We actually teach two different experimental psych courses One sophomore level for anyone majoring or minoring in psychology, the other a junior senior level course targeted at student going to graduate school (it is recommended you have stats before taking this course).
The lower level is quite popular as it teaches experimental psychology from a consumer point of view. How should you interpret statistics, be careful of "chart junk" that may make a bar chart misleading, what is the placebo effect, etc. Because this class goes over interpreting stats, some student take it in preparation for the required statistics class. Regardless, all psychology majors must have one or the other to graduate. The requirement came about before my time here - but it is my understanding that some report indicated that 5 year after graduation, most psychology majors indicated that research methods was their most valuable class. It probably doesn't answer the question - but it gives what I considered to be a unique approach to methods when I started here. Doug Doug Peterson Assistant Professor of Psychology The University of South Dakota Vermillion SD 57069 (605) 677-5295 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Black [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 11:51 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Subject: Re: what on earth do we teach students mayor in psychology? On 9 Oct 2002, Cao guikang wrote: > Hi,everyone > > As a assistant professor teaching experimental psychology, I find the > students mayor in psychology have all kinds of needs to this > curriculum, everyone want to learn what he or she need from this > curriculum. As a teacher, I'm still puzzled with this status. I think > there must be some methods to confront students needs. But I haven't > found them. How to teach them? Could give me some advice? Thanks! I'm disappointed to see that no one has as yet replied to this query from a new contributor. I did a bit of research and discovered that Cao Guikang's e-mail address suggests he's at Southwest China Normal University in Beibei, China. If I'm wrong, please correct me. If so, his contribution certainly adds to the international flavour of our discussion group, which I'd like to encourage. Welcome, Cao Guikang! But it's not very encouraging if we ignore his post. Possibly the lack of response may be due to difficulty in fully understanding the query. I think we're being asked what it is important to teach in experimental psychology. I don't teach this subject myself, but one topic that I'd certainly like to see in this course is a full discussion of the difference between experimental and correlational research and the conclusions that can be drawn from them. Almost every news item (and journal articles too) in psychology shows that this distinction is not understood. -Stephen ______________________________________________________________ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips _________________________________________________________ --- 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]
