Dr Lucia Garcia-Lorenzo

This course is compulsory on the BSc in Psychological and Behavioural Science. This course is not available as an outside option nor to General Course students.

This course will offer students an understanding of  general processes in behavioural science and their relations to practical policy. The course is therefore suitable for students enrolled in other programmes who wish to enrich their understanding by drawing on detailed understanding of the psychological processes that underpin thought and behaviour. 

This course consists of introductory training in the philosophy, principles, and methods of research in psychology. It begins with an introduction to topics in the philosophy of science as they are relevant to asking behavioural questions, covering assumptions about how best to gain knowledge about the mind and behaviour in a scientific manner. This is presented alongside a review of the history of psychological science, from the nineteenth century onwards, demonstrating how the ways of asking and answering behavioural questions are influenced by the socio-political and technological developments of a time period and location. This will emphasise that the nature of the research questions, research methods and available data types are in continual development and revision.

The course then moves on to consider the various strategies one can employ in approaching a topic in psychology and how to formulate strong research questions, considering the range of data collection and analysis tools available with which to answer them. This leads into consideration of the issues and best practices involved in formulating concepts and variables (e.g., operationalisation), developing measures (e.g., validation), and designing experimental manipulations and interventions. The final section of the course considers practical and ethical issues in collecting and using psychological data.

This course, together with MY105 Introductory Quantitative Methods for Psychological and Behavioural Science, aims to provide students with integrated foundational knowledge and skills in research and analysis methods in psychological and behavioural science. Specific foundational methodological tools for collecting data will be presented in lectures, selected to reflect parallel theoretical issues raised in PS110 Foundations of Psychological Science and PS111 Foundations of Behavioural Science and Intergroup Relations, and to demonstrate the connections to the statistical techniques taught in MY105 Introductory Quantitative Methods for Psychological and Behavioural Science.

This integration is planned to operate according to the following general three-step schema:

Step 1: PS110 and/or PS111 introduces a data collection method as part of the discussion of the theory and data concerning a topic (e.g., PS111: the Implicit Attitude Test to investigate implicit prejudice)

Students are then guided in using this method to collect data using a pre set-up protocol on an internet-based research platform operating experimental software: no coding required by students: e.g.,  protocol for a two or three sample IAT experimental design comparing the implicit attitudes of two groups of people  to a selection of potential targets of prejudice

Step 2: MY105 develops the data analytic techniques to analyse the data collected by students (e.g., two-sample t test or one-way ANOVA)

Step 3: PS105 (this course) discusses the general research design and the specific method (and alternatives and variations), and students extend the method (e.g., to a different set of samples to compare, or different potential targets of prejudice, etc) and collect more data using the same design with the same general predictions. Students analyse this data themselves using the data analytic techniques developed in MY105, and relate the results back to the theoretical issues raised originally in Step 1.

30 hours of classes and 5 hours of classes in the MT.

The classes on this course will consist of:

1. 10 x 3 hour workshop/lecture hybrid sessions

2. 5 x 1 hour lab sessions

The intensive learning of subject-specific and generic skills during teaching time will be supplemented in three ways by activities in reading week.  These provide opportunities to take a wider perspective on the programme, to integrate its content and to develop personal and career-related skills:

1.  LSELife activities to develop key skills for the course

2. Collective formative feedback and planning sessions for the formative assessments.

3. Sessions on the integration of ideas from this course with ideas from other courses on the programme.

Students will be expected to produce 1 quiz, 1 other piece of coursework and 1 other piece of coursework in the MT.

Formative assignments on this courses are:

1. a multiple choice quiz covering course content from the first few weeks

2. a  laboratory report on a study conducted in the class (1500 words)

3. a draft research proposal utilising skills developed in the later weeks of the course (750 words)

Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Danziger, K. (1994). Constructing the subject: Historical origins of psychological research.

Dienes, Z. (2008). Understanding psychology as a science: An introduction to scientific and statistical inference. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Dunn, D. (2008). A short guide to writing about psychology.

Ellsworth, P. E., & Gonzalez, R. (2003). Questions and comparisons: Methods of research in social psychology. In M. A. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.), Sage handbook of social psychology (pp. 24-42). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Firebaugh, G. (2008). Seven rules for social research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Heiman, G. (2002). Research methods in psychology.

Hunt, M. (2007). The story of psychology. (2nd ed.) Random House.

Lowry, R. (1982). The Evolution of Psychological Theory: A critical history of concepts and presuppositions. Aldine.

Other (90%) in the MT, LT and ST.
Other (10%) in the MT.

Summative assessment for this course has two components:

1. 3 x 1000 word laboratory reports in Michaelmas Term, Lent Term and Summer Term (30% each, total 90%)

2. 1 x 500 word participation report on the experience of acting as a participant in a research study (10%)