Research Methods In Psychology Dr. Jacquelyn H. Berry Department of Psychology State University of New York at New Paltz Online course offering – debuted Summer 2015, SUNY New Paltz

Research Methods The course is a pillar course – undergraduate majors are required to take it in order to graduate in psychology. Taken immediately after Statistics it encompasses methodology for both: – Quantitative Research (Experimental design: t-tests, ANOVAs, Correlation – Qualitative Research (Focus groups, Interviews, Participant observation, etc.

Course Description – Typical (Seated) – 3 credits of textbook/lectures revolving around the different psychological methodologies – 1 laboratory credit; mechanics of turning the research methodology and running analyses into SPSS – Exams/Quizzes/Tests – Research project: students required to collect data as part of a personal project, analyze it, and then conduct the statistical analysis and report their results in a paper

Course Set Up (My Online) 9 weeks / 9 modules Each module contained: – 1-2 chapters per module/week – Laboratory assignment* – Quiz (participatory, self-completing) – Quiz (graded) – Video resources – Slides

Deliverables Online self-graded quizzes (weekly) Graded quizzes (weekly) Laboratory assignments (weekly) Research Paper – Part A: Intro and Methods – A proposal due at halfway point – Part B: Artificial data set “testing” their hypothesis developed individually with Instructor – Part C: Results and Discussion (put together with first part of paper) due at the end.

Real Challenge: HOW I DID THE LABORATORY Online content is online content. Lab sessions require: Direct and active application of technology Interactive help between Instructor and Students This means that in “real-time” the instructor must be actively teaching the lab session and also providing help to the students as they navigate SPSS

How I Did the Lab – VDI 1.VDI – Virtual Desktop Interface – How the student’s home computer or laptop hooks into the academic computing system on campus. – A “client” is installed; when opened this results in a separate desktop window with all the functionality of a campus computer

How I Did the Lab – BB 2.Blackboard – Collaborate Tool – Application and desktop sharing functionality available right through Blackboard. – Instructor creates a live, interactive, online session that students log into

How I Did the Lab – SPSS 3.SPSS – Students and I both have access to the latest SPSS Version using VDI!

How I Did the Lab – Just 2 windows

How I Did the Lab (cont.) Laboratory session at weekly scheduled time – Thursdays 10 – 12 EDT – Lab assignment due within a week of online session – Lab sessions were optional – BLACKBOARD COLLABORATE HAS RECORDINGS – Recordings available within 24 hours of session – At any time during the week they could access and watch the recording of the lab session – Completed the lab assignment in spss, ed me the files

Why this worked Academic computing – VDI was ready and worked perfectly as planned Instructor – New to the process (lots of hand- holding by TLC) Instructor – Technical competency Students – Motivated and ready

Observations post hoc We couldn’t have done this prior to Summer 2015; technology was not available. Literally the minute this was able to be deployed we did so. We are the only SUNY to be doing this. Brought in new students Now that its been done it will be easy to do again.

Grade Distribution