Psychological Inquiry

Methods of Psychological Inquiry

Paper No. 165.748 DC
Points: 4
Time: Thursday 6-8 pm
Where: Fisher Rm 104
Coordinator John Hattie
Professor, Head of School of Education
j.hattie@auckland.ac.nz

Description of course:

The course aims to develop proficiencies in methods of psychological inquiry, with a particular emphasis on quantitative methods. The aim is more related to interpretation and use of methods than a deep understanding of the technical aspects of the methods. That is, interpretation and use of methods is emphasised rather than derivations and formula. In 2002, a particular emphasis will be on structural equation modeling (more later)

During the course, students will be expected to become familiar with SPSS, Excel, and AMOS, and at least a major word processing package during the course. Access to computers and email is essential (there is a computer lab within the Fisher and University in Schools Building).

The aim of this course is that, by the end, you should:

• Understand the assumptions underlying different educational research paradigms/designs/methodologies
• Appreciate the role of research methods in ensuring valid, useful and reliable data or text
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the various cycles and stages used in different types of educational research
• Be able to critically evaluate published research reports from a number of different perspectives using criteria appropriate to that paradigm.
• Be able to conceive educational research using the structural modeling paradigm

The course will cover the following topics (these are not necessarily tied to particular weeks, as the length will be determined by class speed).

• The fundamentals of psychological inquiry in educational research: Quantitative, qualitative and the story.
• The fundamentals of quantitative enquiry -- effects and chance. The power and importance of effect-sizes and statistical significance.
• The importance of design: the trade off between the power to convince and generalisability
• The validity of experimental design
• Designing a small study -- the pitfalls and answers.
• The art of reviewing articles.
• The cleaning of data, and the verisimilitude of graphing
• The importance of spread and the concept of standard deviation
• Standardising scores and meta-analysis
• Designing quality items, tests and surveys
• Making inferences about means -- anova designs
• More on anova designs and contrast effects
• Relating variables -- correlation
• More on correlation and making inferences
• Factor analysis
• The next step: An introduction to Structural equation modelling.
• Writing studies for thesis and journals - the power of the story, and APA style.
• Exciting other topics (depending on student interest).

This year a theme will center around the development proficiency in structural equation modeling. Hence, during the first half we will be learning more about correlation and factor designs, and more on SEM in the second half. This is a powerful way of conceiving educational designs.

The course will be organised to encourage full participation by you. All participants will be expected to have completed all readings, to respond to any guiding questions, and to complete the assigned exercises for each class. A variety of topics will be discussed and you will be expected to read widely in the educational research literature. Like most courses, I am expecting you to have a breadth of knowledge across all topics and a depth in some. At the end of the course you should have enjoyed mastering at least some topics in depth but be aware of the major issues across the major research interpretation domains.

You are expected to be familiar with all policies relating to assignments, including the University of Auckland policies on plagiarism, etc., and that referencing will be undertaken using APA style. In fairness to all students, no late assignments will be accepted without penalty including an immediate 10% reduction in grade.

Text Books. There will be assigned reading from the Pelham book. It is expected that these will be read prior to class.

Web site. During this course, we will add resources to a Paper web site. Students will assist in the development of this site. I already have much material related to this course, and will provide more details in a subsequent class.

We will be learning about various methods. I am assuming you are completing this course to learn these methods, and thus do not assume depth of knowledge. So please be patient when learning some of these methods as they can be fun and challenging. Remember, we are in this together. I have devised a set of computer programs to assist in learning statistics and you will have access to these.