Conducting Psychological Research
This is a free chapter, from an unpublished textbook by Shelia Kennison of Oklahoma State University, that you can either read online or download as a pdf document. The chapter covers a range of ideas and issues focused on the research process: • different research methodologies • causality • experimentation • representative sampling • reliability and […]
Psych’d Magazine Issue 2
Psych’d is a twice-yearly (October and July) Psychology Magazine, published by WJEC (formerly the Welsh Joint Examining Committee) designed to support teachers and students studying for the WJEC and Eduqas A-level Psychology qualifications. While, as you might expect, the magazine contains material (CPD events, important dates and recommended textbooks) specific to these particular exam boards, […]
A Few More Sociology Factsheets
A previous post featured a selection of the Factsheets produced by The Curriculum Press and since this post I’ve managed to collect a few more Factsheets from various corners of the Web. These, oddly enough, all relate in some way to Research Methods… Experiments Overt Participant Observation Positivism and Interpretivism Qualitative Research Crime statistics
Experimental Methods in Psychological Research
The first in a trilogy of related psychology research methods films (the second looks at Non-Experimental Research Methods and the third goes “Behind the Statistics” to examine how these are socially constructed), Experimental Methods is a three-part film that illustrates different dimensions of experimental research – Laboratory, Field and Natural experiments – using a mix […]
A2 Psychology: Research Methods Free Chapter
One of the simple pleasures of Wandering the Web™ for a living, made all the more enjoyable by that intangible sense of the unexpected (I know, I live my life through contradictions), is coming across Stuff That Is Free. My not-so-little face lights up at the mere thought of finding Something For Nothing, even though […]
7 Sims in 7 Days – Day 3: Window Shopping / The Art of Walking
Although these are two different sims I’ve included them together because both involve thinking about the “rules of everyday social interaction”, albeit in different ways: Window shopping is designed to encourage students to think systematically about the “underlying rules” of relatively mundane behavior. It can be used to simulate sociological research (such as field experiments […]
Milgram and Obedience
Psychology – and to a lesser extent Sociology – teachers and students generally need to have an understanding of both the mechanics of Milgram’s classic “obedience experiments” and their general implications. However, as recent research has argued (Social psychology textbooks ignore all modern criticisms of Milgram’s “obedience experiments”) this understanding has not necessarily been advanced […]
Research Methods: Experiments
If you’re looking for contemporary examples of experiments with sociological applications, this recent study might be useful at both AS (Culture and Identity) and A2 (Differentiation) levels. In basic terms it’s a simple variation of the classic “discrimination experiment” whereby researchers do things like apply for jobs using a variety of different ethnic names on […]