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The discipline of psychology is built upon the scientist-practitioner model, where assessment and treatment are informed by a substantial evidence base. As a science, psychology values and relies upon the scientific method as a means of gathering and evaluating the evidence base that supports the discipline. This course is designed to both provide an understanding of the role of scientific inquiry in the discipline, and to develop the skills required to design, collect, analyse, interpret and evaluate psychological evidence.

The course starts by introducing the scientific method, the language of psychological research, and the two basic research designs that underpin most psychological research. Along with these conceptual elements, the course aims to develop practical research. To this end, course participants will be asked to design a psychological experiment in which one or more research questions are asked, to ethically recruit a number of participants for that project, to conduct the experiment, and then to score and analyse the results of that experiment. We will introduce you to the Microsoft Excel program as the preferred software to enter data, manipulate data, and produce Tables and Figures that summarise the results in a way that is consistent with the experimental design. The course will also deal with the appropriate statistical techniques that can be applied to answer the research question that has been posed.

On completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. Critically evaluate a range of information in order to identify a research question.
2. Distinguish between theoretical and operational variables, independent and dependent variables, research questions and hypotheses, and experimental and quasi-experimental designs from text, graphs and tables.
3. Apply the scientific method to design an experiment that appropriately investigates a research question.
4. Apply ethical practices to recruit, gain informed consent, and debrief participants consistent with the APS Code of Ethics.
5. Apply standardised procedures to assign participants, collect data, form data files, screen data for violations, and conduct statistical analyses appropriate to the research question.
6. Identify relations between variables and organising principles in the statistical analyses to interpret the outcome and evaluate its support for the research question.