Office Hours

Jen - Wednesdays 2 - 3
Amanda - Tuesday 11-12

General overview

The lab portion of this class accounts for 30% of your grade. In addition, assignments such as your APA style research report will be extensively discussed in the course of the lab, so it will probably be very helpful for you to attend. We will also be reviewing course material covered in lecture and the lab gives you the opportunity to get some hands-on practice in applying the theoretical aspects of the course material. For many students, the material covered in this course is new. You should take advantage of the lab time, your lab instructor, and your classmates to ask questions. The lab allows students to put into practice the material covered in the lectures, hence making it somewhat less dry and abstract. You will be expected to learn how to think scientifically, and an important part of science is practice. By doing exercises and developing project ideas, you will be able to get a well-rounded notion of what research in Psychology consists of.

Lab activities/homework
On a weekly basis, you will be assigned graded assignments. These account for 10% of your final grade. You MUST bring the lab manual/material to class. Failure to do so will result in a loss of 10% of the grade for all assignments done that day. Be sure you give yourself plenty of time to download anything you need from the web to avoid system outages or other problems.

Some of the assignments will be done in lab, either in small groups or individually. Your lab instructor will then either collect them or go over them in lab. To get full credit on these assignments, you need to attend lab and complete the assignment. If you are not in lab, you may turn in the assignment the following week for 50% of the credit - but only if you notify your lab instructor ahead of time. Some assignments will be assigned as homework. These will be graded for content and correctness - so you may have to work harder to get full credit. Late submissions will be penalized by 10% for each day they are late. If you cannot be in lab the day they are due, you must notify your instructor and make special arrangements.

Participation
You will be earning 5% of your final grade through participation credit. In order to earn this, you must participate actively in the lab. This means, not only coming to class, but interacting in a constructive manner with your instructor and other students. Answering questions or asking (relevant) questions are two ways to earn this credit. Your lab instructor will be asking you to review the material covered in lecture each week by asking you specific questions about the material. At the end of the semester, each one of you should have volunteered an answer at least three times in order to get credit. You may answer more than three times, but your instructor will ensure that all students have an equal chance to participate. In the absence of volunteers, the instructor will call upon different students each week. You will be able to check your progress each week during the semester.

If, at the end of the semester, you are short one mark, the requirement might be fulfilled if you have had perfect attendance and no assignments have been turned in late.

Attendance
Attendance is not mandatory. However, if you choose not to attend, keep in mind that you may not earn credit for some of the lab assignments. If you need to miss lab one week because of conflicting schedules, you must notify your instructor and make special arrangements. Make-ups for unjustified absences will not be allowed.

Please be in lab on time. The times for the lab are times you are expected to be in class Ð please do not ask to get out early every week.

Group project
A group project will account for 15% of the final lab grade. In this project, you will work within a small group to will develop a research question and a hypothesis you are interested in testing. You will also develop a fully detailed method and conduct the experiment with students in the other lab sections as participants. To do so, you will not only need to understand theoretical concepts, but also the appropriate ethical guidelines for research with human participants. All the information you need will be covered in the course of the semester, and your lab instructor will be assisting you in developing a research project. Part of your assignment will be to do background research, stimuli selection and preparation, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, and presenting your project to Dr. Cutting, the lab instructors, and your classmates at the end of the semester.
Keep in mind a few details, however:
1) all experiments must be limited in duration as they will be conductedwithin lab time (each group will have no more than 15 min);
2) we will not have access to computers or other materials, other than overhead projectors, etc. (you may bring items from home such as radios, etc.);
3) in designing your experiment, remember you must provide the stimuli Ð so carefully budget your project;
4) your classmates will be the participants in your experiment & you will
participate in theirs - think about this as you think of ideas and avoid discussing your project too extensively with other studentsÉ this is your group's project;
5) statistically significant results are always welcome - but are NOT necessary for your group to obtain full credit in the assignment (well-designed and well-conducted experiments are worth much more as a learning experience than results);
6) you must design an experiment, not an observational or a correlational study; and finally,
7) have fun - this is your project and you can make it as interesting as you want.

Finally, remember this is supposed to be a learning experience. By coming to lecture and to lab regularly, the material covered will be easier to digest and remember. By participating actively and making the lab a place for cooperative and constructive interaction, you will be learning better and have no problems mastering the course material.

Timeline for Group projects
WEEK 1	Divide into groups of 4-5 people each Describe projects & expectations Go over timeline
WEEK 2	Groups start discussing ideas/research question
WEEK 3	Decide upon research question Start literature search Ð each group member to find 2 articles to bring to lab next week
WEEK 4	Discuss articles found by group Start working on Introduction section - due next week
WEEK 5	Turn in literature review (one per group) WITH all Abstracts
WEEK 6	Begin discussing variables
WEEK 7	Develop design/procedure
WEEK 8	Continue work on design/materials/procedure
WEEK 9	Turn in Methods Section and Appendix
WEEK 10	Revise Methods Run Pilot study within Group
WEEK 11	Run group projects Labs will have students from other lab as participants Turn in RATING SHEET #1
WEEK 12	NO LAB - meet to code & analyze data
WEEK 13	Begin work on poster presentation
WEEK 14	Finalize poster Data analysis
WEEK 15	Thanksgiving - NO labs
WEEK 16	Present poster Turn in Results & Reference section Turn in RATING SHEET #2

Return to the main class syllabus page

Feel free to e-mail us if you have questions:

jccutti@ilstu.edu
jhcoane@ilstu.edu
amkearn@ilstu.edu