OVERVIEW

The course covers the main methods and techniques for designing and carrying out research projects in psychology and the most common statistical methods for hypothesis testing.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The aim of the course is to provide students with knowledge of the main research designs in psychology (experiments, quasi-experiments, observational studies) and the ability to analyze data using the most adequate statistical method.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims at developing the ability to perform a literature review, to critically read a scientific paper, to design, develop and acarry out research projects in psychology, to analyze data and correctly interpret the results, and to communicate research findings to inform the public opinion and the stakeholders.

PREREQUISITES

No specific preequirements are needed.

TEACHING METHODS

Combination of traditional lectures (36 hours) and assignments to be completed between the last lecture of a week and the first of the next. Depending on Italian Government's restrictions to social gatherings due to the Covid-19 epidemic and/or other factors that prevent the access to classrooms, lectures can be delivered online through the Microsoft Teams platform. Check the Aulaweb website of the course for further information. 

Students can also interact with the teacher and the other students on an online forum (see the Aulaweb website), where they can post solutions to exercises and questions about the topics covered by the course. Students can ask the teacher to be involved in his research activities.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

In the first part of the course, the basic topics in research methodology and in the application of the scientific method will be reviewed. It will be shown how to perform a literature search and review on the internet and how a scientific paper is drafted, along with the publication process. In the second part of the course, statistical methods for the analysis of data (nominal,  ordinal, and metric variables) from experimental and observational psychological research will be presented. Specifically, statistical tests for comparing one, two, or more independent and dependent samples and for testing association between variables (correlation and regression) will be covered. The course will introduce the difference between statistical, practical, and clinical significance and the common measures of effect size for each statistical test. The main aim of this part of the course is to provide students with the ability to choose the adequate statistical test given the level of measurement and the research question and to interpret the results of the analysis.

A laboratory activity (Utilizzo di software per l'analisi statistica [Software for statistical analyses]) is associated to this course. The activity aims at developing students' skills in using a statistical software and correctly read its output.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coolican, H .(2014). Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology. Sixth Edition. New York: Psychology Press [Chapters 1-6, 8-9, 11, 13, 16-19, 21-24]

[Please e-mail to the teacher if you have issues in finding this book]

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

CARLO CHIORRI (President)

FABRIZIO BRACCO

LESSONS

LESSONS START

Lectures will start on September 22th, 2020 [Please note that they will be delivered in Italian, although foreign students can ask questions in English, French, and Spanish]

Class schedule

EXPERIMENTAL AND STATISTICAL METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Exams in classroom

The exam in classroom is a written test (105 minutes) that comprises open-ended questions (80% of the final grade) on theoretical issues in research methods and statistical techniques and single exercise (20% of the final grade) on the interpretation of an output of a statistical analysis.

During the exam students cannot use as a reference books, notes, nor they can use computers, smartphones, smartwatches, or other electronic devices. Any violation of these rules will lead to the annulment of the exam.

Answers must be written with a pen only on the sheets provided by the exam commission (additional sheets are available once the initial ones have been filled completely). Answers written with a pencil that are not graphs or diagrams will not be considered valid.

Each question and exercise shows the highest scores that can be achieved with a perfect answer. The total possible score is 31. The exam is passed with a score equal to or greater than 18. Once the exam has been passed, students can ask for an optional oral exam through which they can increase their grade to up to two points. This oral examination will consist in two questions about the application of the concepts covered by the course.

Students with certified learning disabilities, special educational needs, and/or any sort of disability will be given more time (from 30 to 50% more) and will be granted the use of the appropriate compensatory tools, but they must notify this to the teacher a few days before the test, as a dedicated page for the test need to be published. The teacher cannot guarantee the fulfilling of the student needs in case of absence of notification. Should there be severe hindrance to taking the test in the way described here, the student can ask the teacher for ana alternative way.

Students can reserve their seat at the exam here: https://servizionline.unige.it/studenti/esami/. Note that the website is accessible to up to 4 days before the exam day. If the student has not reserved a seat, the teacher cannot guarantee the participation to the exam.

Distance exam

Should the situation require to take exams at distance, the content of the exams will be the same as the exams in the classroom, but with a shorter time (30 mins) and a shorter list of exercises and open-ended questions.

In this case, the day of the test a new page on the Aulaweb website of the course will appear: "Prova di verifica del [date]" a few minutes before the scheduled time. Students who have properly signed up can access the page, open/download the participants' list, find their name and the number of the test they have been assigned to, and take the test. Each student must take the test that has been assigned to them, otherwise they will automatically fail.

The answers must be provided in a Word/Open Office Writer file whose template will be provided together with the list of exercises and open-ended questions. Answers provided on different files will be considered invalid and the student will fail the exam.

On the front page the student must fill in the fields for name, surname, matriculation number, date of the test, number of the test. Before each answer it must be clearly declared the exercise/question the answer is referring to.

When finished, the student must convert the file to PDF and upload it to the Aulaweb page of the test. Note that the system only accepts PDF files no bigger than 10MB, and it does not allow the upload of files after the time is up. Students are invited to take these details into account, as files in different format and/or turned in in a different way will not be graded.

It is strongly advised to practice the use of word processing software for this task, especially for learning how to insert equations and graphs. Tutorials on how to do this are available on the internet and YouTube.

The teacher declines any responsibility for any technical issue.

Before being graded, files are inspected for plagiarism by a dedicated software. Any answer that will be found to be identical to textbooks and/or other files will be given a grade of zero, hence students are invited to phrase their answers in their own words.

The grading process is similar to the exam in the classroom, except that errors will be more severely penalized, given that the student will have access to devices and textbooks not allowed in the other situation. The final grade is the sum of the grades of each exercise and open-ended question, rounded to the nearest integer. The exam is passed if the score is at least 18. The grade is immediately registered in the student's career, but the student unsatisfied with it can reject it. Then, they can take the exams again (in this case any grade previously obtained is definitely lost and will never be considered again), or can ask for an optional oral exam through which they can increase their grade to up to two points. This oral examination will consist in two questions about the application of the concepts covered by the course. This interview can grant the student a maximum of two more points, but points can also be subtracted in case of poor performance.

Students with certified learning disabilities, special educational needs, and/or any sort of disability will be given more time (from 30 to 50% more) and will be granted the use of the appropriate compensatory tools, but they must notify this to the teacher a few days before the test, as a dedicated page for the test need to be published. The teacher cannot guarantee the fulfilling of the student needs in case of absence of notification. Should there be severe hindrance to taking the test in the way described here, the student can ask the teacher for ana alternative way.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Open-ended questions test the ability of the student to comprehensively and thoroughly present theoretical issues in research methods and statistical analyses, using the adequate jargon and the correct spelling of techinical terms and authors. The answers are scored also grounding on their potential clarity for non-experts or stakeholders. The answers to the exercise are rated considering the ability of the student to correctly identify the variables at hand, their level of measurement and their role in a causal model, to write down the null and the substantive hypotheses, to adequately interpret the results from the output, and to report the correct effect size measure depening on the statistical test used and its interpretation guidelines. 

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

Students with certified learning disabilities, special educational needs, and/or any sort of disability that can prevent them to take the exam as described are invited to e-mail the teacher to agree upon a way of taking the exam that suits their needs.  

Students can join the research activity of the teacher of the following topics:

• Development and validation of psychological tests
• Italian adaptation of tests originally in a foreign language
• Multivariate statistical analyses: factor analysis, structural equation modeling, Rasch and Item Response Theory Models
• Personality traits and individual differences
• Personality disorders and clinical assessment
• Cognitive styles