I have to admit that when I signed up for this course, I thought that it was going to be an easy GPA booster at the 4000 level and would have no effect on my knowledge and as a person. I was happily mistaken. This class has opened my eyes to a whole new world of psychological methods that I never would have thought existed. I would even go as far as saying that PSYC 4850 was one of the most interesting classes I have taken in university. The reason for this is because of the structure of the course. This class truly gives students freedom over their education and allows them to expand on any areas of interest that they have. It doesn’t matter if you are interested in statistics or criminal psychology, the freedom of choice is up to you. Not only that but this class has helped me pinpoint some underlying issues around research methods in general as well as interesting streams of research that are present in the field of psychology that I may not have learned while taking any courses that are specialized to one area of the discipline.

 

I am extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to take this class with all of you. Many people say that university is about getting a degree and getting out. This may be a part of it but it is not the main aspect of why we go to university. Another cliché saying comes to mind when I think of this class and university in general. The saying is “It is not what you know but who you know”. I am proud to tell my friends that I was in this class with the visionaries and academics of tomorrow. The connections made in this course and others in our degrees will help us all change the world for the better. We shouldn’t be competing against each other as we go through our careers in post secondary. We should be working together to help educate ourselves and others about important theories and issues and this class have given us all the opportunity to do this.

 

Thank you all for your comments and insights into my blogs (even though some of them were rushed because of the lateness of my blog posts most of the time). Even though they were made in a time crunch, all of them were extremely interesting to read and broadened my educational horizons in psychology research. I wish you all the best of luck in finishing your university undergraduates as well as any graduate pursuits that you may have. Study hard, make as many connections as you can, and enjoy every step of the way because it will not last forever. I leave you with one of my favorite quotes that I think about everyday to keep me going. “Live the dream always. If you are not living the dream than you are not living at all.”

Happy Holidays

 

My interest for my last three blogs was based around the idea of new age research and its applications in the world of psychology as well as outside of it. I feel like the new research areas that are being looked into can help apply to many areas of our everyday lives. An old cliché saying that is very relevant to new age research is “Knowledge is power”. This saying is extremely important because it holds an extreme amount of truth. The more that people know about a topic, the easier it will be to apply it to areas of our lives such as education among the other things that I have discussed in my blogs. I am extremely optimistic for the future because the more we can learn about other people, the more we can apply to our everyday lives to help us an individuals and as a collective humanity for the betterment of everyone’s lives. We will be able to make reforms to the education systems in order to teach people how to learn and critical think instead of what to learn. Also, our governments will be able to make more informed decisions when it comes to creating new laws in relation to science instead of what we think is common sense. The future definitely loos bright when it comes to New Age Research. As the researchers and psychologists of tomorrow, we need to embrace this new research today in order to make for a better tomorrow.

With my general topic of these last few blogs being New Age Research, I was looking around for an article that showed the application of this new research that is coming out in the field of Psychology. I found exactly that when I read an article by a European Psychologist Veronika Polisenska entitled Psychology: A Contribution to EU Policy Making. The article outlines a conference that was attended by many leaders of countries that are part of the European Union. The purpose of the conference was to bring forward current literature in psychology and help each of the leaders use the information that they gained when they are creating new policies around the EU. To the authors reports, this event had a great turnout and was a success in getting new literature into the spotlight of the political realm and getting the leaders aware of it. The author also stated that it will be a long road but this conference helped society take a crucial step forward in incorporating science instead of just common sense into the creation of new political policies. I agree with the authors remarks on this conference. I feel like governments in our society often make decisions based on what they believe to be right without any evidential grounding. If more governments start using a psychological background for policy making, I feel like the stigmatization of many groups of people in our society with mental illnesses would decrease drastically because there would be research to back it up. I really hope that many more conferences similar to this are held in our western society as well so we can move from a common sense based policy making style to a more scientific research based one.

Can you think of any strengths or weaknesses of moving to a more scientific based form of policy making?

http://fg2fy8yh7d.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Psychology&rft.jtitle=European+Psychologist&rft.au=Polisenska%2C+Veronika&rft.date=2012-01-01&rft.issn=1016-9040&rft.eissn=1878-531X&rft.volume=17&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=168&rft.epage=169&rft_id=info:doi/10.1027%2F1016-9040%2Fa000120&rft.externalDBID=n%2Fa&rft.externalDocID=10_1027_1016_9040_a000120&paramdict=en-UK

I am sure all of you are deep into mid terms and assignments in this very busy semester. I know that I sure am. This got me thinking about the way our educational institutions are set up in regards to the testing structures. In relation to new age research, the way people learn effectively is not a new idea. As I sit in the library juggling around my studying for different exams, I realize that throughout my university career, I have definitely done the ineffective method of cramming information into my head the day before the exam. I think it is very safe to say that many of you reading this have done this as well and if you have not then good on you. Cramming has been effective for me on some occasions to get good grades but on others it has not been so successful. It has also not been very effective for the long term retention part of my learning. I understand that part of the onus is on the students to be effective at time management but it also brings me to the realization that the way we are taught is extremely flawed. After being in psychology for a few years, I am very disenfranchised with the way we are taught to basically compete in a system that favours the people who can write tests better than others. There is much more to learning than just memorizing statistics or formulas or any other stream that people decide to pursue in their schooling. With the information that is out there about the most effective ways of learning, I can not help but wonder why more professors do not get out of this mentality of testing about recall memory vs. being able to apply concepts in an out of test scenario. Can you think of any reason why institutions still use these methods of testing when the research is out there showing that some testing methods are ineffective for long term retention? Along with this, can you think of any ways that institutions, professors, or students can help spur this shift from standardized testing to other more effective ways of learning so that everyone can benefit from the learning environment instead of just being able to memorize something in the short term for a test?

I was mindlessly searching through my Facebook newsfeed and saw an article from Global News that caught my eye. It was a video about a female actor who was portraying a lost, intoxicated and alone female. The video was showing how men reacted to the “drunk” woman’s plight and it was a little bit disgusting to see the actions of some men. We have talked about this sort of thing in class before but seeing as my next few blogs will be about “New Age Research”, I wondered if there will ever be a place for this type of research in our everyday lives as up and coming psychologists. Should we allow people who may have never even taken a psychology or research methods class before to perform these types of experiments on regular society without the proper certification and authority from ethical boards? Will this type of psychological experimentation take over the laboratory settings that many of us have gone to school for and will continue to go to school for? If this type of video is so easy to do, then why do we put our time and money into doing it if anyone off the street can do it? The end of the video states that this is the true videos that they got from the experiment and that some others were too disgusting to show. I am not trying to say that the man at the end is untruthful when he says this (he may very well be telling the truth) but how are we to know for certain the validity of this test without seeing all the proper data? To be a bit of a devil’s advocate (and making up numbers), if they had 100 people coming up to this girl and the only negative videos are the ones they showed in the finished product (the rest of the videos in the sample show people helping this girl), does this mean that the general population can just draw conclusions based on this? I do not believe so but I think it is a safe estimation that a good majority of the population will take this as truth without even thinking twice about it. I would even go as far as saying that many will not even think about the cross cultural variation that occurs in our world and they will wrongly generalize the results of this “study” world wide.

As I wrap up this blog, I have had an epiphany as to why I put my time into studying in psychology. I do this so that I can think critically as I have in this blog and  to be choosey in believing the stuff that I see on the internet. I also go to school so that I can help my friends and family do the same. Many people say not to believe anything they see on the internet. I just wonder how many average people take this to heart and practice what they preach.

What do you think? Will these social experiments help or hinder the field of psychology in the future?

http://globalnews.ca/news/2305194/watch-how-men-respond-to-a-vulnerable-drunk-woman/?hootPostID=b791368da7f83e9cdb101c21b1854b1b

As we move forward into the Technological age, it appears that computers and the internet are becoming an ever more valuable and convenient resource in doing many things that we do everyday. This idea is not ruled out from the world of sport psychology and research in general. However, there is much criticism as to the reliability of online methods of gathering information vs the original pen and paper way. Many critics say that the online method of survey lacks internal validity on account of the lack of ability to randomize. People who support the online method say that it is more convenient for people to answer it and that participants are more likely to give reliable answers because they can do these literally anywhere they are without having a proctor watching over them to collect the results.

I was reading a study by Lonsdale, Hodge, and Rose (2006) entitled Pixels vs Paper: Comparing Online and Traditional Survey Methods in Sport Psychology. The researchers wished to address the concerns raised in a lacking few prior studies in this area of research. They gathered a group of athletes from a New Zealand school that specialized in sport. The athletes ranged from a wide variety of sports. The researchers administered the same standardized questionnaire to the athletes either in the mail or over the internet. The researchers concluded that the internet survey was often returned earlier than the mail one and the results of both held a fairly high level of reliability and validity. As a side note though, they said that these results may not be indicative of other populations such as ones with poor internet access. They also say that more studies should be done in order to ensure the generalizability of this study.

Even with those two points in mind, I believe that these findings could be very useful in obtaining reliable data at a lower cost and in a quicker amount of time while using the internet instead of having to send surveys out through the post.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you believe that internet surveys can be a reliable method used in research or are these results still lacking validity?

Apologies for the lateness of this post. I had thought I posted it on Friday but apparently not!

http://fg2fy8yh7d.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Pixels+vs.+Paper%3A+Comparing+Online+and+Traditional+Survey+Methods+in+Sport+Psychology&rft.jtitle=Journal+of+Sport+%26+Exercise+Psychology&rft.au=Chris+Lonsdale&rft.au=Ken+Hodge&rft.au=Elaine+A+Rose&rft.date=2006-03-01&rft.pub=Human+Kinetics+Publishers%2C+Inc&rft.issn=0895-2779&rft.eissn=1543-2904&rft.volume=28&rft.issue=1&rft.spage=100&rft.externalDocID=1020544051&paramdict=en-UK

I am sure that many of you have watched the Discovery Channel before and have viewed the program called Mythbusters. The show attempts to dispel many common myths that exist in our everyday life. They use the scientific method to test the myths as well as their knowledge in special effects and science in general. I am a very big fan of this show as it has helped me to learn and understand many basic principles of research. This however is not just an anecdote for me. An article that I was reading called Mythbusters: A tool for Researching Methods in Psychology reinforces my earlier claim about this show helping people learn. In this study, a group of researchers used clips from the television show in order to teach students about Psychological concepts. The students in the group that watched the Mythbusters clips claimed that they retained the concepts and performed better on the tests than the people in the control group. This is a very interesting article not just for this show. This study could open the door for the usage of other reliable popular media forms in order to help people learn psychological concepts more easily. A common theme in our class has been the learning structure of our education system and about how it is relatively ineffective. I feel like the use of media like this would help improve the learning environment and would help keep people entertained and focussed on their pursuit of knowledge.

Are there any other media forms that you can think of that would help people learn more about the scientific method or other concepts?

http://fg2fy8yh7d.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Mythbusters%3A+A+Tool+for+Teaching+Research+Methods+in+Psychology&rft.jtitle=Teaching+of+Psychology&rft.au=Edward+Burkley&rft.au=Melissa+Burkley&rft.date=2009-07-01&rft.pub=Taylor+%26+Francis+Ltd&rft.issn=0098-6283&rft.eissn=1532-8023&rft.volume=36&rft.issue=3&rft.spage=179&rft.externalDocID=1768388771&paramdict=en-UK

As a double major student in Kinesiology and Psychology, I have grown very interested in the psychology of sport, exercise, and physical activity in general. Although not for everyone, physical activity definitely plays a huge role in our society but the study of the psychological aspects is still a relatively new field. In order to find out more about Sport and Exercise Psychology, researchers mostly use qualitative studies (not always though) because that is one of the more accurate ways to yield results when studying a team or people exercising. An example of one of these studies is called African American Athletes Perception of Team Cohesion (Davis, Lindsay and Lyons. 2014). The researchers were studying how African American athletes perceive team cohesion (how teams work together to achieve a common goal) when they are playing on a sports team. They used the qualitative research methodology of a standardized survey to gather the data from the athletes.

This may sound like a success and I am not trying to take anything away from the study at all. It is important to study team cohesion because it can apply to so many realms from sport to business but a journal summary entitled Exercise Psychology: From Theory to Practice (Smith and Kilty. 2010) raises one main concern revolving around research and application. The authors claim that there is a disconnect between research and application on account of the publishing of studies like the one mentioned above in not very well known journals. In a sport psychology class I was in a few years ago, my professor stated similar worries about this topic. The gap between these two fields is getting smaller as the years go on but this is still a relatively big problem as without research there is no theory or application and vice versa. If both streams are not on the same page, bigger problems could be created with misuse of information. They both lean on each other very heavily and I think this same idea can be carried over to world of pure psychology. There should never be a separation between research and practice. We should be having the most reliable information published and it should be made known to all practitioners. Both streams need to take steps to make sure this gap becomes smaller and smaller. One way I can think of to accomplish this is for practitioners to always be on top of the current research and studies.

What are some other ways that researchers and psychologists can bridge the gap between research and practice?

Have an excellent holiday to all my avid readers!

http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.alu.talonline.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/1612197X.2010.9671929

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.alu.talonline.ca/docview/1621830117?pq-origsite=summon

In many experimental studies, randomized control trials are utilized so that the internal validity to the study is as high as it can be. This however is not the case for studies that go by the name of “Quasi-Experimental ” (QE) studies. At the most basic level, QE studies are ones that do allow the researcher to choose the control and experimental groups. They get to assign specific subjects to each group depending on some type of variable.

There are many flaws to these studies as many critics point out but I do feel that they have a necessity in the research field. I feel like these studies are perfect to determine whether an intervention on a specific population would work well enough for it to be implemented. I feel this way because that is exactly what these studies are. They are interventions on a targeted population of people that doesn’t necessarily call for a random assignment of people to each group. This idea is displayed pretty well in a study I was reading called Effect of an intervention mapping approach to promote the consumption of fruits and vegetables among young adults in junior college: A quasi-experimental study (Boucher, Gagne, and Cote. 2015). This study was an attempt to get college students to eat the proper amount of vegetables and fruits according to the Canada’s food guide. An intervention program was created and administered to an experimental group. The study also had a control group that did not receive the intervention. Both groups filled out a questionnaire before and after the instalment of the intervention. The conclusion of this study confirmed that an intervention in this case would in fact help students eat healthier when it comes to fruits and vegetables. As a kinesiology and psychology major, this is important to me to learn this because I feel that the way to a healthy mind is a healthy diet with exercise. The completion and results of this Quasi-Experimental study confirm my beliefs of this.

Can you think of any other flaws or benefits that come with the use of Quasi- Experimental studies? For the flaws, can you think of any ways to change them?

http://0-www.tandfonline.com.darius.uleth.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/08870446.2015.1050393

Social media is becoming a more and more vital role in our society to make connections between our friends and family even when we are miles away from those people. Many new studies are now emerging that are attempting to find out the amount of time being spent online and what the main uses of social media are. I was reading a study (College Students Social Networking Experiences on Facebook, Pempek et. Al, 2009) about this idea. As I was reading this study, I questioned the validity and reliability of the methods when it came to where the information was gathered. The researchers gathered a group of college individuals who were different levels of education and different ethnic backgrounds and made them complete questionnaires about their usage of the site. My main query comes from the selection of the sample and whether or not it is an actual representation of the amount of time the average person uses social media. The results of this study are probably very accurate for the general population of university students but can they be generalized across populations of non-students? My guess is probably no. I personally believe that being able to apply the results of one study to an entire population (even with random sampling) is impossible on account of the diversity of people in the world. Even though the sample in this study appears to be reliable at face value, when we look deeper into the study it leaves out a vast majority of social networking users who are not in school. Would this have a huge change on the outcome of the study? It is tough to tell but it may have a massive effect (positively or negatively) on the results of the research by leaving them out.

This idea raises the question if we can ever have a truly reliable sample population for any study that will give an accurate representation of a general population as a whole. I am interested in hearing all of your opinions on this subject. What are your takes on whether or not we can ever achieve an unbiased and equal sample size that will allow for the generalization of the results to span over a population. What ways have you seen this be attempted and what are your thoughts on the effectiveness of these methods used?