Asking good questions and gathering reliable evidence
10 October, 2022
This week (week 2) you have your Social Psychology Essay Tutorial
“Sexual Economics: Theory and Patriarchy”
“Is sex a female commodity that women exchange for men’s resources? Advantages and disadvantages of applying social exchange theory to understanding heterosexual relationships.”
Deadline 10am Friday 21st October (end of week 3)
Feedback on/by 11th November
Did you pick up on the theme?
I’d actually already kinda introduced it…
I’m going to be fiercely recommending the use of AI tomorrow.
And ALSO warning you against its use elsewhere
huh?
I want to briefly draw your attention to the third (final) piece of coursework for this module, the so-called ‘CHIP Learning Log’
The earlier we flag topics and introduce little glimmers of content, the easier that will be.
1 - What is Science? An amazing opportunity to consider this while you do your Mini-Dissertation
(A more reliable overview from Professor Ed Diener here) Open Educational Resource
Diener, E. (2022). Why science?. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. http://noba.to/qu4abpzy
2 - Artificial Intelligence - Promise or Peril?
Anyone can suggest a topic, by identifying where it sprang to mind.
people need to approve it by confirming it is relevant, with a brief rationale.
The more you engage, the more topics you get to choose from.
you hear of ‘confounds’ or ‘confounding variables’
A confounding variable is an extraneous variable that systematically varies with one of your independent variables. These are rare, but nothing can save the experiment.
I highly recommend reading along with the general topics we cover in the first few weeks.
Research Methods in Psychology by Dennis Howitt and Duncan Cramer is excellent. Chapter 2 in that book (right at the top of the module reading list and here) deals with Hypotheses and aims of research, essentially what we cover this week, and Chapter 1 deals with the basics and golden rules of research design and designing good experiments.
Submit a list of names to your Lab Tutor
Discuss any problems you are facing