Resources for Methods in Evaluation and Social Research - a sociological methods site with a large number of links to resources on topics such as surveys and qualitative research [added 7/24/06]
Mediating variables - Karl Wuensch wrote this document, "Statistical tests of models that include mediating variables," which provides a good overview of the topic for faculty and students alike. [added 7/6/06]
"Correlation still isn't causation" - Good series of back-and-forth letters to the APS Observer on this issue that could be good for your students to review and discuss [added 7/6/06]How the peer review process can be manipulated - excellent article describing two examples of how the peer review process can be distorted [added 12/1/04]
"Do rats show a Mozart effect?" - interesting analysis of how research results can be misinterpreted and misrepresented using an effect that has received wide-spread media attention [added 4/5/04]
"Fallacies and pitfalls in psychology" - Kenneth Pope provides an excellent list of 18 logical fallacies and psychology-related examples of them. [added 3/30/04]
"Pitfalls of data analysis" - a good essay on the use and misuse of statistics by Clay Helberg [added 7/16/03]
"Tutorials" on several topics - David Kenny provides some clearly written explanations of a variety of methodological and interpersonal perception topics. [added 7/16/03]
Online research methods textbook [added 3/21/02]
Another online research methods text [added 7/10/02]
Research methods tutorial - some good info and quiz questions at the end of each section [added 3/21/02]
Links, links and more links - very large, organized set of research methods links [added 3/21/02]
"Research in the Psychological Laboratory: Truth or Triviality?" - Anderson, C.A., Lindsay, J.J., & Bushman, B.J. (1999). Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 3-9. Scroll down page to link to view entire article in PDF.
Specific Methods
Day Reconstruction Method - Daniel Kahneman and colleagues have developed a new and exciting research method that "assesses how people spend their time and how they experience the various activities and settings of their lives, combining features of time-budget measurement and experience sampling." Norbert Schwarz is nice enough to provide the recent article describing the method as well as the materials used in the method at his website. [added 3/1/05]
Content analysis resources - The best aspect of this site is the set of links to many other good content analysis sites. [added 4/5/04]
Structural equation modeling - links to relevant resources [added 4/5/04]
Case-study approach to studying groups - how-to includes example of case study - from Don Forsyth [added 3/6/02]
Sociograms - graphic example of this method of capturing group interaction and ratings [added 3/6/02]
Studying Groups: SYMLOG Questionnaires - developed by David Heise and adapted from Robert Bales' SYMLOG Case Study Kit, these online questionnaires can be used to "measure the behavior of group members whom you have observed, and also your perceptions of the way you behave in various settings, and your subjective attitudes about your own behavior" - data can be entered online and a graph of results can be produced online as well. [added 3/6/02]
Research Methods Lab - very well-designed, interactive review of five research methods - includes description of five methods, examples in different disciplines, practice activities and quizzes for check on understanding - requires free Shockwave plug-in which can be downloaded at the site
"The Two Disciplines of Scientific Psychology" - Cronbach's presidential address to the APA (1957) in which he describes the two "streams" of research (experimental and correlational)
"New Poll Shows Correlation is Causation" - humorous, mock article reporting what everyone always knew!
Research Methods chapter - using Stanley Milgram as a "case study" from Dodge Fernald's text Psychology
Surveys
"What is a survey?" - a book online about creating good surveys by Fritz Scheuren [added 3/23/08]
A blog on analyzing polling data - "Political arithmetik: Where numbers and politics meet" is a blog from Charles Franklin, a professor of political science, in which he explains political bias in polls, the statistical analysis of them, and more. Lots of good examples and very detailed analysis. [added 7/6/06]
Survey and questionnaire research methods - lots of good resources collected by Gregory Herek for his course of the same name [added 4/06/04]
CensusScope - provides access to Census 2000 data and trends back to 1990 and 1980 with reports on topics such as segregation - presented by the Social Science Data Analysis Network at the University of Michigan [added 3/23/04]
Census Resource Discovery Service - Similar to CensusScope for U.S. data, this site provides census data for the UK with some very good accompanying instructional materials. [added 3/23/04]
"Best practices for survey and public opinion research" - advice and ethical guidelines from the American Association for Public Opinion Research [added 7/10/02]
How to conduct surveys - Good info on constructing and administering surveys from the American Statistical Association [added 3/21/02]
"In defense of self-reports" - APS Observer article by Rebecca Norwick, Y. Susan Choi, and Tal Ben-Shachar [added 3/21/02]
Evaluation Research
Evaluation resources - a lot of information about different data collection tools and processes involved in evaluation, from the Innovation Network [added 3/21/02]
Evaluation research links - Extensive set of quality links to survey methods and other research topics [added 3/21/02]
Critical Thinking in Psychology
Do girls prefer pink? - a good description of how the media often overblows research findings [added 11/18/07]
Distinguishing between good and bad science - Good article looking at research on abstinence-only programs, but discussing more generally the potential for manipulating or "pre-ordaining" evidence [7/19/07]
"Who paid for that study? Source affects outcome" - a study looking at industry-funded research [added 7/06/07]
Methods: "Abuses of skepticism" - interesting article from CSICOP [added 3/23/04]
"Diet of fish 'can prevent' teen violence" - interesting example of how media can distort research findings [added 11/20/03]
Critical thinking psychology exercises - excellent set of activities on inference vs. observation, operational definitions, correlations, jumping to conclusions, faulty thinking and thinking creatively - could be used as in-class or out-of-class activities
Critical thinking about evidence - "the six rules of evidential reasoning" from James Lett
Ethical Considerations
"The Least of My Brothers" - This freely available online short course on research ethics from the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions at Indiana University-Bloomington describes the famous PHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. "From 1932 to 1972, 399 poor black sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama were denied treatment for syphilis and deceived by physicians of the United States Public Health Service. As part of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, designed to document the natural history of the disease, these men were told that they were being treated for 'bad blood.' In fact, government officials went to extreme lengths to ensure that they received no therapy from any source. As reported by the New York Times on 26 July 1972, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was revealed as 'the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history.'" [added 7/16/03]
Statistical Stuff
More SPSS Tutorials - This page contains a lot of good tutorials including these excellent video tutorials on a variety of SPSS analyses. [added 7/5/06]
Lots of data and graphs - Swivel is a cool site that lets people upload and comment upon data in all forms, particularly graphs. There are currently over 500,000 graphs available for viewing there. The focus is not psychological, but you may find some graphs or sets of data that you can use for illustration purposes. [added 8/05/07]
"I'll bet you don't understand error bars" - a nice little quiz (and explanation) for you and your students [added 7/14/07]
Exploring Data - This is essentially another statistics text available to you online. [added 7/7/07]
Use and misuse of statistics and data - Two very good sites -- this link takes you to a tutorial of sorts which nicely reviews types of evidence, comparing different types. It includes a good section on the problems with statistics. This link takes you to STATS, a site which presents and analyzes lots of good examples of uses and misuses of statistics. [added 12/31/06]
Tutorial for R - a tutorial for the statistical program R [added 1/15/06]
Statistics workshops - a collection of tutorials from Thomson Learning [added 1/9/06]
Methods: Baseball Salaries Database - Want some data for your students to analyze? I see some relative deprivation here! [added 11/11/03]
Statistical computing resources [added 11/11/03]
VassarStats - excellent, comprehensive website explaining how to perform numerous statisitical computations with interactive elements for practice and illustration from Richard Lowry
Visualizing statistical concepts - excellent set of links to interactive illustrations and activities for a variety of statisical concepts from Chip Reichardt
Probability and statistics - many interactive, online activities and resources illustrating these concepts
"Web Interface for Statistics Education" (WISE) - links to tutorials, interactive exercises/demos, glossaries and more
Statistical Assessment Service - "a nonprofit nonpartisan organization, examines the way that scientific, quantitative, and social research is presented by the media, and works with journalists to help them convey this material more accurately and effectively" - contains lots of good examples of how statistics are used and misused in the media
Statistical and research methods concepts - good review of concepts effectively using graphics and text
Hyperstats - well-designed, online stats "text"
Simulations and demonstrations - excellent set of java simulations on many stats concepts
Data sets and examples - small but good collection of data sets, examples, lectures and links to other stats sites from David Howell
Gallery of Data Visualization - "The best and worst of statistical graphics" - good examples of how graphs can be used effectively and used to "lie"
Guess the correlation - a fun and effective interactive exercise (using Java Applets) illustrating the relationship between types of correlations and scatter plots
Randomness - excellent, extensive site on randomness tailored for different levels of statisical understanding - includes interactive exercises, interactive quiz and more
Ongoing Research
Participate in psychology experiments - at this site you can 1) have your students participate in lab experiments from which you can download (in an Excel spreadsheet) the class' data for in-class analysis, 2) have your students participate in ongoing, online studies, and 3) view demonstrations of experiments without participating
Comprehensive social list - Scott Plous maintains an excellent list of ongoing studies at the Social Psychology Network site
Comprehensive general list - John H. Krantz maintains an excellent list for APS of online studies across many areas of psychology including social psychology
Surveys, Scales and Tests on the Web
You can find a variety of attitude measures and other scales (e.g., self-esteem, self-consciousness) online at the Social Psychology Network.
Here are some other scales I have run across:
Self-efficacy and other related scales [added 4/06/04]
Stress scales from Sheldon Cohen and colleagues [added 4/06/04]
Self-report measures of adult attachment [added 3/23/04]
Multi-Dimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI) [added 3/23/04]
Scales from Geraldine Downey [added 3/23/04]
Scales from Dan Wegner - a few measures including the classic Hidden Brain Damage Scale [added 11/17/03]
Variety of scales - an updated list of almost 20 downloadable scales/measures for student use [added 7/23/03]
Altruism survey from Louis Penner [added 2/11/03]
Several scales posted by Mark Snyder [added 2/11/03]
Several scales posted/linked to by Ron Okada [added 2/11/03]
Homosexuality attitude scales posted by Mary Kite [added 2/11/03]
Henderson/Zimbardo Shyness Questionnaire
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (1965) - scale and scoring rubric
Implicit Association Test - "a device for exploring the unconscious roots of thinking and feeling"
Resources for the Teaching of Social Psychology is a part of the CROW Project, Course Resources on the Web. CROW is sponsored by the Associated Colleges of Illinois and generously supported by UPS. This site was created by Jon Mueller, Professor of Psychology at North Central College, Naperville, IL. Send comments to Jon.
