HUM-403 / 3 credits

Teacher: Mohr Christine

Language: English

Remark: Une seule inscription à un cours SHS+MGT autorisée. En cas d'inscriptions multiples elles seront toutes supprimées sans notification.


Summary

The media frequently report on trendy studies that have been conducted in experimental cognitive psychology, and which inform the public on "human functioning" and its causes. We teach students basic skills and requirements when performing, understanding and comprehending such studies.

Content

Keywords

experimental psychology, cognition, scientific methods, empirism, statistics, hypothesis testing, reading scientific articles, writing scientific article, testing human subjects, data collection - input - analysis, colour and affect, conservation psychology, belief in lie detection abilities.

POLY-perspective :

  • creative perspective
  • citizen perspective

https://www.epfl.ch/schools/cdh/cdhs-vision/

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

  • Identify important research questions based on the published scientific literature
  • Formulate a study question and hypothesis.
  • Analyze the previous research findings
  • Interpret the previous research findings
  • Assess / Evaluate the tacit and technical skills involved in the production of knowledge.
  • Critique constructively the previous research accounts and outcomes
  • Construct an argument

Transversal skills

  • Assess progress against the plan, and adapt the plan as appropriate.
  • Set objectives and design an action plan to reach those objectives.
  • Evaluate one's own performance in the team, receive and respond appropriately to feedback.
  • Negotiate effectively within the group.
  • Assess one's own level of skill acquisition, and plan their on-going learning goals.
  • Manage priorities.
  • Write a scientific or technical report.

Teaching methods

Group work

Expected student activities

Attending weekly meetings, contributing to team work, communicating reliably and responsibly with group members and project supervisor, find research articles, read research articles, understand research articles, share knowledge with group members, write your own research report

Assessment methods

Independent evaluation at the end of both the autumn and spring term (grade associated to 3 ECTS).

Autumn term: Knowledge acquisition and elaboration of a project plan. Determination and set up of research method. Evaluation of written introduction and method section to the research report

Spring term: Experiment is performed, data collected, data input, data analysis. Evaluation of the final written research report consisting of a title page, abstract, introduction, method section, result section, discussion and bibliography.

Supervision

Office hours No
Assistants Yes
Forum No
Others

Resources

Bibliography

Research articles, depend on the project to be performed. Information and skills to find the literature in the course of the autumn term

Moodle Link

In the programs

  • Semester: Fall
  • Number of places: 60
  • Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
  • Subject examined: Experimental cognitive psychology I
  • Lecture: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 1 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks

Reference week

 MoTuWeThFr
8-9     
9-10     
10-11     
11-12     
12-13     
13-14     
14-15     
15-16     
16-17     
17-18     
18-19     
19-20     
20-21     
21-22     

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