PSY 411 Advanced Research Methods in Personality and Social Psychology (Lecture)

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID: PSY 411
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a psychology course for undergraduate students by Kim Proctor, Ph.D. at California State University Dominguez Hills. The open textbook provides online search features, text highlighting functions, accessibility options, video links, a course cartridge so that chapters can be embedded directly into a Canvas course online course, as well as supplemental lecture slides and chapter quizzes. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to provide students with cost a free open source text that is easy to use, adaptable, with up-to date references to current issues, references that current college students will relate to and useful supplemental materials. Most students access the open textbook using downloadable pdf, online link, or embedded Canvas link methods.

Course Title and Number: PSY 411 Advanced Research Methods in Personality and Social Psychology (Lecture)
Brief Description of course highlights:  Course Description: Psychology 411 and 412 are offered in conjunction. These are upper-division senior level courses in the advanced study of personality and social psychology with an emphasis on research that explains and examines contemporary concepts and theories. Lab (412) will focus on learning the fundamentals of social psychological research methods and using them to design, conduct and write up an experimental study. There will be lab exercises to give you practice that will not be submitted but will be reviewed in class. And there will be formal lab assignments that will be done as part of the semester-long research project. Small groups or teams will be formed and will function as the organizational unit for this that involves the following sequence: formulate hypotheses, conduct a literature search, write a bibliography, write a proposal (introduction + literature review), write a method section, write a results section, and write a final APA-style report that includes a title page, abstract, references, tables and figures, and an appendix.

Student population: Students are Psychology Majors since this is a senior level psychology course, since this course is paired with an advanced research methods course, students are expected to have previously passed entry level social psychology, personality, and statistical analysis courses in the major entry level social psychology, personality, and statistical analysis courses in the major (PSY 340, PSY 360, PSY 230 & PSY 235).

Learning or student outcomes:  List student learning outcomes for the course. 

1. Examine the major theories and principles related to the main topics in social psychology. 
2. Explain and accurately summarize social psychological research and the issues raised in this literature. 
3. Describe the major research methods and designs used in social psychology.
4. Associate the key scholars in social psychology and their empirical contributions.
5. Develop skills to analyze and interpret findings obtained from an original study. 
6. Describe and present research evidence verbally and in writing.

Sample assignment from the course or the adoption: Expert Presentation Discussions (must include the following elements):

1. An introduction of your teammates and articulation of main goals/objectives your team has for a seminar presentation that lasts 4 min per person and has everyone speak (x pts)
2. Leading a full discussion of the theory and key principles described in your expert chapter, which includes:
3. accurate descriptions of concepts and theories in the chapter (x pts)
4. conducting a relevant and thoughtful Q & A with the audience to test their understanding (x pts)
5. Illustrations/examples of two main concepts being covered and tie them into the chapter (x pts)
6. Illustrate independent variable manipulations in 2 experiments covered or discussed in the expert chapter (x pts)
7. Describe the 2 experimental studies and their results (x pts)
8. Apply main concepts to contemporary social situations (i.e., So what? How can this help people/society?) (x pts)
9. Completion of group self-evaluation reflection (x pts) Note: group self-evaluations will be done to ensure individual grades reflect individuals’ contributions to the presentation.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: Principles of Social Psychology (1st ed)

Brief Description: The OER Textbook features an online search feature (using Command F), text highlighting functions and is text- to-speech compatible. Accessibility options include easy navigation, captioned & videos, and descriptive link text.
Authors:  Jhangiani, R., & Tarry, H. (2022)

Please provide a link to the resource  https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/

Student access:  Students are able to access the text via the course management system, external server, or download in PDF form. 

Supplemental resources: Author offers lecture slides for each chapter, and test bank.

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  Students save at least $70 on the price of a traditional textbook purchase, and they are able to use the PDF as a reference text in the future.

License: The textbook is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial-share alike 4.0 international license, except where otherwise noted.

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. Desire to provide low or no cost quality learning materials for students and the fact that this particular book offered a course cartridge (so that it could be embedded into the Canvas LMS). It was also a current version updated in 2022.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? Browsed a list of OER resources after completing an OER basics course for CSUDH faculty.

Sharing Best Practices: I have long been interested in using low cost and open education resources, however, I knew very little about how to find many of these resources, I also had no idea that librarians typically have a great deal of knowledge and can refer you to repositories that contain all manner of OER resources.  

Describe any key challenges you experienced, how they were resolved  and lessons learned. A key challenge in the course remains finding an advanced OER resource for the companion statistics course which requires the use of SPSS.  What has been most difficult has been finding advanced materials for statistics courses, such as Analysis in SPSS, and Senior/Graduate level course materials

Instructor Name: Kim Proctor, PhD
I am a Psychology lecturer at California State University Dominguez Hills. I teach PSY 490, PSY 411/412, PYS 330, PSY 331, PSY 312, PSY 235, and PSY 230.

Please provide a link to your university page.
https://www.csudh.edu/psychology/faculty-staff/

Please describe the courses you teach.
I teach regularly teach senior seminar courses which are intensive writing courses requiring students to use knowledge gained from their statistics, Cognitive, Social, Personality, and Biopsychology courses to write a culminating research paper of 15-20 pages prior to graduation. I also teach a wide array of undergraduate statistics courses using SPSS software.

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.

Teaching Philosophy: I strongly believe in an approach to learning that encourages transparency in grading, flexibility, and multiple opportunities to learn and earn your grade based on your own initiative. For that reason, I provide multiple avenues for verbal or written feedback on coursework. I also strongly believe in and make it a goal whenever possible to use low-cost or free course materials. 

Research Interests: I am an interdisciplinary researcher interested in areas of motivation, self-efficacy, and socio-emotional wellness as they relate to academic success, persistence, and completion.