When a psychologist announces a new research finding, it is often based on a rejected null hypothesis. However, if that hypothesis is true, the claim is a false alarm. Many students mistakenly believe that the probability of committing a false alarm equals alpha, the criterion for statistical significance, which is typically set at 5%. Instructors…

Developing student's confidence with qualitative research methods presents a challenge to many educators and is even more of a challenge when the 'educator' themselves are unfamiliar with such methods. This paper offers a three-way reflective account of bringing one such colleague 'into the fold'; their journey to the 'dark side.' It documents the…

The Research Methods Skills Assessment (RMSA) was created to measure psychology majors' statistics knowledge and skills. The American Psychological Association's Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major in Psychology (APA, 2007, 2013) served as a framework for development. Results from a Rasch analysis with data from n = 330 undergraduates showed…

Hybrid or blended learning (BL) has been shown to be equivalent to or better than face-to-face (FTF) instruction in a broad variety of contexts. We randomly assigned students to either 50/50 BL or 100% FTF versions of a research methods and statistics in psychology course. Students who took the BL version of the course scored significantly lower…

We present three strategies to replace the null hypothesis statistical significance testing approach in psychological research: (1) visual representation of cognitive processes and predictions, (2) visual representation of data distributions and choice of the appropriate distribution for analysis, and (3) model comparison. The three strategies…

Research methods and statistics are core courses in the undergraduate psychology major. To assess learning outcomes, it would be useful to have a measure that assesses research methods and statistical literacy beyond course grades. In two studies, we developed and provided initial validation results for a research methods and statistical knowledge…

As a fundamental element of any psychology degree, the teaching and learning of research methods is repeatedly brought into sharp focus, and it is often regarded as a real challenge by undergraduate students. The reasons for this are complex, but frequently attributed to an aversion of maths. To gain a more detailed understanding of students'…

Creating literature reviews encompasses skills that are central to psychology students' academic and professional lives, yet writing them consistently challenges students. Research shows that instruction leads to improvement in students' literature reviews within courses (Boscolo, Arfé, & Quarisa, 2007; Granello, 2001), but little work…

The purpose of this paper is to review major statistical and psychometric issues impacting the study of psychophysiological reactivity and discuss their implications for applied developmental researchers. We first cover traditional approaches such as the observed difference score (DS) and the observed residual score (RS), including a review of…

Gaining teaching experience is an important aspect of being a psychology postgraduate. We undertook an online survey of 140 postgraduates from 50 UK institutions to explore their experiences of teaching with a focus on research methods in order to inform training and workshop provision. Of the sample, 91 per cent were involved in some type of…

Incorporating realistic data and research examples into quantitative (e.g., statistics and research methods) courses has been widely recommended for enhancing student engagement and comprehension. One way to achieve these ends is to use a data generator to emulate the data in published research articles. "MorseGen" is a free data generator that…

This study tested the effectiveness of video game use for instruction of factorial designs in a research methods course. Students designed and conducted a mini study, playing "Dance, Dance, Revolution", using video game scores as the dependent variable. A mixed-design analysis of variance revealed a significantly greater increase from pretest to…

This article reviews the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) in model selection and the appraisal of psychological theory. The focus is on latent variable models, given their growing use in theory testing and construction. Theoretical statistical results in regression are discussed, and more important…

This tutorial for the statistical processing of reaction times collected through a repeated-measure design is addressed to researchers in psychology. It aims at making explicit some important methodological issues, at orienting researchers to the existing solutions, and at providing them some evaluation tools for choosing the most robust and…

Relatively little attention has been paid thus far in memory research to the effects of measurement instruments intended to assess memory processes on the constructs being measured. The current article investigates the influence of employing the popular remember/know (R/K) measurement procedure on memory performance itself. This measurement…