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Experimental Design in Psychology


Course Description

Design and analysis of psychological research, with emphasis on the logical foundations of experimental design.


Athena Title

EXP DESIGN PSY


Prerequisite

STAT 6220 or permission of department


Semester Course Offered

Not offered on a regular basis.


Grading System

A - F (Traditional)


Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students should have learned: 1. How to design experiments free of confounds 2. How the variance is decomposed in analysis of variance models 3. How covariates and repeated measures can improve the efficiency of conducting research 4. How missing data should be statistically treated 5. How to conduct a power analysis 6. Whether to use post-hoc statistical tests or a priori contrasts


Topical Outline

1. The Principles of Experimental Design i) Designing experiments ii) Sources of variability iii) Variance estimates and the F ratio 2. Basic Designs: A Review i) Assumptions ii) Introduction to factorial designs iii) Rules for calculating major effects 3. ANCOVA, Repeated Measures, and Factorial Designs i) Randomized block designs ii) Introduction to within-subjects designs iii) Single-factor within-subjects design 4. Complex and Incomplete Designs i) Mixed within-subjects ii) Basic three factor designs iii) Higher order designs 5. Alternate and Supplementary Analyses i) Sensitivity and power analyses ii) Treatment effects iii) Trend analysis iv) Correcting for error