PSY 460: Advanced Quantitative Methods (Spring 2025)

Course Details

  • Class Meetings: Mondays from 1:30–4:20, LSP 143; Team Meetings: Weekly (times/locations TBD)
  • Professor: Joshua Rottman; Office: LSP 132D; Phone: (717)358-4874; Email: jrottman@fandm.edu
  • Office Hours: Mondays: 12–1pm, Wednesdays: 2–4pm, and by appointment

Course Description and Objectives

This course will introduce complex statistical techniques as applied in the context of psychological research (e.g., multivariate regression, mixed models, factor analysis). We will examine published studies and conduct research projects to explore the relationship between hypotheses, experimental designs, and these statistical techniques.

By taking this course, you will gain a stronger appreciation of the underyling logic of statistical analyses, you will gain proficiency in identifying what statistical tests are appropriate across different situations, and you will become comfortable with using R to explore and analyze data. However, our focus will be on generating rather than acquiring information. Specifically, your primary task is to become a true scientist by broadening the field’s knowledge about a question that has not yet been fully answered.

In collaboration with 1–3 peers, you will propose a novel empirical hypothesis that is informed by the current literature, creatively identify a research methodology to test your hypothesis, and analyze data in R to yield answers about the veracity of your hypothesis. This will culminate in an oral or poster presentation to the Psychology Department and an APA-style manuscript detailing your research questions, the results of your hypothesis tests, and the implications of your research project. Throughout this process, you will build new skills in critical reasoning, quantitative thinking, and academic writing. You will also enhance your leadership skills, your self-confidence, and your ability to effectively work in a group setting.

Readings

There are no required textbooks for this course. I highly recommend regularly consulting the APA Publication Manual (which is available for loan, and which is outlined on this website) as you progress through various stages of the writing process. Additional required and recommended articles and videos will be available on the Canvas course website (via PDF files or hyperlinks). Beyond the resources available on Canvas, there are countless open-source resources available online, which you should consult as needed; I anticipate that you will each spend about an hour each week reading supplementary sources or watching supplementary videos. A few recommendations are below:

Course Expectations and Tips for Success

The hands-on, product-driven nature of this course necessitates that class meetings are structured differently than lower-level psychology courses. For this course to be most productive, many classes will involve working through specific issues tailored to each team’s research project. In some cases, you will be helping other teams. In other cases, you will be collaborating with your teammate(s) to brainstorm, troubleshoot, and move forward in achieving goals at each step of the research process.

In addition to our plenary meetings on Mondays, we will schedule weekly team meetings, during which you will receive more specific feedback. It is your responsibility to make these meetings as productive as possible. The more you prepare for them, including sending me material in advance, the more fruitful they will be. Some weeks will involve more outside work than others, and I reserve the right to require extra team meetings in order to provide additional individualized feedback.

Attendance and Participation

This class requires your active engagement, dependable support, and constructive feedback. Therefore, consistent attendance is expected, and it is crucial that you come to every class and team meeting prepared to make progress on your research project. You are expected to be punctual and fully prepared for each class/meeting. If you have a valid reason for being absent or late, it is your responsibility to immediately notify your teammate(s) and myself with some options for making up lost time. You must also attend the entire Psychology Department Research Symposium on Thursday, April 24th, from 6:00-7:30pm.

Effective Teamwork

You and your teammates are expected to contribute equally to your research projects. Neither free riding nor domineering will be tolerated. Please respect a diversity of opinions and questions, and remain constructive and considerate in your interactions, both inside and outside of the classroom.

I encourage each team to create a repository containing relevant files, alongside a running log of decisions, questions, and issues in need of troubleshooting. This could take the form of a folder in Google Drive containing Docs and/or Sheets that you share with me so that I can provide continual feedback throughout the semester. I encourage you to work with your teammates in advance of each of our weekly meetings to update details of your progress and to flag issues that you would like to discuss when we meet.

Support for Achieving Excellence

This class will be intensive and challenging, but I am here to help you succeed. I encourage you to meet with me whenever you have concerns or confusion regarding the course material and assignments. If any issues arise that have the potential to interfere with your success in the course, please let me know as soon as possible. I value open communication, and I invite you to be frank with me. I am very open to feedback and criticism about my teaching, the class content, or anything else! Email is the best way to reach me; I typically respond within 48 hours. I also convey most announcements via email; please be sure to stay on top of your inbox and read all emails fully. I will be available for meetings during my office hours, by appointment, and whenever my office door is open.

Additionally, please take advantage of the many other resources that Franklin & Marshall has to offer! The Writing Center can assist you with writing and other academic skills, and a number of resources are available to support your wellbeing (e.g., Counseling Services, DipCares, and the House Deans).

Course Requirements

Empirical Research Paper

Your primary assignment in this course is to produce an APA-style manuscript that provides a compelling and exhaustive explanation of the motivation, design, findings, and conclusions of your empirical research. This paper should closely mimic the published empirical journal articles that you will be citing in your paper’s Introduction. The APA’s Publication Manual provides an excellent breakdown of what each section of your paper should contain.

While you will be designing and conducting the research collaboratively, the entirety of your paper should be written independently. The Introduction and Discussion sections should each be a minimum of 750 words in length. The Methods and Results will vary in length depending on the nature of your research, and should be sufficiently long to provide readers with a complete understanding of the methodology and analyses (such that an independent researcher could replicate your work). The entirety of your paper should be between 3,000 and 6,000 words in length, not including references.

In order to ensure that you have every opportunity to produce an excellent manuscript while acquiring the requisite skills of a researcher, you will submit components of your final paper for initial feedback on February 23rd and April 6th, which will allow you opportunities to make substantial revisions. Your final submission should be uploaded to Canvas by 9:00am on April 29th. You are also encouraged to submit outlines or drafts of each section for additional feedback at least one week in advance of each due date.

Talk or Poster Presentation

Presenting work in talk or poster format is a crucial component of disseminating research to broad audiences. In order to allow you to engage with this element of the research process, you will be required to present your findings at the Collaborative Research Symposium during the evening of April 24th. Unlike your paper, this should be a fully collaborative effort.

Mini-Quizzes

On most Mondays, I will give you a short quiz (1-5 questions) to assess your understanding of the assigned readings, the lecture material, and/or various aspects of your research project. These will generally be completed in class with pencil-and-paper, and you will often be allowed to use printed notes (but not electronic notes). If you are absent and miss a quiz, you will need to make it up through a short verbal quiz during a time outside of class.

Assessments of Teamwork and Individual Performance

At two points during the semester (by March 2nd and April 13th), I will ask you to complete a survey assessing each member of your team on their overall contributions to your research. You will also be asked to assess your own contributions and intellectual progress and performance in the course, alongside indicating what letter grade you believe you have earned to date. We will have one-on-one meetings during class time on March 3rd and April 14th to discuss these evaluations in person. I also encourage you to set up additional meetings with me to discuss your own and your teammates’ performance, and to set goals for the semester.

Grading

The modern grading system is problematic on many fronts. Grades detract from intrinsic motivations to learn, promote anxiety, and do not foster intellectual growth. Additionally, the objective of this course is to train you to become a scientist, not to impart information and put you to the test. Therefore, I will not assign letter grades on any of your work, and I will not administer any major exams. We will discuss grades at only two points during the semester: during one-on-one check-ins in early March and mid-April. Instead of quantifying your progress through grades, I will provide you with extensive qualitative feedback on your work. You will also evaluate your work in a narrative format, which will help me to determine the final letter grade that I am required to submit to the College at the end of the semester. This approach is meant to foster a focus on learning rather than on assessment, to empower you to evaluate your own progress rather than having it evaluated for you, and to foster your sense of accountability and your metacognitive ability to accurately reflect on your academic strengths and weaknesses.

Your final course grade will result from your achievements in each of the categories below. Each of the four primary assessment criteria will be weighted equally. Specifically, grades will be determined by the overall distribution of the bolded adjectives, with “reliably” and “exceptional” corresponding to an A, “often” and “strong” corresponding to a B, “occasionally” and “adequate” corresponding to a C, and “never” and “weak” corresponding to a D. Failing grades will result from hindering your team’s productivity (e.g., due to excessive absences), not submitting a final paper, or engaging in clear academic misconduct. For the first set of assessment criteria (related to engagement and teamwork), I will rely upon a dual combination of my own assessments and your own and your teammates’ assessments. If you would like to know your grade at any point during the semester, you may consult this rubric, which is meant to be as transparent as possible.

Criteria for Assessment

(1) You reliably/often/occasionally/never demonstrate active engagement and teamwork, as evidenced by the extent to which each of the following statements is accurate:

  • You arrive punctually to class sessions and team meetings, and you are responsive to your teammates’ communications outside of these meetings.
  • You consistently remain present and engaged, and you do not become distracted by technology or side conversations.
  • You contribute to class discussions and consistently ask thoughtful questions to illuminate difficult content.
  • You enthusiastically contribute to building a respectful and collaborative classroom culture.
  • You assume agency in moving your project forward, while allowing other teammates to exert their own agency as well.
  • You work diligently alongside teammates, communicate effectively, and collaboratively help with making group decisions.
  • You submit completed assignments on time, each of which demonstrates substantial effort.

(2) You reliably/often/occasionally/never demonstrate learning and strong comprehension, as evidenced by the extent to which each of the following statements is accurate:

  • Your performance on mini-quizzes demonstrates that you have earnestly engaged with the assigned readings and videos, and that you are making steady progress in your statistical abilities.
  • Your performance on mini-quizzes demonstrates an impressive grasp of the course material.
  • You show a clear understanding of all components of your research project during the Research Symposium and in your final paper.
  • You strive for intellectual growth and consistently challenge yourself (for example, by seeking out clarification on points of confusion, both during and outside of class).

(3) You produce a(n) exceptional/strong/adequate/weak project in collaboration with your teammates, as evidenced by the extent to which each of the following statements is accurate:

  • You and your team generate a compelling research question that is tested by analyzing relevant data. The project therefore has the potential to contribute a novel finding to the scientific literature.
  • You have explored your data appropriately and your analyses have been expertly conducted, using advanced statistical techniques (i.e., moving beyond what was covered within PSY 300).
  • You and your team deliver a strong presentation at the Collaborative Research Symposium, which includes each of the following elements:
    • You provide the audience with relevant background so they understand why the study was conducted. Your general research question and hypotheses are clearly grounded in the relevant literature.
    • The methodology is clearly described. You explain conceptual variables before turning to a description of the operational variables.
    • The analysis plan and results are presented lucidly, and all figures are clearly explained.
    • At the end of your presentation, the findings are summarized and the take-home messages and broader contributions of the research are made apparent, alongside limitations and possible future directions.
    • The presentation is well organized and includes a polished set of slides and evidence of significant preparation and practice. Important points are emphasized and reiterated throughout.
    • Questions from the audience are answered accurately and insightfully.

(4) You submit a(n) exceptional/strong/adequate/weak final paper, as evidenced by the extent to which each of the following statements is accurate:

  • You write a comprehensive paper to detail your research project, which includes the following elements:
    • The Introduction has a clear thesis statement and a strong argument for the plausibility of the hypothesis under investigation. It appropriately describes the current state of knowledge in the specific research area, referencing at least five relevant sources.
    • The Method contains relevant details about the participants, manipulations (if any), and measurements.
    • The Results detail the findings from an appropriate and exhaustive set of analyses. Each statistical test is supplemented with a narrative explanation reminding readers of the hypothesis being tested and describing the significance of the obtained result. Well-labeled and accurately formatted tables and/or figures help to explain the findings.
    • The Discussion interprets the research findings in accordance with the hypotheses and the literature reviewed in the Introduction. Limitations are discussed, and future research is proposed to address these shortcomings.
    • Your writing is clear, simple, and to the point. It is evident that the paper has been substantially revised and polished.

Course Policies

Academic Accommodations

I strive to provide an environment that is equitable and conducive to achievement and learning for all students. As such, I invite you to speak with me about your individual learning needs so we can discuss how this course can best accommodate them. In addition, formal academic accommodations are available for students who require them. Please meet with me during the first week of class to discuss any accommodations for this course that have been supported by appropriate documentation and approved by the Office of Student Accessibility Services. I will keep all information confidential.

Academic Integrity

As described on pp. 150–151 of the F&M Course Catalog, you risk severe academic and disciplinary consequences if you do not uphold priniciples of academic integrity. I urge you to be especially careful to avoid plagiarism (i.e., representing someone else’s work as your own). In scientific writing, you must provide citations to denote credit for any idea, not merely verbatim text. If a classmate or a published paper contributes an idea you want to integrate into your work, or if you use generative AI to refine your writing or ideas, you must clearly denote credit. While Chat GPT can be a useful tool for debugging errors in your R code, you should be very careful to not represent any work done by generative AI as your own. Additionally, although you will collaborate with your teammates to complete important components of your research project, your written work should be completed individually. Penalties for acts of academic dishonesty (including submitting text produced by generative AI or a teammate without properly assigning credit) will be carefully assessed on a case-by-case basis, and may include receiving a failing grade in the course or expulsion from F&M.

Policy on Electronic Devices

This class will require frequent use of statistical software. In order to maximize your success and minimize the possibility for distractions, you should only use computers when they are necessary (e.g., when using RStudio), and you should turn off notifications and close unrelated windows. You should generally put away phones and tablets during class. Exceptions will be granted for students with compelling reasons for using electronic devices to take notes and/or to otherwise facilitate learning.

Policy on Attendance and Late Assignments

It is your responsibility to come to each class on time, prepared to learn and discuss; failing to do this will hinder your success in the course. You are also responsible for submitting your best work for every assignment, and to submit each assignment by the deadline (which will facilitate me in returning feedback within two weeks). However, I understand that unexpected and unavoidable circumstances might sometimes prevent you from upholding these responsibilities in all instances. Therefore, I will give you five “tokens” that you can use (a) for missing a class or team meeting, or (b) for obtaining a 24-hour extension on an individual (not team) assignment. In some cases, I may offer opportunities to obtain extra tokens (e.g., by attending outside events or by making particularly excellent contributions during class sessions). In fact, I have hidden an Easter egg here: the first person who sends me an email with a picture of a cute animal will earn an extra token. If you use more than the allotted number of tokens, your final grade will be adjusted downward accordingly.

Semester Schedule

Components of this schedule are subject to change in order to best suit the needs of specific research projects. All assigned readings/videos should be completed before the date for which they are assigned. Unless otherwise stated, all assignment submissions should be uploaded to Canvas by 11:59pm on the Sunday before class.

Date Topic Assigned Readings/Videos Assigned Submissions
Jan. 20 Collaborative research Spend an hour browsing publicly available datasets Brainstorm of 3-4 research questions (individual)
Jan. 27 Statistical models Poldrack (2019), Statistical thinking for the 21st century, Chapters 5 and 14 Identify and read 2-3 relevant journal articles, and modify your research questions based on the readings (individual)
Feb. 3 Using R “Learn R in 39 minutes” (YouTube video from Equitable Equations) Formulate 2-3 possible research hypotheses in terms of statistical models (full team)
Feb. 10 Wrangling data in R Introduction to Tidyverse in R (YouTube video from Quant Psych) Formal presentation of research hypothesis and variable operationalizations (full team)
Feb. 17 Reshaping data in R “dplyr, or a dance with data (part 7)” (YouTube video from Danielle Navarro) Rough data analysis plan (full team)
Feb. 24 Visualizing data in R Hehman & Xie (2021), “Doing better data visualization,” in AMPPS, and Field et al. (2012), Discovering statistics using R (pp. 121-131) Draft of Introduction and Method sections (individual)
Mar. 3 Midterm check-ins None Midterm assessment survey (individual)
Mar. 17 Factor analysis Yong & Pearce (2013), “A beginner’s guide to factor analysis,” in TQMP, and “Understanding and applying factor analysis in R” (YouTube video from Spencer Pao) Finalized data analysis plan for preregistration (full team)
Mar. 24 Modeling and interpreting interaction effects “GLM Part 6” (YouTube video from Quant Psych), and “Multiple linear regression with interaction in R” Tidied dataset (full team)
Mar. 31 Mixed effects models (YouTube video from Equitable Equations) Brown (2021), “An introduction to linear mixed-effects modeling in R,” in AMPPS, and “(Simplified) Linear Mixed model in R with lme()” (YouTube video from LiquidBrain Bioinformatics) Relevant visualizations (full team)
Apr. 7 Presenting scientific research Pelham & Blanton (2003), Conducting research in psychology: Measuring the weight of smoke (pp. 310–329). Final analyses (full team) and draft of Results and Discussion sections (individual, due 4/9)
Apr. 14 Final check-ins None Final assessment survey (individual)
Apr. 21 Preparing for the Research Symposium Watch 2-3 professional talks (e.g., from TED) Draft of presentation slides or poster (full team)

You are additionally required to attend the Collaborative Research Symposium on the evening of Thursday, April 24, where you and your teammates will present your work. Your final paper is due on the morning of April 29.