To be confirmed.

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.

Students must have completed Statistics and Research Methods for Psychological and Behavioural Science (PB130).

This course presents conceptual and practical knowledge on the range of tools available to the psychological/behavioural scientist. The course will cover   the approach of the ‘methodological toolkit’, in which differing empirical approaches and measurement tools (used in artificial and real world settings) are seen to supplement and/or complement each other toward the goal of obtaining a rich, theoretically driven understanding of a psychological phenomenon. It will also offer  a presentation of qualitative data collection methods—including interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and qualitative media analysis—and qualitative analysis methods, including thematic, text, discourse, phenomenological and rhetorical analysis. The course instructs students in the use of quantitative data collection methods, including surveys, experiments, economic games, assessment tools, and computerised tasks. It also covers principles and issues involved in the analysis of quantitative data, including the importance of reproducibility and transparency in data analysis and reporting.

This course, together with PB211 Intermediate Quantitative Methods for Psychological and Behavioural Science, aims to provide students with integrated core knowledge and skills in research and analysis methods in psychological and behavioural science. Specific core methodological tools for collecting data will be presented in lectures, selected to reflect parallel theoretical issues raised in PB200 Biological Psychology, PB201 Cognitive Psychology, PB202 Developmental Psychology, PB204 Social Psychology: Groups and Intergroup Relations, and PB205 Individual Differences and Why They Matter, and to demonstrate the connections to the statistical techniques taught in PB211 Intermediate Quantitative Methods for Psychological and Behavioural Science.

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

The classes on this course will consist of:

• 10 x 3 hour workshop/lecture hybrid sessions
• 5 x 1 hour lab sessions

Students will be expected to produce:

• 1 x group-based research proposal using qualitative methods, outlining rationale for the choice of data collection & analysis tool.
• 1 x group-based research proposal using quantitative methods, outlining rationale for the choice of data collection & analysis tool.

One of the above should be presented in written scientific article form (750 words), and one should be presented in poster form (see also Summative Assessment).

• American Psychological Association (2013). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. (6th ed.)
• Bauer, M. & Gaskell, G. (2000) Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound, London: Sage.
• Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Flick, U. (2009). An Introduction to Qualitative Research (4th ed.), London: Sage.
• Sansone, C., Morf, C. C., & Panter, A. T. (2004). The Sage handbook of methods in social psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Schweigert, A. (1998). Research methods in psychology: A handbook.
• Seale, C., Gobo, G. Gubrium, J. F., & Silverman, D. (2004). Qualitative Research Practice. London: Sage.

Laboratory report (50%) in the LT.
Laboratory report (50%) in the ST.

Students will be expected to produce two research reports as follows:

• 1 x research report (one submitted by each student) summarising a group project in psychological & behavioural science using qualitative methods (50%).
• 1 x research report (one submitted by each student) summarising a group project in psychological & behavioural science using quantitative methods (50%).

One of the above should be presented in written scientific article form (2500 words), and one should be presented in poster form. 

The summative reports must be presented in the format that was not used for that study’s formative report.  e.g., if the qualitative formative assessment was in poster format, the summative assessment should be in written article form and vice versa.