UIC

Psychology 242; Research in Psychology
Dr. David J. McKirnan

Week 6, Sampling.

Lecture notes

This week we will finish with basic experimental design, and discuss sampling.

RDS image

Key issues in gathering a research sample:

Who do you want to generalize to? Is a Probability or random sample possible? Types of Non-probability or “convenience” sampling

Depression ScreenLecture notes are here.

Readings

Chapters 7 & 10.

Readinngs:  An article from the New York Times on the importance of context in interpreting results from large studies of mothers who work.  A Tribune piece on Sampling, statistics, and interpreting school test scores.  Finally, the image to the right shows the extensive screening that takes place for a drug trial of anti-depressants.   Click for a journal article that asks whether participants in drug studies of anti-depressants are representative of depressed patients generally.  The article can be a bit technical, but I will use it in lecture

 

Discussion group Assignment

(Click for a Word copy of Week 6 assignment).

Rewrite your paper topic.
Take your discussion from last week or any direct feedback you have gotten and rewrite your paper topic.  Try to make your current topic more clear or specific rather than starting from scratch, but feel free to change completely if you decide to.

Again, look at the paper assignment to see what your term paper will consist of.  To get comfortable reading journal articles go to Guide to Psychology Articles.

Phenomenon: What is the larger question? What are you interested in explaining? 

Theory:  How does it work? What causes what? Why or how does it happen?

Be clearer about your Hypothetical Constructs and how they relate to one another.  Now that you got some basic thoughts down from last week, try to hone these into more specific concepts.  Frame these in “cause and effect” -type language to address how or why your phenomenon works. 

Remember - your Introductory text book is a great place to find overviews of (and references to) general psychological theories.

Hypothesis:  What is your specific prediction?

Make a prediction about specific variables that can be operationally defined, and that reflect the hypothetical constructs underlying your theory.  The most common problem students have at this point is not being specific or concrete enough in their hypothesis.

You can be proposing either a true experiment – where you control the Independent Variable and you randomly assign people to experimental v. control groups – or a quasi-experiment where you do not control the IV or you use existing groups.
 
We will return to these questions for your assignment in Week 8, where you will begin a first draft of your term paper.

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