Important Note
All Semester II bachelor and master psychology courses and examinations (2020-2021) will be offered in an on-line format.
If it is safe and possible to do so, supplementary course meetings may be planned on-campus. However, attendance at these meetings will not be required to successfully complete Semester II courses.
All obligatory work groups and examinations will be offered on-line during Central European Time, which is local time in the Netherlands.
Information on the mode of instruction and the assessment method per course will be offered in Brightspace, considering the possibilities that are available at that moment. The information in Brightspace is leading during the Corona crisis, even if this does not match the information in the Prospectus.
Entry requirements
Open to Master’s and Research Master’s students from Psychology.
Course Multivariate Data Analysis at introductory level.
Description
Many psychologists study relationships between constructs. In mediation and moderation analysis, we examine how these relationships occur, and when they occur. For example, the relationship between stress and depression might be moderated by the degree of social support. Topics addressed in this course are mediation and moderation analysis with a continuous and a categorical variable, mediation in longitudinal research, moderator effects between multiple variables, and treatment-subgroup interactions. Both confirmatory as well as exploratory approaches are captured. The emphasis lies on conceptual knowledge and practical skills.
Course objectives
The general goal of this course is to develop insight in the possibilities of mediation and moderation analysis.
After this course the students will be able to:
explain the concepts of mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation, and related issues (e.g., mean centering, causal steps approach);
choose the appropriate analysis for different research questions involving mediation and/or moderation;
perform mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation analysis in SPSS with categorical and/or continuous variables, and
interpret the results of such mediation, moderator, and moderated mediation analyses.
Timetable
For the timetables of your lectures, work groups and exams, please select your study programme in: Psychology timetables
Registration
Course
Students need to enroll for lectures and work group sessions. Master’s course registration
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.
Mode of instruction
Eight 2-hours (web-)lectures and eight 2-hours work group sessions (several sessions in pc rooms). Attendance to the work group sessions is mandatory.
Assessment method
Two take-home assignments;
Final written exam including interpretation of practical examples.
Mandatory literature for the exam: Book by Hayes (2018), complementary articles (o.a., Hayes, 2015; Montoya & Hayes, 2016), lecture slides, and solutions to the exercises.
The final grade will be a weighted average of the examination grade (0.70) and the take-home assignments (0.15 each). The examination grade should be 5.0 or higher.
Reading list
Hayes, A. F. (2018). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach (2nd Ed.). New York: The Guilford Press.
Articles on Blackboard.
Contact information
Dr. P. de Heus deheus1@fsw.leidenuniv.nl