Introduction from Lab Tutor

There are 3 Lab Tutors (George, Teemu & Gordon)

Your Lab Tutor is…

Our role as Lab Tutor

• To help you every step of the way
• Your first point of contact for questions or queries on Research Methods
• To share our passion for research and the experiences we have gained along the way
• To show how we have learned to find answers and solve problems
• To challenge you to achieve your best this year and next

Not

• To do the work for you
• To chase you or to make you do your work (attendance and coursework is compulsory!)
• To tell anybody how to behave either individually or in your groups

100% of our focus in the lab

• We are here to be your guide and mentor in the lab
• Outside of lab hours, your point of contact is Gordon (Module Coordinator)
• If you have an emergency, your Personal Tutor or Gordon are your primary contacts
• It’s not because we don’t want to help, it’s just the way it is.

Lab structure

A description of the usual lab

Goals for today

The immediate goals for this session, and for this week (including your independent study time)

• Identify potential group members and have this confirmed by the start of Lab 2 - no later!
• Identify potential research topics and methodologies you might use - a list is fine.
• Clarify any questions that may persist
• After today, we move on and start doing work. Any more time spent on these tasks is wasted time.

Goals for this week

• By next week, we advise you to do the following:

  • Ensure you have read the coursework guidance for Research Methods (Critical Proposal Primarily)

  • Ensure you have read the Personality Essay guidance.

  • Next week’s lab will be Literature Search support for this module and the Personality Essay (Double Whammy!) and discussing Effect Sizes and how to calculate and convert them. A requirement for the week 3 Essay Submission! (Triple Whammy?)

The rules of the Mini-Dissertation game - part 1

The rules of the Mini-Dissertation game - part 2

Your Mini-Dissertation final submission must comprise:

• a 2500 word APA7 empirical paper with a critical reflection and complete reference list
• a single, cleaned, clearly-labelled data set in Excel format (or similar) - Open Data
• a complete, replication-ready materials document detailing materials relevant to your submission - Open Materials

If you miss anything you limit the marks available. And the quality and precision of the whole submission is assessed.

Critical Proposal

There is a detailed brief on the Critical Proposal (Due Week 5) on the VLE.

It will be the focus of week 3 in both Lecture and Lab, but requires you to identify an empirical paper on your research topic, so more on that in due course.

Activities for today.

These labs are driven by you. The only things that will EVER be compulsory are short administrative tasks on a roughly weekly basis (group progress update) and the next activity. Otherwise you can use the time as you see fit either alone or in your group, but we know that there is wisdom in the crowd for coming up with topic ideas, identifying cool research ideas and setting the tone for the year ahead.

Let’s get going.

• Lab Challenge! [20 mins]

• Your Lab Tutor will show you the Lab Miro Board. Please at least identify your group status by end of lab.

• Topic Brainstorming

• Methods Discussion

• Group ‘calibration’ and working approach

  The Topics, Methods, and Group activities have supporting materials in a Miro board which you can access once you have selected the appropriate Lab that you belong to on the VLE. Please choose the correct one.

Lab Challenge

To be introduced by the Lab Tutor. hehe!

Topic Brainstorming

The Miro Board will provide some tips and ideas for finding a topic to research. Even if you think you’ve nailed it, let’s discuss it.

Methods Brainstorming

It is easy to only think about online questionnaires. It may be some of the only research you’ve done, but frankly, it would be a shame to not think more expansively. Some ideas will be discussed, and a discussion about the Lab Challenge might prompt some ideas.

Goal Alignment and Group Ethos

Another aspect of effective Group work is Goal Alignment. Even if you are working with your best buddy, they may want to just get in and out, while you want to immerse yourself in the task ahead.

This would be a conflict that is potentially dangerous. Think about your goals, your aspirations, and then consider how your might formalise these in to a set of guidelines.

Please do take the time to do this. Being able to point to a set of principles (for your group or for the whole lab) may smooth the process or be of help in resolving difficulties.