Professor David Moore
108 Broad Hall
Office extension: 71648
E-mail: dmoore@pitzer.edu

Pitzer College
Psychology 112
Research Methods
Fall, 2008



Here's the most pertinent info--I'll discuss details in class.

Class meets Tuesdays & Thursdays from 12:00 p.m. - 1:10 p.m.,
in Broad Hall 214.

My OFFICE HOURS will be on:

Mondays from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., and
Tuesdays from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

If I need to change these as the semester's schedule becomes clearer, I'll obviously let you know. But, do note that because of the nature of this course, I'll probably be meeting with each of you quite a lot in my office--that will be the best way for me to handle questions that arise about your individual projects. So, I'm free to be scheduled--try to let me know ahead of time if you're hoping to stop in to talk. Under any circumstances, I'll be in my office or lab lots, so you can just drop on in.

The REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS are:

Schweigert, W.A. (2006). Research methods in psychology: A handbook (2nd ed.). Waveland Pr Inc.





American Psychological Association (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: Author.



Other recommended BOOKS are:

Horvat, J. & Davis, S. (1997). Doing psychological research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.





Kirkpatrick, L.A. & Feeney, B.C. (2006). A simple guide to SPSS for Windows, Version 14.0 (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.



A NOTE ABOUT THESE BOOKS: You should definitely buy the APA Publication Manual. You'll also want a book on SPSS to refer to, although if you prefer, you can feel free to use something other than Kirkpatrick. Finally, I think Horvat & Davis could be a useful supplement if you have it, but if you're confident that you can get all the information you need to create your thesis from Schweigert, you could consider this book to be merely recommended.

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As indicated by its name, the purpose of this course is to learn how to design research studies in psychology. The course has been designed for students who were invited last spring to write a senior honors thesis in psychology this year. To that end, the main goal of the course will be to have developed an honors-quality research proposal by the end of the semester, and to have collected and analyzed some preliminary ("pilot") data, so that you'll have a good head start on your honors thesis, which will be completed in the spring semester.

Among the topics we will cover in the course are:

Note that at the end of the fall semester, each of you will be required to present your pilot data (in the context of a broader presentation about your project) to the members of the psychology field group. Only those students whose data and presentations are of sufficiently high quality--and who achieve a B or better in this course--will be allowed to continue in the honors program. Those students will enroll in Psychology 191 (Senior Thesis in Psychology) next spring; this course will include a once-a-week meeting designed to support students in their data-gathering and thesis-writing. A rough draft of the thesis will be due 4 weeks before the end of the spring semester (April 10) and the final thesis will be due 2 weeks later (April 24).

To receive honors in psychology at graduation, a student must have successfully completed a senior thesis and have met GPA criteria specified in the Pitzer College Course Catalogue. At the end of the spring semester, students may be asked to present their completed theses to the entire psychology department. 

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