Dive into Research!

Toward the end of the year, some teachers look for "let's pull it all together" activities. Psychology students often hear about research studies, and summaries of studies, but it can be VERY useful for students to actually dive into published studies as a critical thinking exercise. Students have been studying psychology for the whole course - now can they apply their knowledge and "think like a psychologist" about research?

Here are some resources that might be useful if any of you want to tackle this:

• Christopher Green developed and maintains a great archive of "Classics in the History of Psychology" - you can find many/most of the older classic studies in their original form. Students could read the original publication and compare it with the summaries made in textbooks and elsewhere.
• Many teachers use the 40 Studies that Changed Psychology book as a resource - great, important studies, good summaries.
• The Whitman Journal of Psychology publishes high school student psych research - these studies are written by high school students and may be shorter/more accessible (and may contain "flaws" that students should be able to identify?)
• Glenn Duggan (@GlennDuggan) sent this fascinating, in-depth article about how science can go "wrong." This is high-level reading, but could be a great article for students who are ready to think critically about the reliability and validity of research findings:

"Science is Often Flawed. It's time we embraced that" 

Please share other resources in the comments and I'll update this post. Happy researching!

posted by Rob McEntarffer

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