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Courses

PSYC 465 Experimental Psychology
(Fall 2021)

In this laboratory course, students will design and propose a small scale psychological experiment, then collect data, analyze results, and present them, and write a formal research paper.

 

This course fulfills two DCC requirements: Critical and Creative Thinking and Capstone Experience.

 

Because students need to complete a study, this course can be more time-consuming (4 credits) than a regular lecture-based psychology course (3 credits).  Also, since there are writing requirements, if students are not familiar with academic/scientific writing, they may feel the writing component a little bit time-consuming and/or challenging.

 

However, several measures have been taken to make the course at an appropriate difficulty level. Because this is a laboratory course, students will earn a large portion of their final grade by doing things, such as completing ethics tutorials, reading research articles and writing an annotated bibliography, designing and programming experiment, collecting/analyzing data, and writing the final report. 

 

The 2 exams account for 37.5% of the final grade. The exams emphasize more understanding rather than memorization of the course material.  

psyc-465

Course Objectives

  1. Students should be able to understand and justify the importance of scientific research methods in understanding cognition and behavior.

  2. Students should be able to understand the major components of scientific methods used in psychological research.

  3. Students should be able to excise critical thinking in evaluating scientific research in psychological sciences.

  4. Students should be able to understand basic statistical concepts and use introductory level statistical analyses in a psychological research project.

  5. Students must design and complete a small-scale research project in which the abovementioned skills and objectives can be practiced and evaluated.  

Assignment and Grading Distribution

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