Feedback from TRU F2F Psychology faculty
Thank you Catherine for your thoughtful comments and helpful suggestions. These are early days and we are certainly considering a few options for the research component of this course. • For the naturalistic observation study, the idea would be to obtain course-level REB approval for the project with rather specific parameters. • Having said that, the APA's online psych lab + other online resources like GoCognitive.net that host simulations or even the IAT are also possibilities. • The archival option would very much be relevant to psychological science - this could take the form of, for example, tests of a priori hypotheses using James Penebaker's online LIWC tool that analyses changes in speech or even tweets over time or across different segments of the population. • The option of "inventing data" is what PSYC 2111 at TRU-OL currently does, but this endangers the articulation of the course (e.g., at last year's articulation meeting UBC advised that their new senate policy restricts transfer credit for Research Methods courses taken at other institutions to only those that involve actual data collection). Aside from this, though, I would argue that there are skills and experiences picked up while actually collecting the data that would be otherwise missed. Farhad and I will certainly consider your suggestions though - they are much appreciated. Two of the challenges with designing this particular course is that there is no cohort (so students cannot use one another as participants) and the students may be quite isolated (hence the archival option). Thanks again, Rajiv
Rajiv Jhangiani, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Faculty Fellow, BC Campus Open Textbook Project Director of Research, Resources, and Special Initiatives, STP Early Career Psychologists Committee Associate Editor, Psychology Learning & Teaching
