Diversity and Inclusion
Psychological research is conducted by humans and thus vulnerable to human fallibilities and biases in both the conduct and interpretation of the research. Perhaps the most famous historical example of this is the sad history surrounding homosexuality and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_the_DSM). The inclusion of psychological disorders in the DSM was decided by vote of a membership made up of practicing psychiatrists who based their decision on their professional practice and case studies drawn from it. However, this empirical base was subject to selection bias. People who come into contact with psychiatrists are more likely to be experiencing some form of psychological distress, producing a biased sample. Psychiatrists had far less contact with psychologically well-adjusted gay and lesbian people and this clouded their professional judgment in treating homosexuality as a psychological disorder. This was only reversed after considerable activism pointing out the error and advocating for a revision of the DSM. Another common source of bias involves availability sampling in which research participants may be drawn from populations that under-represent the diversity of the general population, but results reflecting largely middle-class young white samples are generalized to others without sufficient positive empirical evidence. Systematic research design can provide valuable tools for reducing biases in psychological research. However, values shape every aspect of psychological research from the choice of research questions to the evaluation of the strength of evidence provided by a study. The responsibility remains with the researcher and the consumer of research findings to make values explicit and critically reflect on them. Likewise, past research findings are always subject to re-interpretation based on developments in theory and social context. It is my hope and intent that this course can play at least a small role in helping students further develop critical reasoning skills related to conducting and consuming psychological research that can in turn help the profession avoid repeating past mistakes and do its best to serve as a force for good.

Jhangiani, R. S., Chiang, I-C., A., Cuttler, C. & Leighton, D. C. (N.D.).  Research Methods in Psychology (4th edition, American Version). 
https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/

Non-Class Time
You need to budget time outside of class to complete the reading and work on assignments.  Complete the reading for each week prior to the corresponding class meeting.  Note, many students find it helpful to read some materials more than once.  Only the first time through the reading need precede the corresponding class. If you have questions about the material, please post them to the Discussion Forum designated for questions about research design and methods (or email me and I will post an anonymous version of your question with my answer).  If my answer does not fully resolve your question, please follow-up with a revised question.  Do not wait until the last minute to turn in assignments because the learning management system can experience service interruptions and your personal technology can also glitch at inopportune times.

Remember that the more you think about how material connects with other things, the better you are able to remember it.  As you work through the material from this course, I encourage you to think about how it applies to research that you read about in other courses.

If your question is related to an assignment, phrase your question in a way that does not involve any spoilers for other students working on the same assignment.  If in doubt, email me privately rather than directly posting on a discussion board.  I will then paste an anonymized and, if necessary, edited version of the question and answer to the discussion board.

Feel free to search for answers to your questions on the Web.  However, please do not attempt to post questions related to the course using online fora like Cross Validated or Stack Overflow.  These are precious resources maintained by busy people donating their time and expertise.  It is not appropriate to lean on them for questions related to a course when you have ready access to an instructor.  Save that for later in your career when you are no longer a student.  (Also, you will probably get a terse answer that either refers you to introductory material or assumes more background knowledge than you currently have.)  You should be able to complete assignments based on the provided course materials but if you make use of additional resources be sure to credit them in what you turn in (see Academic Integrity).

Everyone from me to your class mates are depending on you to ask questions when you have them.  If you have a question, you can be fairly certain that others have the same question.  Your question is not a "dumb question" but asking the question is the smartest thing that you can do.  Everyone else will appreciate your having asked the question.

Class Time
The course design is a partially "flipped classroom".  I will not lecture.  We will use class time to answer your questions and complete in-class exercises to help reinforce learning.  (However, you will still need to devote time outside of class to completing assignments.)  The course is designed to help you actively engage with the material so that you will understand it better and remember it longer. 

If you have questions about the reading, in addition to posting them online, you can bring them to class and I will try to answer them there.  I want to leave some flexibility to use the class time in the manner you will find most useful, the more questions you ask, the more class time will be devoted to answering them.

Reader's Log Entries
There is a Reader's Log entry for each assigned chapter from the text book.  Complete these along with the corresponding reading before the corresponding class meeting (see Schedule for due dates and times).  Each Reader's Log entry should be between 200 and 300 words (i.e., 250 plus or minus 50, about one page).

Each Reader's Log entry should have the following components:
(a) Explain a concept of your choice from the chapter.
(b) Explain a second concept of your choice from the chapter.
(c) Explain how the two concepts are related in some way (e.g., conceptually, procedurally, in terms of their goals or purposes, historically, etc.).
(d) Use a concrete example to illustrate how they are related. 
  
Poster One
Poster I relates to Parts I and II of the course. 

Step 1: Select and register a research article
Choose a research article from a peer reviewed journal that has not already been chosen by another student.  To check that a journal is peer reviewed, find the journal's web page and look at the journal description and/or instructions to authors.  The study reported in the article must use either an experimental, nonexperimental or quasi-experimental design and include at least one measured variable.  Post your choice of research article to the associated Discussion Forum on the Learning Management System course site.  Use the citation for the article as your subject heading.  Include the full reference for the article in the body of your post.  If you do not know the difference between a citation and reference, look it up online.  If you do not have a copy of the APA Publication Manual, the Library lists useful resources here: https://guides.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/c.php?g=288322&p=7472824

Step 2: Create and upload your poster
Submit your poster as a PDF (Portable Document Format) file.  One popular approach is to create the poster using presentation software such as PowerPoint.  Set the page size to 3 feet tall by 4 feet wide (36 x 48).  You can also create tables or figures in other software and paste them into the editable document.  When you are done, save, print, or export to PDF format.  It usually works best to organize the poster into three columns.  You can find examples onlne.  You may also find the following short article helpful: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8258719/

Poster One should have the following elements:
(a) A header that contains the title of the poster, your name, and your affiliation (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY).
(b) A section labeled "Abstract" providing a summary of the entire poster (100-200 words).  Summarize the content, do not just list topics covered.
(c) A section labeled "Research Report" that summarizes the study from the research report that you chose including the citation, a brief description of the methodology, and a brief description of the main results.  If you chose an article with multiple studies, just pick one (that meets the above requirements) for the poster. (findings; 100-200 words).
(d) A section labeled "Study Design" that focuses on the study design.  Clearly identify whether the study uses and (a) experimental, (b) nonexperimental or (c) quasi-experimental design and cite specific sentences form the report that provide textual evidence to support your categorization of the design.  Identify the independent and dependent variables in the design. (150-250 words)
(e) A section labeled "Design Evaluation" that clearly states two strengths and two weaknesses of the design.  Use specific details from the study to describe these strengths an weaknesses.  Note that Part I and Part II of the course involve numerous features that distinguish better from worse psychological research, all of which are fair game for this section of the poster.  If you draw a blank, read through the table of contents or chapter summaries to jog your memory and give you ideas for possible strengths and weaknesses. (200-300 words)
(h) A section labeled "Conclusion" that provides a summary and conclusion for the entire poster (100-200 words)
(i) A section labeled "References" that provides the full reference for the research article and any other cited sources (as long as needed but try not to exceed 5 references).

Step 1:  Register your research report (as with Poster One).  Be sure to choose a study that reports at least on descriptive statistic and at least on inferential statistic (which you can usually recognize by either a p value or a confidence level for a confidence interval, denoted as C).