Paul I would like to receive a copy of that document
Thanks Gary Gary J. Klatsky, Ph. D. Department of Psychology [EMAIL PROTECTED] Oswego State University (SUNY) http://www.oswego.edu/~klatsky 7060 State Hwy 104W Voice: (315) 312-3474 Oswego, NY 13126 Fax: (315) 312-6330 -----Original Message----- From: Paul Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 7:24 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Subject: RE: Writing hypotheses Michael - (note: this is a copy of a post I made to TIPS in response to a similar question raised a couple of months ago, back in the good old days before praying for wee ones, worldviews, apathetic students, the 's word', difficult letters, rough drafts, animal research, and Dawkins on suicide bombings...) I did a summer fellowship on "Why do undergraduates find it difficult to find ideas for experimental research projects in psychology?". I'd be happy to send the current version of the document as an attachment (MSWord) if you're interested. A brief summary - I noticed over time that many students either - cannot think of an idea at all, or - have (and are often wedded to) "breakthrough" projects ("I want to demonstrate that intercessionary prayer works"), or - have (and are often wedded to) "so what?" projects ("I want to see if playing different kinds of music affects studying"), or - have (and are often wedded to) non-causal projects ("I want to compare men's and women's reasons for smoking"). Some of the difficulty seems to be in the fact that students lack the background knowledge about - phenomena (simple description: what DOES happen?) - terms - theories - current professional practices - current disputes in the field The latter three in particular seem to be important sources of ideas for professional researchers, and seem to be the areas in which students are most likely to be lacking. In addition, among the reasons I proposed for these difficulties is the possibility that students enter with deeply different basic assumptions about the causes of human behavior. We take the basic philosophical position that - people do what they do at least in part for reasons having to do with their specific interactions with the environment. However, students may assume that either - People do what they do because they are the kinds of people who do those kinds of things (essentialism), or - People do what they do because they freely choose to do those things (strong free will). Either of those basic philosophical assumptions is likely to completely undermine a student's curiosity about the causes of human behavior in a way that will make it very difficult for her to come up with a meaningful project idea. Paul Smith Alverno College Milwaukee --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
