understanding of concepts relating to research methods in psychology关于心理学研究方法概念的理解.ppt

18-20 March, 2002 PLAT 2002 Conference Students’ understanding of concepts relating to research methods in psychology Erica Morris The Institute of Educational Technology The Open University, UK e.j.morris@open.ac.uk http://iet.open.ac.uk/research/calrg/home.cfm Overview Research project in the Institute of Educational Technology Erica Morris, Ralph Hibberd, Ann Jones An analysis of students’ conceptions relating to psychological research methods Background to the proposed research Pilot work (two studies) Further work Objectives of the research Objectives of the proposed research project: To investigate students’ understanding of concepts relating to research methods in psychology To investigate how computer applications can be used to support learners’ construction of concepts maps To critically examine the use of concept maps as a research tool to assess learners’ knowledge of a particular subject area Background to the research Constructivist perspective Identification of learners’ prior conceptions and difficulties (e.g., Hennessy et al, 1995) A range of techniques have been used to identify students’ conceptions about particular subject areas (Lui, 2001) Interviews, paper and pencil tests, concept maps Background to the research Psychology students hold misconceptions relating to introductory statistics (Morris, 2001; Morris Scanlon, 2000) Concepts maps have been used to assess learners’ understanding in a variety of subject areas (Ruiz-Primo Shavelson, 1996) Many different types of tasks, response formats and scoring systems Rationale for pilot work Investigate students’ understanding of concepts relating to research methods in psychology Concepts relating to the experimental method, such as independent variable, control and representative sample Assess students’ completion of concept mapping tasks Examine students’ answers to questions Findings to inform the design of empirical study Pilot work Participants completed a questionnaire Five second year s