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Responsible Research in Practice

Vak
2019-2020

Admission requirements

MSc Psychology (research) students with an almost completed thesis; more specifically, the ‘methods’ and ‘results’ section of the Master thesis should be ready (or in ‘mock results’ form) at the start of the course.

Description

This module takes place at the end of the two-year master program. The course aims at evaluating the thesis process from an ethical, integrity point of view. In the course we will discuss several pitfalls of empirical research, including: sources of error in formulating hypotheses, data collection, data checking, estimation, and testing hypotheses; responsible writing and reading of reports; modeling and reproducibility; validation and Open Science. Moreover, students write a report about the thesis of another student with a detailed, critical scrutiny of the thesis process. In order to write this report the students will interview each other about the various aspects of empirical research and how these were operationalized in the thesis project.

Course objectives

  • The student learns to look critically at his/her own research practices and those of others.

  • The student learns about pitfalls in the stages of the research lifecycle from a research integrity perspective.

  • The students learn to look beyond standard practices.

Timetable

For the timetables of your lectures, work groups and exams, please select your study programme in: Psychology timetables.

Semester 1: Lectures

Registration

Course

Students need to enroll for lectures (and work group sessions). Please consult the instructions for registration.

Elective

Students have to enroll for each elective course separately. For admission requirements contact your study advisor.

Exchange/Study abroad

For admission requirements contact your exchange coordinator.

Examination

Students are not automatically enrolled for an examination. They can register via uSis from 100 to 10 calendar days before the date; students who are not registered will not be permitted to take the examination. Registering for exams

Mode of instruction

6 2-hours lectures.

Assessment method

The assessment is based on a two written reports and an exam (with essay questions). For the exam and the first written report a grade from 1 to 10 is obtained. The second report is graded by a pass/no pass.
The final grade is the average of the two grades, provided that the second report is graded a 'pass'. The exam covers both the reading list and topics discussed during the lectures. Students are entitled to individually view their marked examination within a period of 30 days following the publication of the results of a written examination. The entire course is in English.

The Institute of Psychology follows the policy of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences to systematically check student papers for plagiarism with the help of software. Disciplinary measures will be taken when fraud is detected. Students are expected to be familiar with and understand the implications of this fraud policy.

Reading list

P.I. Good and J.W. Hardin (2012, 4th edition). Common errors in statistics (and how to avoid them), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Pdf available online.

Contact information

Dr. Anna van 't Veer
a.e.van.t.veer@fsw.leidenuniv.nl