Alexis Grosofsky, Beloit College
Jordan R. Wagge, Avila University
Jared G. Branch, University of Utah

Empirical research articles are an ideal pedagogical medium for helping teach core methodological and statistical concepts to psychology students. Rather than relying on fabricated descriptions of tools like surveys, experiments, and statistical tests, instructors can use full (but short!) research reports to ground these topics in real-world applications. This essay describes an open education resource (OER) we created called “Psychological Literacy for Undergraduate Methods and Statistics” (PLUMS) -- a collection of brief empirical articles to teach methodology and statistics to psychology undergraduates. The articles are accompanied by targeted factual and discussion questions about the research and include information about the design(s), analysis(ses), and any graphical/tabular displays. The methodological and statistical information is cross-referenced by “tags” (e.g., figures and graphs like bar graphs, statistical analyses like regression analysis, methodologies like convenience sampling, and subfields like social psychology), allowing instructors to select empirical articles to coincide with the topic(s) being covered.

Research methods and statistics are the heart of psychology. Regardless of what subfield of psychology you select, each of them involves research and statistics. After all, our discipline is an empirical science. Norcross and colleagues (2016) collected data using their Undergraduate Study in Psychology (USP) questionnaire and found that (as of 2014) almost all baccalaureate programs required courses in research methods (98%) and statistics (96%). Thus, it is very important that we do a good job teaching students about these topics. This is a difficult task given that many undergraduates find these courses daunting and often try to put them off as long as possible. Students often do not think that research methods and statistics are real psychology. Instead, “real psychology,” to many undergraduates, is learned through content courses such as social, clinical, cognitive, or developmental.

Despite what students may think, the American Psychological Association (APA) definitely believes that research methods and statistics are important. In their “Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major, Version 3.0” research methods and statistics are covered in two of their five goals:

• Goal 2 “Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking” has more attention to statistical reasoning than in previous versions;

and

• Goal 4 “Communication, Psychological Literacy, and Technology Skills” describes communicating effectively and demonstrating psychological literacy.

Both of these goals are ones that our Psychological Literacy for Undergraduate Methods and Statistics (PLUMS) project addresses.

The fact that research methods and statistics are so fundamental to our discipline, coupled with their recognition by the APA, underscores the need to enhance the teaching of research methods and statistics. Students should come away from these classes realizing how important research methods and statistics are to the empirical science of psychology. They should also come away from these courses being (and feeling) competent in their understanding of these vital topics.

Our idea of having students read real-life examples of research methods and statistics in empirical articles is supported by work done by Lewandowski and colleagues (2017). They describe how they have students read an empirical article covering the design students are learning about before introducing that design to the students. The idea is that students will learn the material better if their interest is captured first as demonstrated by Sizemore and Lewandowski (2011) who found that lessons about confounds were more successful in capturing students’ interest when they were framed around clinical depression rather than memory.

A book very similar to PLUMS was published by Milinki (2000, 2006). This text introduced articles by methodological technique (e.g., survey research, quasi-experimental research). Once a technique has been selected, the instructor then selects from the 2-5 articles within that technique. Both the second and third authors have used articles from Milinki’s book when teaching Research Methods / Statistics. They observed that using actual empirical reports resulted in their students showing more engagement than when they did not use such articles. The text does have some limitations. First, this text has not been updated since the second edition was published in 2006. Additionally, the organization requires instructors to select only by methodological technique (rather than by statistical technique or other relevant tags).

We sought to not only update Milinki’s (2000, 2006) work but also to expand upon it. Our project involved the following: first, we selected recent articles for 15 subfields in psychology (see Table 1).

Table 1

Subfields included in PLUMS

_____________________________________________________________________

Cognitive

Cross-Cultural

Development

Disorders

Drugs

Emotion & Motivation

Learning

Marketing

Memory

Neuroscience

Personality

Sensation & Perception

Sleep

Social

Stress & Health

______________________________________________________________________

Each article includes the reference making it easy to find the original article. Additionally, we wrote targeted factual and discussion questions about the research for each article. The factual questions are accompanied by the correct answer as well as the page number where the answer is found and can serve as reading quizzes. For example, “How did the researchers collect data about age preferences?” [they used an Implicit Association Test (IAT), p. 957]. The discussion questions then go beyond simple factual questions and require students to think critically about the reading. For example, “Can you think of another way to conduct this type of research that does not involve using the IAT?” These can be used for classroom or LMS-based discussions. We also include information about the design(s), analyses, and graphical/tabular displays to allow for cross-referencing of information, allowing instructors multiple ways to select empirical articles to coincide with whatever topic or technique is being introduced to their class.

We envision instructors being able to not only complement current class topics but also to have additional options such as:

• Assigning some of the articles as extra credit activities (e.g., having students answer the factual and/or discussion questions posed).
• Using the articles to serve as jumping-off points for students to create a research proposal as a capstone project in a research methods and/or statistics course.
• Enriching content courses with topical empirical articles related to the course’s subfield.

The first author hand-selected 8 - 12 articles within each of 15 subfields of psychology, based on presumed undergraduate student readability and recency (publication year). We had undergraduate psychology students read and rate all of the selected articles. The students provided ease-of-reading ratings (on a 5-point Likert scale: 1 = easiest, 5 = hardest; M = 2.0, SD = .48) as well as interest ratings (again on a 5-point Likert scale: 1 = no interest, 5 = most interest, M = 4.5, SD = .71). We were successful in finding 5 articles for each included subfield that were rated as both relatively easy to read as well as interesting. In cases of conflict between the ratings, we prioritized selecting articles that were rated as easier to read rather than more interesting.

We created a system for instructors or students to submit articles (and the corresponding metadata) so that the materials are regularly updated and enriched. Contributions will be reviewed by members of the project making it a peer-reviewed process. Accepted submissions would be acknowledged as a contribution to the project that could be listed on an instructor's or student’s CV.

Empirical article libraries, such as the one we built, explicitly help improve student competence with methodology and statistics by using real, published data that they may encounter as fledgling producers or consumers of research. Conducting research comparing having students read articles from our project (specifically selected to be brief, readable, and interesting) vs. using a traditional textbook would be relatively easy to do. In fact, several faculty members could collaborate on such research. We hope that including some of these articles will also make the topics of research methods and statistics classes (which can be dry) more enjoyable.

We believe that incorporating empirical research will help to counter the perception that methods and statistics are boring (and isolated) subjects rather than the heart of the science of psychology. As instructors, we should be determined to have our students become better consumers of research/statistics and be more aware of what different research designs can (and cannot) tell us. This is especially important given that about 75% of students do not go on to graduate school (Lewandowski et al., 2017), and therefore must learn these skills as undergraduates. For instance, some of these discussion questions speak to applied issues (e.g., “How might we try to decrease bias against older individuals?”). Being psychologically literate will help all of our students become better citizens and better able to know what questions to ask when confronted with data.

Our project is available at https://sites.google.com/beloit.edu/plums/home. We hope you find it useful.

References

Norcross, J.C., Hailstorks, R., Aiken, L.S., Pfund, R.A., Stamm, K.E., & Christidis, P. (2016). Undergraduate Study in Psychology: Curriculum and Assessment. American Psychologist, 71(2), 89-101. doi: 10.137/a0040095

Lewandowski, G.W., Ciarocco, N.J., & Strohmetz, D.B. (2017). Chapter 23: Research Methods 2.0: A New Approach for Today’s Students. In R. Obeid, A. Schartz, C. Shane-Simpson, & P.J. Brooks (Eds.) How We Teach Now: The GSTA Guide to Student-Centered Teaching. Retrieved from the Society for Teaching of Psychology web site: https://teachpsych.org/ebooks/howweteachnow

Milinki, A. (2000, 2006). A Cross Section of Psychological Research: Journal Articles for Discussion and Evaluation. Pyrczak Publishing.

Sizemore, O. J., & Lewandowski, G. W. (2011). Lesson learned: Using clinical examples for teaching research methods. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 10(1), 25-31. https://doi.org/10.2304/plat.2011.10.1.25