Psychology 101
Fall 2007
Tuesday and Thursday 11-12:15 pm
130 Gilmer Hall

Professor
Brian Nosek
Gilmer 015
nosek@virginia.edu; 924-0666
Office hours: Wednesday 9:00 – 10:30am and by appointment

TAs

Give Anonymous Feedback | Nosek Homepage | FINAL GRADES

Slides will be posted by 9am on the day of class (the evening before, if possible). "Slides" is a pdf with one slide per page, "Mini" has three slides per page, "PPT" are the slides in Powerpoint, "Notes" are TA notes posted a day after class to supplement your own notes.

CHANGED Schedule of Review sessions. All review sessions will be held in Gilmer 190 from 6:30 to 8:00pm. Note that 190 is NOT the same room as class. Send questions that you want to make sure are covered to the TAs at least a day in advance of the review date. Review sessions will be Thu, September 13th (Exam 1); Thu, October 18th (Exam 2); Thu, November 8th (Exam 3); and Thu, December 6th (Final).

Textbook: Gray, Peter (2006) Psychology (5th Edition). Worth Publishers.
Additional info: http://worthpublishers.com/gray/

Courtesy is appreciated. If you wish to read or talk during a lecture, please do so outside the lecture hall.

Sensitivity is important. Science tolerates and critically evaluates all points of view when they are advanced with sensitivity for those who may not share them. Please keep in mind that your fellow students may not share your religious affiliations, political beliefs, cultural backgrounds, economic, ethnic, or sexual orientations. If you do not wish to be exposed to discussions that may challenge your values and beliefs, then this class is not for you.

Pass/Fail: If you are taking the course on the Credit/No Credit option, you must receive at least a "C-" to receive credit for the course. This option must be elected during the Add period.

Academic Honesty: Students are expected to work independently on the exams. Students will be required to write out and sign the Pledge on the back of each examination.

Withdrawals and Incompletes: The last day to drop the course is September 11th. You may withdraw any time prior to October 23rd, but the course will not be deleted from your record. Depending upon whether you are passing or failing the course prior to withdrawal, a grade of either WP or WF will appear on your record. If a student fails to take the final exam without prior written consent from the Dean, a grade of "0" will be added to the student's other scores in order to determine the final grade. Requests for incompletes will only be approved for compelling reasons (e.g., serious illness). The registrar converts outstanding "IN"s to "F"s four weeks after the last final exam has been given. No exceptions will be made without prior, written permission from the Dean of the College.

Exams and Grades: Course grades will be based on performance on three midterm examinations and a cumulative final. Exams are based on lecture material and the assigned readings, and will consist of multiple-choice, true-false, and matching questions. It is important to note that lecture and reading material will be complementary (not necessarily overlapping). Exam questions about the reading material will be based on the focus questions in the side bar.

There will be no make-up exams, but each student may choose to be graded in one of two ways:

Option 1 (weighted exams): Students who select this option will take all 3 midterm exams and the final. In principle, each exam is worth 25% of the total grade. However, with Option 1, the midterms will be weighted to maximize the benefits of good performance, and minimize the pain of poor performance. The best 2 midterms will be weighted as 30% of total grade each, and the worst midterm will be weighted as 15%. The final is weighted as 25%. In addition, improvement in performance over time will be rewarded with an adjustment to the final grade (declines in performance will not be punished). The adjustment is applied to all students (in Option 1) whether they are at the top or the bottom of the grade distribution. This option is likely to be desirable for students who are able to attend all exam dates.

Option 2 (skip a midterm exam): Option 2 is to take only 2 of the 3-midterm exams and the final (all students must take the final). Each exam will be weighted 33% of the total. Students can miss any of the 3-midterm exams, but will not benefit from the grade adjustments in Option 1. This option is likely to be preferred by students who have to miss an exam because of other life demands (e.g., athletic commitment, family emergency, illness).

Option 1 is selected by default. If a student misses an exam he/she is automatically placed in Option 2. Students cannot elect to drop an exam after turning it in. Students may elect not to score the exam after starting it, but must inform the TA, label the front page of the exam “Void, do not grade”, and hand it in.

Normally, 90-100 points will equal A, 80-89 points will equal B, and so on. Plusses and minuses will be assigned to scores on the margins of each interval. Exam grades will only be reported as a score, and will not be associated with a letter grade - the curve is not applied until the final scores are calculated. That means that the TA’s will not be able to answer questions like “How many points do I need on the final to get an A?” The distribution of class performance will be available, so students can make an educated guess about their grade prior to the end of the semester, but the actual grade will be uncertain until the overall scores are curved. The curve will only be used to improve grades, not to hurt them (e.g., 84% will never be worth less than a B). The curve will guarantee that at least 60-65% of the class gets in the A/B range. Extra credit (if any) will be applied after calculating final grades, not before (with a curve, it wouldn’t really be extra credit otherwise). The final exam will be Friday, December 14th at 9:00am in the normal classroom.

Experiment Participation

Requirements: Learning about Psychology requires reading, listening, and doing. You are required to have participated in 6 hours of experimental research, or completed an equivalent alternative assignment, if you have not already done so in a different 100 or 200-level Psychology course at UVA. This is referred to as The Participant Pool Requirement. At least t hree of the credits must be completed by October 21st, and the remaining three must be completed by the last day of the semester December 7th. The Participant Pool Coordinators maintain records of completion, coordinate experiment participation, and assist students with fulfilling the requirement. At the half-way point and end of the semester, the coordinators will give each professor a report noting the students who have and have not fulfilled the requirement.

The participant pool coordinators maintain the Participant Pool Website at: http://www.virginia.edu/psychology/ppool/ . This website has lots of information and allows students to register to participate in experiments and view their current status. To register or see personalized information, you will need to log on using your email id and the last 5 digits of your social security number. Please note that the coordinators may not have information about previous completion, so EVERY student should visit that website and log in to check and, if needed, update their status. If you have ANY questions about this requirement or related issues, please check the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) available at the website. If your question is not answered, please fill out a support request available at http://www.virginia.edu/psychology/ppool/support/, or email ppool@virginia.edu.

Participant Rights: Your rights as a participant in psychological research are paramount and will be fully explained when you arrive for a study. One is the right to discontinue your participation. If you agree to participate in a study and decide at any time after you arrive that you do not wish to continue, you will still receive credit for your participation.

Keeping Appointments: Many research protocols are time-sensitive, so participation requires arriving at the study location on-time. If you do need to cancel an appointment, be sure to do so within the study’s cancellation time limit. For each missed appointment, you will need to complete an extra experiment credit (beyond the 6 standard credit hours). You will still receive credit if the experimenter misses the appointment, but you must be in the right place at the right time and stay for 10 minutes after the appt start time.

Alternate Assignment: If you would prefer not to take part in studies, you can learn about research by reading and summarize up to six articles (you will receive one credit for each article summarized). You may select articles from any of the following journals: Journal of Social and Personality Psychology; American Psychologist; Psychological Review; Journal of Abnormal Psychology; Psychological Bulletin; Developmental Psychology. All journals can be found in university libraries and you should select articles that have been published within this calendar year. Write a 1-2 page typed summary of the research question, methods, and findings of each article, ending with at least one paragraph giving your own critique, or ideas for further research. Be sure to photocopy the first page of the article, which must include an abstract and put it in the Participant Pool box in the psychology mailroom, Gilmer 103. Article summaries should require approximately one hour each. Complete comprehension of the statistical analyses is not necessary. The authors usually summarize the findings in English at the beginning of the discussion section.

Credit: If you do not fulfill the participation requirement, you will receive a letter grade in the course that is one grade lower than the grade derived from your final score from the exams (e.g., a B- would be a C+).