This course explores in detail the aims, techniques, and ethics of
research in psychology. Methods of data collection include
observational methods, survey research, true experimental designs and
quasi-experimental designs. Students keep an intellectual journal,
prepare a field study, a group survey project, and a final grant
package. This course is part of the required core for the MA degree in
Psychology.
Health Psychology, an emerging specialty field, has been defined as
the aggregate of the knowledge base of psychology applied to health and
illness (Matarazzo, 1984). This course examines how biological,
psychological, and social factors interact to influence individual
behavior related to promoting health, preventing illness, and coping
with illness, pain, and disability. Students keep an intellectual journal.
I sometimes offer this writing-intensive undergraduate course at the Graduate Level
when it is called Seminar in Contemporary Research, and the course is appropriate for both
Psychology and Counseling graduate students.
This course is an introduction to the scientific study of perception
from a physiological approach concentrating on vision. Problems in human
perception have a long history in the development of psychology as an independent science.
Topics include both traditional (color, size, depth, mov't, etc) and so-called
non-traditional areas in perception and the psychology of consciousness.