For the majority of your students, psychological statistics/introduction to statistics is the only statistics class your students will ever take. In a world where facts are becoming murkier and, statistical reasoning could truly improve democracy, do your students really benefit from solving the sum of squares by hand, or should they learn more applied lessons about statistical literacy? Dr. Hartnett has many opinions on this topic. She will share some of them with you, and she will also share some readily applied teaching examples and activities that serve all of our psychology majors and their statistical literacy.

Research Methods is the most important course in the undergraduate psychology major, because it’s where students first learn to think like psychological scientists. We can design the course to develop students’ abilities to produce their own research, or design it to identify and critique scientific claims. Either way, it’s not a course that students can “flash card” their way through. In my presentation, I will share some guiding principles and practical ideas for significant learning in research methods. I’ll share thoughts about building in repetition, designing forward-looking assessments, and supporting students socially. And I will specifically discuss self-graded homework, a technique that we have experimentally demonstrated can increase test scores and improve metacognition.