PowerPoint: The Hypothetico-Deductive Model

This is a simple one-slide PowerPoint presentation of Popper’s classic model of scientific research. The presentation contains two versions: Click-to-advance: this allows teachers to reveal each element in the model at their own pace. This is useful if you want to talk about each of the elements before revealing the next. Self-advancing: if you want […]

Crime, Deviance and Methods: Self-report Questionnaire

Opportunities for students to link crime, deviance and research methods in a practical way are often limited by the constraints of time and space – but one simple approach that can be used effectively in the classroom is a self-report crime questionnaire. Although there are a few of these kicking around (from Ann Campbell’s onward…) […]

Seven Sims in Seven Days – Day 5: Trial by Jury

As with some of the others in this series, “Trial by Jury” is a building block sim that gives you a basic template that can be used to organise and run a wide range of possible simulations. In basic terms if there’s an area of the Sociology / Psychology course that involves comparing and contrasting […]

Teaching A-level Research Methods: Part 3

Talk the Walk At this point students need to get to grips with learning the basics of research methods. How you organise this is up to you, but one way is to get students to take ownership of their learning: If there are sufficient students, split the class into groups and give each group responsibility […]

Psychology: Reliability and Validity

Reliability and validity are two important methodological concepts in both Psychology and Sociology because they address the problems involved in “doing research” – and while this film is aimed at A-level and AP psychology students (who are required to cover the issues in much greater depth), it should also be useful for sociology teachers who […]