Annotated Links
APA Style Sheet From the website: APA Lite for College Papers is a concise guide to crafting research papers in the style of the American Psychological Association (APA). It is based on the current [6th] edition of the APA Publication Manual (2009) while incorporating guidelines for Material Other Than Journal Articles found in the last edition. Specifically covers writing scientific papers at the undergraduate level. Free for the downloading (in PDF).
APA Style: Summary of Changes in the 6th Edition Summary of what's new in the 6th edition, including chapter by chapter changes and links to two free tutorials on What's New and the Basics of APA Style.
APA Manual Corrections: Overview of corrections to the 6th Edition Corrections to the First Printing of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition (July 2009). Corrections to the first printing of the manual have been organized into four categories in an effort to group like changes together: Errors in APA Style Rules, Errors in Examples, Clarifications, and Nonsignificant Typos. In the first three categories, each correction is followed by a brief explanation of the change that directs users to the relevant APA Style rule or section in the manual to provide context. Items in the fourth category, Nonsignificant Typos, are simply listed with no explanation, as the majority of these have no direct APA Style implications. Also includes links to the corrected sample papers (opens in PDF format).
APA Template Paper with Comments for Illustrating the 6th Edition of APA Style (2010) The Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP) is pleased to announce the following new resource This resource uses a 14-page undergraduate research paper to illustrate many features of the 6th edition of APA style by presenting the paper as a sample for students to emulate. Extensive comments in the margin call attention to the feature being highlighted. The sample paper has more extensive explanations of APA style than the sample papers in the APA Publication Manual and by not overlapping pages, users can read the entire paper’s content. Written by Jordan Buess and Rick Froman of John Brown University.
APA Writing Guide Online This online workshop developed by Purdue University provides a very thorough guide to APA sytle. In addition to its many online examples and explanations, it includes a list of books and websites for more information.
Citing Electronic References in APA Format The American Psychological Association updates this page regularly as new types of media emerge requiring additions, changes, or clarifications to APA style.
Applied vs. Theoretical Research: The Absurdly Artificial Divide Between Pure and Applied Research. The snobbish idea that pure science is in some way superior to applied science dates to antiquity'' according to Stephen Quake in this opinion piece from The New York Times, February 17, 2009.
Conducting Psychological Research for Science Fairs: A Teacher's Guide and Resource Manual. Science fairs provide students with an opportunity to engage in exciting discoveries, learning, and potential awards and recognition. This resource provides guidance to teachers of high school psychology courses as they engage students in the scientific method and eventually supervise students who wish to participate in local, regional, and national science fair competitions in psychology. (Printed in 2004) In PDF format.
Correlation and Causation From the website: Looking for examples of correlation and causation? You’ve heard it a million times: correlation doesn’t mean causation. Still need help? Well, here’s a humorous look at this topic that I think drives home the point. The Psych Files "Breaking News" explores whether satisfied workers are more productive and whether living together causes divorce. I hope you enjoy this unique video episode of The Psych Files. (Originally released November 16, 2009).
Data Visualization Tools and Videos The Social Psychology Network (an excellent site, if you're not already familiar with it) features these links to web videos that dramatically illustrate why statistics are worth studying and how data animation is being used to address problems such as climate change, global poverty, and the spread of HIV. Inspiring, informative, and highly recommended for teachers, students, and anyone who analyzes statistical data according to founder and webmaster Scot Plous, Wesleyan University.
Examples and Links Paul C. Cozby at California State University, Fullerton, wrote the textbook Methods in Behavioral Research: Resources for Research in Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences. This homepage for the book includes web resources and examples of key concepts. Very useful even if you are not familiar with his textbook.
Correlation or Causation? Jon Mueller, North Central College, Naperville, IL, devised this fun activity to help students think critically about what they read in the popular press and about distinguishing between correlation and causation in particular. Many of the actual headlines listed here imply causation when the research was merely correlational. Jon uses this resource to help my students identify the language of causal relationships and correlations, identify the tell-tale signs that an experiment or a correlational study is being described in the media when there is no mention of the type of study, and to learn how to evaluate the quality and nature of evidence in judging the merit of a claim. See the link above for sample assignments he uses with his classes along with the actual headlines.
e-Textbook: Qualitative Methods Workbook From the electronic textbook created by George Boeree of Shippensburg University for his Qualitative Research Methods course. Includes chapters on Phenomenological Description, Structural Analysis, Observation, Interviewing and other techniques.
Glossary adopted from Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioral Research edited by A. Tashakkori and C. B. Teddlie, (2003).
How to Conduct Research Gary McCullough, University of Texas, created this laboratory manual to guide students through the process. Includes sections on finding an idea, researching background literature, generating a viable hypothesis, operationalizing variables, writing a proposal, the IRB review process, collecting data, analyzing results, reporting results and presenting the findings. (Opens in PDF format)
How to give a good talk in Psychology or other Sciences Kevin Grobman, wrote the following advice primarily to help psychology graduate students improve their talks at a conference, pro-sem, or brown-bag. By speaking to lots of graduate students (and recently being one myself), I felt the most important areas to cover are developing self-confidence and knowing how to target a particular audience. Most of this advice is applicable to other speakers (e.g., undergraduates), other fields (e.g., business, physical sciences), and other medium (e.g., poster presentations). Also includes links for a PDF file version of this essay and the 40-minute slide presentation which inspired it.
Internal and External Validity of Experiments Materials developed by W. Huitt, J. Hummel, & D. Kaeck.
Internal Validity Tutorial From the website: This tutorial is a component of the courseware of the Psychology Centre of Athabasca University. The tutorial is used in Athabasca University's Psychology 404 (Experimental Psychology). It was authored by Dr. David Polson, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria. Dr. Cheuk Ng, Dr. Lyle Grant and Dean Mah of Athabasca University provided various content-related, technical and instructional-design assistance.
Lecture Notes from Tom O'Connor' Research Methods course at North Carolina Wesleyan College.
Links AmoebaWeb maintained by Douglas Degelman at Vanguard University of Southern California, features an impressive array of links on specific topics in measurement and research methods.
On line Textbook By Christopher L. Heffner: This ten chapter research methods text is written for both undergraduate and graduate students in education, psychology, and the social sciences. It focuses on the basics of research design and the critical analysis of professional research in the social sciences from developing a theory, selecting subjects, and testing subjects to performing statistical analysis and writing the research report.
Overview Susan Carol Losh, Department of Educational Research at Florida State University put together these 8 online guides for her class on Methods of Educational Research. They include sections on variables and hypotheses, reliability, validity, causality and experiments, quasi-experiments, survey research, focus groups, archival research and more.
SPSS Statistical Tutorials The Department of Statistics at Texas A&M put together these tutorials on using SPSS for data analysis. Includes informatiaon on installing and using SPSS, manipulating data, basic data analysis and graphs, regression, analysis of variance, and analysis of covariance. Each topic contains a dozen or so tutorials on specific topics.
SPSS Assistance Site The Psychology Department at the University of George put together this website on using SPSS for data analysis and reporting the results in APA format. Topics include dependent samples t-test, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA, Pearson correlations, and chi-square tests. Each topic includes an assignment, a worksheet and data to play with, a step-by-step guide of how to do the test, a sample output, and examples of how to present the results in APA format. (Note that the pictures associated with the links on the left are broken, but the links themselves are functional).
Online Statistics Calculator Calculate 56 different statistical estimates from summary data with this free site. Daniel S. Soper, Cal State Fullerton, designed these calculators to help students and others in the research community. Includes: effect size, chi-square, ANOVA, confidence intervals and much more.
Statistics Glossary. The STEPS (STatistical Education through Problem Solving) consortium has developed problem-based modules to support the teaching of Statistics in various fields including Psychology. As part of their online support, Valerie J. Easton and John H. McColl maintain this statistics glossary for all of the terms covered in a basic course. The glossary is arranged alphabetically or organized around key topics including presenting data, sampling, probability, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, categorical data, nonparametric methods, time series data, design of experiments, ANOVA, paired data, correlation, regression, and random variables and probability distributions.
Surveys: 20 Questions A Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results The National Council on Public Polls posted this essay by Sheldon Gawiser and G. Evans Witt as part of its mission to help educate journalists on the use of public opinion polls. Although they are talking about polls, many of their caveats apply to interpreting any research with survey or self-report data. From the website: The only polls that should be reported are "scientific" polls. A number of the questions here will help you decide whether or not a poll is a "scientific" one worthy of coverage – or an unscientific survey without value.
Tips and Tools The Social Psychology Network is an excellent source of links for research methods, report writing, and library research.
Visualizing statistical concepts Features cool visualizations of power and sample size calculations, statistical inference, sampling and distributions, and probability.
Assignments, Exercises, and Activities
Personality Labs: Exploring Personality Research Online Marcia Wehr at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida, has put together this extensive on-line course on Personality and Personal Growth. In this lab, students go on a World Wide Web scavenger hunt for research and applications of personality theories, search for interesting news about personality debates and research, search online journals and newsletters for recent research or interesting news articles on personality topics such as aggression, anxiety and coping, attachment, personality development, birth order and other topics related to personality traits and issues.
Research Article Review Steve Davis, North Central College, Naperville, IL, provides this syllabus from his Personality class. In it, he describes a number of interesting assignments including: Research Article Review, Personality Analysis, Cartoon Analysis, Newspaper Article Analysis, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Examples of Defense Mechanisms or Parapraxes, Personal Reflection on Identity vs. Role Confusion, Locus of Control, Choosing a Mate (gender differences, evolutionary theory), Peak Experiences Exercise (Maslow) and a RET Self-help Exercise (Albert Ellis).
Validity and Reliability Mark Mitchell and Janina Jolley for the Research Design Explained website provide these materials for students to administer a pencil-and-paper version of the Ice Cream Personality Test to a friend. Based on Miserandino, M. (2006). I scream, you scream: Teaching validity and reliability via the ice cream personality test. Teaching of Psychology, 33, 265-268.
Electronic Texts
Writing the Empirical Journal Article Taken from the 2003 book The Compleat Academic: A Career Guide by John M. Darley, Mark P. Zanna, and Henry L. Roediger, this chapter provides a step by step guide to understanding what goes where in a APA-format paper. Also includes a guide to good writing and avoiding common grammatical errors. In PDF format.
Examples and Illustrations
Factor Analysis and Sea Monsters Kevin Grobman, who maintains the DevPsy.org website, uses the brilliant metaphor of underwater sea monsters in order to help students understand what factor analysis is. Check out his cute graphics and explanation here. He also includes a link to PowerPoint slides you can use in your own lectures.
Lecture Notes
Slide Presentation Lecture and lecture notes by Sandra K. Webster, Westminster College.
Slide Presentations
APA Style Citations: Why and How The Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP) is pleased to announce the following new resource: Why and How to Write APA-Style Citations in the Body and Reference Section of Your Papers (2010) by Drew C. Appleby (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis). This resource is a 35-slide packet (in Microsoft PowerPoint®) that instructors can use to lecture about writing APA-style citations, following guidelines of the 6th edition of The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. In addition, a short file for the instructor provides suggestions for how to use the slides in classes.
Tests, Measures, and Scales
Audio and Video
Against All Odds: Inside Statistics Annenberg media presents this instructional series on statistics for college and high school classrooms and adult learners; 26 half-hour video programs and coordinated books. Includes distributions, sampling, causation, surveys, experimental design, probability, significance tests and much more. The best part of all, you can view them online!
APA Template Paper with Comments for Illustrating the 6th Edition of APA Style (2010) The Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP) is pleased to announce the following new resource This resource uses a 14-page undergraduate research paper to illustrate many features of the 6th edition of APA style by presenting the paper as a sample for students to emulate. Extensive comments in the margin call attention to the feature being highlighted. The sample paper has more extensive explanations of APA style than the sample papers in the APA Publication Manual and by not overlapping pages, users can read the entire paper’s content. Written by Jordan Buess and Rick Froman of John Brown University.
Discovering Psychology: Understanding Research (Program 2) The complete updated series hosted by Philip Zimbardo is available online for streaming in the classroom or for outside of class viewing as well as in DVD format. From the website: This program examines the scientific method and the ways in which data are collected and analyzed — in the lab and in the field — with an emphasis on sharpening critical thinking in the interpretation of research findings. With Dr. Christina Maslach of the University of California, Berkeley, and Dr. Daryl Bem of Cornell University. Updated. 30 minutes.
The Psych Files: Basic Research Design Parts 1 (Episode 45) and Part 2 Factorial Designs (Episode 52) Michael Brit, former professor of psychology, broadcasts a podcast about psychology called The Psych Files. Part I features: Independent variables, dependent variables, t-tests, anovas, experiments, between subjects, within subjects, confounds…confused? You won’t be after you watch this week’s video episode. Learn research methods in psychology the fun way - by choosing an interesting topic. In part II: We delve into a two by two factorial research design. Sounds dull you say? Well, I’ll try my best to make it kinda fun.