The aim of this course is to teach students in the research master programme – regardless of their area of specialisation – about a variety of approaches and methods that can be used in psychological research. This is intended to broaden students’ views regarding the possibilities to operationalise different kinds of research questions.
The course meetings and assignments are intended to make students more aware of the added value of creatively combining different research traditions, and to enhance their ability to consider, combine, and apply multiple methodologies in a single research design.
Coordinator
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hommel
Room 2-B05
Phone 06-29023062
E-mail:
Aim(s)
Students will
be taught about different ways to design an empirical study, and learn how to select a design that suits a specific research question.
gain an overview of the different types of methods to operationalise constructs, that are used in psychological research.
learn to reflect upon the strengths and weaknesses of different measures in order to assess their suitability to address a particular research question.
be practicing their skills to develop experimental hypotheses on various topics and to identify the most suitable experimental design to test them.
Literature
The literature will consist of two introductory (INTRO) book chapters, eight articles that provide a brief overview of particular theoretical ISSUEs, chosen from various research areas, and eight articles that introduce into a particular METHOD. Most readings will be made available through blackboard. The INTRO and METHOD (1-8) readings are listed under Modules. The ISSUE (1-8) readings are the following:
ISSUE 1: Affect and decision-making
Damasio, A.R. (2000). A second chance for emotion. In: The cognitive neuroscience of emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISSUE 2: Autism
Happé, F. (1999). Autism: cognitive deficit or cognitive style? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 216–222.
ISSUE 3: Fairness and cooperation
Singer, T., & Steinbeis, N. (2009). Differential roles of fairness- and compassion-based motivations for cooperation, defection, and punishment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167, 41-50.
ISSUE 4: Nutrition and depression
Owen, C. et al. (2008). The role of fatty acids in the development and treatment of mood disorders. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 21, 19-24.
ISSUE 5: Power
Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D., & Anderson, C. (2003). Power, approach, and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110, 265-284.
ISSUE 6: Self-injurious behavior
Nock, M.K. (2009). Why do people hurt themselves? New insights into the nature and functions of self-injury. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 78-83
ISSUE 7: Team motivation
Kerr, N.L., & Bruun, S.E. (1983). Dispensability of member effort and group motivation losses: Free rider effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 78-94.
ISSUE 8: Theory of mind
Baldwin, D.A. & Baird, J. B. (2001). Discerning intentions in dynamic human action. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5, 171-178.
Modules
Each of the five modules consists of two meetings in the same week. The first meeting will be based on an introduction into the method(s) to be discussed and the second meeting will focus on practicing the application of methods and discussing the plans for student papers.
Module 1: Introduction and heuristics
Carrying out empirical research presupposes a research question, but where do such questions come from? The first module will focus on this problem and discuss various ways to find and strategies to generate research questions. Furthermore, the eight ISSUEs will be briefly discussed and we will begin to practice combining them with METHODs.
Teacher: Prof. Dr. B. Hommel
Literature (INTRO 1-2):
- Hershey, D.A., Jacobs-Lawson, J.M., & Wilson, T.T. (2006). Research as a script. In T.L. Leong & J.T. Austin (eds), The psychology research handbook: A guide for graduate students and research assistants. Sage.
- Leong, F.T.L., & Muccio, D.J. (2006). Finding a research topic. In T.L. Leong & J.T. Austin (eds), The psychology research handbook: A guide for graduate students and research assistants. Sage.
Module 2: Observation and simulation
The aim of this module is to learn about different observational techniques that can be used to assess responses to specific (experimentally created) conditions. These include a broad range of tools and measures, that help assess cognitive, affective and behavioral responses to different types of (social and task) conditions people can be exposed to, as well as procedures and techniques to quantify more qualitative behavioral observations (such as video-coding). We will also address the question of how theoretically meaningful aspects of richer social situations can be simulated or re-created in the lab (experimental simulations and games), to examine their effects under highly controlled circumstances.
Teacher: Prof. Dr. N. Ellemers
Literature (METHOD 1-2):
- Aronson, E., Ellsworth, P.C., Carlsmith, J.M., & Gonzales, M.H. (1990). An introduction to experiments. In: Methods of research in social psychology, 2nd. Ed. (8-39). New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Aronson, E., Ellsworth, P.C., Carlsmith, J.M, & Gonzales, M.H. (1990). Methods of research in social psychology (2nd. Ed.). Chapter 8: The dependent variable (pp. 240-291). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Module 3: Exploring the brain
Functional neuroimaging can be a useful tool to test psychological theories. This class will cover the methodological aspects of designing an experimental task for the use of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The class will focus on the following questions: 1) Which theories can be tested with fMRI and which cannot? 2) What are the experimental requirements for testing these theories? 3) What do we learn from fMRI results? These questions will be illustrated with real data examples from various research areas.
Teacher: Prof. Dr. E. Crone
Literature (METHOD 3-4):
- Henson, R (2006). Forward inference using functional neuroimaging: dissociations versus associations. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 64-69.
- Poldrack, RA (2007). Region of Interest analysis for fMRI. Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 67-70.
Recommended background paper:
- Poldrack, RA (2006). Can cognitive processes be inferred from neuroimaging data? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 64-69.
Module 4: Investigating infants
We will take a close look at different methods that were developed and extensively used in the last 20 years in infancy research. These include various behavioral techniques, a variety of methods that are based on looking behavior and state of the art techniques such as EEG and NIRS. We discuss some representative study examples that used these techniques. We will focus on the methodological and theoretical issues that have to be considered when one chooses a particular technique and designs an experiment to test a research question.
Teacher: Dr. S. Biro
Literature (METHOD 5-6):
- Hayhoe, M. M. (2004). Advances in relating eye movement and cognition. Infancy, 6, 267-274.
- Lamb, M.E., & Bornstein, M.H. (2004). Development in infancy: Methods of research in infancy (Chapter 3, p. 53-83). Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Recommended paper:
- Csibra, G., Kushnerenko, E., & Grossmann, T. (2008). Electrophysiological methods in studying infant cognitive development. In: C. Nelson & M. Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience, Second Edition (pp. 247-262). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Module 5: Single cases and individual differences
In this seminar we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different designs to evaluate interventions, ranging from case reports to randomized controlled trials. The examples will be drawn from the clinical and medical areas, but the principles are applicable to other interventions as well. The standards of conducting and reporting intervention research will also be addressed.
Teacher: Prof. Dr. W. van der Does
Literature (METHOD 7-8):
- Vandenbroucke, J.P. (2008). Observational Research, Randomised Trials, and two views of medical science. PLoS Medicine 5: e67
- Kazdin, A.E. (2003). Control and comparison groups. In: Kazdin, A.E.: Research Designs in Clinical Psychology (Chapter 7, pp. 184-212).
Background papers:
- Altman D.G. (2001). The revised CONSORT statement for reporting clinical trials: explanation and elaboration. Annals of Internal Medicine, 134, 663-694.
- Vandenbroucke, J.P. et al. (2007). Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology: explanation and elaboration. PLoS Medicine 10: e297.
Examination
For each of the modules 2-5, students prepare a paper of no more than 5 pages. For each of these four papers, they choose one of eight ISSUEs (four different topics in total) and design an experiment that uses (one of) the methods discussed in the respective module. Every issue (as defined by the ISSUE articles) can be combined with every method (as described in the METHOD articles), if only every student combines four different issues with four different methods.
The format of the papers should resemble an APA-style method section, minimally comprising of the subsections SUBJECTS, PROCEDURE, MEASURES (dependent variables), DESIGN (including factors to be manipulated within and/or between subjects), and PREDICTIONS, and accompanied by a short, non-comprehensive introduction that motivates study, design, and predictions, and that presents the main hypotheses.
From January 1, 2006 the Faculty of Social Sciences has instituted the Ephorus system to be used by instructors for the systematic detection of plagiarism in students’ written work. Please see the Additional Rules and Regulations, section 6.
Requirement(s) for application or advice
MPhil students
Education method(s)
5 modules (each module composed by 2 classes weekly of 2 hours each)
Enrolment
Introduction and enrollment for courses of the first semester will take place August 27th 2009. Introduction and enrollment for courses of the second semester will take place in January 2010. More information will be available at the website of the Department of Psychology.
NB: Exam and re-exam registration will take place via uTwist, and will be open between a month and a week before the (re)exam. Students who don’t register, cannot participate in the (re)exam.
Blackboard
Literature will be made available on Blackboard.