though this was the topic the highest number of my students reported being the least interested in, the posts this week did not seem to reflect a lack of interest. Perhaps it was the prompts for the week that got them excited. Perhaps they are just good at faking interest (which doesn't bode well for me this semester...or does it?). In any case, here are some of the highlights. Five students chose to take the first option of designing their own research study to answer a ...

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Week 1 Student Blog Spotlight

by kjeik

The main topics the first week of the course were the historical roots of psychology and an overview of the major theoretical schools (or lenses) which guide psychological inquiry. The Week 1 Prompts can be viewed here, and most students chose to write about how the personal lives of prominent theorists may have influences their theories. There are numerous examples of how this has happened in psychology (see my previous post about Marsha Linehan and DBT), and my students have shared examples related to Share Via:

A Little Help From My Students

by lindsay_bremner

We covered the basics of research methods in psychology last week, and one of the activities we did in class was conduct a Coke vs. Pepsi taste test. Now this was not about preferences, as many taste tests traditionally are, but rather the question "Can people tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi?" Due to time (one 50-minute class session) and other (e.g., budget) constraints, this study had a few strengths and several weaknesses. I asked my students for help identifying the limitations of the study and suggestions to make the study stronger, and ...

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Introductory Blog Recap

It was a pleasure getting to know my new students from reading their brief introductions and I'm always curious to know what students are thinking when they look over the syllabus. I asked them each to blog about the three topics from the course schedule they were most excited about and the three topics they were least excited about (for those of you not enrolled in the course, I've attached the syllabus to this post). Starting with what students were least excited about, there were not many surprises there. Covering the scientific method, research methods, and experimental design are nearly always the top three responses, though the order varies from semester to semester. Students typically state they know these things already and/or expect the sessions to be dreadfully boring. Hopefully it won't be as bad as they think, but even if it is these topics are all covered in the first ...

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