Coffee Nut

Wake up. Coffee. Go to class. Coffee. Homework. Coffee….

Does having early classes increase the intake of coffee by college students?

If a college student is taking morning class, then they will increase their coffee take. A majority of college students stay up late doing homework irregardless of what time they need to wake up. The average student with morning classes will get up early to have class and then nap in the afternoon, leaving all of their homework to be done in the evening. This results in the student going to bed late and not getting enough sleep to fully function in the morning class. Therefore, students with early classes will feel the need to drink coffee to get through the morning.

A cheap and easy method to test this, is by having students fill out a survey. For a more detailed study, the researcher might send a survey during fall semester and then a follow-up survey in the spring to the participants of the first survey. This would show a comparison between the two semesters, where a student might have a different schedule and therefore, a different intake of coffee.

Some of the questions asked will be:

How many morning classes do you have each day? (Between 8am and 10am)
How many days in the week do you drink coffee?
How much coffee do you drink daily?
How often do you skip/ sleep through your morning class(es)?
How often do you sleep during class?
What time do you go to bed on average?
How often do you take naps?
When, on average, do you do the majority of your homework?

Running a survey is quick and asks direct questions related to the topic being studied. It would test all college students, from which a random selection of volunteers would participate, giving the study a good variation. Unfortunately, the survey would leave availability for lying and bias because it asks about a student’s sleep schedule. Student’s know that it is wrong to sleep during class, so they might lie about not doing it. This can alter the results and cause an inaccurate study.

Week 2 Blog Prompts – Research Methods

Hand writing on a notebook

Regardless of which prompt you choose, please use the Tag “Research Methods” on your post. Here are the prompts for this week:

Option 1

For this week’s discussion, I want you to design a research study about a topic you find interesting in psychology. You can choose any topic you would like as long as you relate it to something from our textbook. In your post make sure to do the following:

List your research question
State your hypothesis (what you think the outcome would be and why)
Decide which methodology you would use (i.e., survey, observation, etc.) and explain your choice
Describe your procedure (what you would have participants do, how you would recruit participants)

Make your research idea something feasible that you could actually do as a student researcher. In other words, assume you have a fairly small budget and a limited amount of time. If you’re a psychology major or minor, you will eventually take Research Methods and have to conduct a research project, so this is great practice to start thinking about what you might want to do.

For your comment on a classmate’s post, I want you to make a suggestion about a way to improve the study he or she described. I also want you to say why the suggestion would be useful.

Option 2

Mythbusters is a popular TV show on the Discovery Channel which tests popular ideas using scientific methods. The show generally does a pretty good job, but now that you’ve read the chapter and discussed the scientific method, you are in a good position to critique the show. Select one of the mini-myths (short clips from the show) below and critique the methods used to test the myth. Remember, critique means list the strengths and the weaknesses. For each weakness, discuss why it is a problem and suggest a solution.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator

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Week 2 Blogging Spotlight – Topic: Research Methods

by kjeik

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 question of their choosing. Their topics covered a broad array of ideas from several areas of psychology: the effects of additional sleep vs. exercise on energy levels, how climate may influence perceptions of temperature change, how duration of television exposure affects eyesight, how exposure to laughter affects smiles, and whether or not a stage model is the best way to conceptualize moral development. Reading through these posts I’ve already got numerous ideas for cool studies we could conduct on campus. Hopefully some of them will take me up on offers to make these ideas a reality.

Most students, however, chose to review and critique a short video where the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters conducted a test (links to the videos themselves are available via the Week 2 Prompts post). Students were nearly equally interested in the myth choices presented in the prompts. Two students chose to tackle “Is it more dangerous to drive in high heels” (Link 1, Link 2). Two students were drawn to the test of “beer goggles” (Link 1, Link 2). Two more looked at gender differences in reading others’ emotions (Link 1, Link 2). Investigating the relative danger of driving while talking on the phone vs. driving drunk caught the attention of two students (Link 1, Link 2). The winner, by a nose, this week was whether or not yawning was contagious, with 3 students providing a critique (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3).

Make sure to check out their posts for more details and please feel free to post comments, questions, or reactions to what you read. We look forward to hearing from you!

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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 several took me up on the offer.

This post contains a good summary of the experiment itself, so I’d suggest starting there. If you want the full details of the experiment, I’ve attached the description I hand out in class to this post. Additional suggestions can be found at each of these links (1, 2, 3, 4). Feel free to discuss these suggestions with the student authors via comments and/or post your own suggestions to the experiment on their posts or this one.

Coke vs Pepsi Instructions

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Week 2 Blog Prompts

by Caitlinator

Here are the options for this week’s blog post:

Option 1

List your research question
State your hypothesis (what you think the outcome would be and why)
Decide which methodology you would use (i.e., survey, observation, etc.) and explain your choice
Describe your procedure (what you would have participants do, how you would recruit participants)

For your comment on a classmate’s post, I want you to make a suggestion about a way to improve the study he or she described. I also want you to say why the suggestion would be useful.

Option 2

Mythbusters is a popular TV show on the Discovery Channel which tests popular ideas using scientific methods. The show generally does a pretty good job, but now that you’ve read the chapter and discussed the scientific method, you are in a good position to critique the show. Select one of the minimyths (short clips from the show) below and critique the methods used to test the myth. Remember, critique means list the strengths and the weaknesses. For each weakness, discuss why it is a problem and suggest a solution.

Is Yawning Contagious?
Is Talking on a Phone While Driving as Dangerous as Driving Drunk?
Do Beer Goggles Really Exist?
Is it Dangerous to Drive in Heels?
Are Women Better Than Men at Reading Emotions?

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Week 3 Blog Prompts

by Caitlinator

Here are the options for this week’s blog post:

Option 1

List your research question
State your hypothesis (what you think the outcome would be and why)
Decide which methodology you would use (i.e., survey, observation, etc.) and explain your choice
Describe your procedure (what you would have participants do, how you would recruit participants)

For your comment on a classmate’s post, I want you to make a suggestion about a way to improve the study he or she described. I also want you to say why the suggestion would be useful.

Option 2

Mythbusters is a popular TV show on the Discovery Channel which tests popular ideas using scientific methods. The show generally does a pretty good job, but now that you’ve read the chapter and discussed the scientific method, you are in a good position to critique the show. Select one of the minimyths (short clips from the show) below and critique the methods used to test the myth. Remember, critique means list the strengths and the weaknesses. For each weakness, discuss why it is a problem and suggest a solution.