This is an introductory course to the research methods and basic statistical techniques commonly used in psychology research. Students will be introduced to the process of scientific inquiry in psychology, both in terms of empirical research methodology and statistical analysis. The course is divided into lectures and tutorials. The lectures will focus on conceptual issues and cover the content materials that students need to understand to actually design any psychological study and work with any data. The tutorials will be dedicated to more in-depth discussions of some of the topics covered in the lectures, and practical experience with data analysis using SPSS
A module on research methods and statistics. In my opinion, it is quite dry, unless you have a passion in research and statistical mathematics.
No recorded lectures, so it is better to turn up for lectures. Engage yourself in writing down notes to prevent yourself from falling asleep.
Textbooks are sold in a set. It is a MUST to buy the textbooks because exams may ask you the textbook definitions. And it is actually easier to understand the content by reading the textbook.
No tutorial homework. But you have to attend tutorials because the TAs will teach you how to use SPSS (a statistics software), that is required for one of the assignment.
1st assignment is on research methods. 2nd assignment is on statistics, and will require the use of SPSS.
For midterms, it is better to read the textbook and understand definitions and concepts. For the finals, time management is important, especially if you are not a fast-worker when it comes to math. Finals emphasizes more on statistics. Formula list will be given for statistics so you do not have to memorise the formula. Bring calculators (with approval stamp from HSS)
What's good about this module is that not much memorizing is needed, and for statistics, if you understand the use of the formula and the methods to solve the questions, you can actually skim through the textbook quite fast. But you do need to spend some time practising the computation questions!
Programme: PSY(HSS)
This is an introductory course to the research methods and basic statistical techniques commonly used in psychology research. Students will be introduced to the process of scientific inquiry in psychology, both in terms of empirical research methodology and statistical analysis. The course is divided into lectures and tutorials. The lectures will focus on conceptual issues and cover the content materials that students need to understand to actually design any psychological study and work with any data. The tutorials will be dedicated to more in-depth discussions of some of the topics covered in the lectures, and practical experience with data analysis using SPSS