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STATISTICS
FOR THE LIFE SCIENCES (PY 201):
Statistics is a tool that researchers use to
describe and analyze their data. Topics include ways to
summarize
and describe data numerically and graphically, and ways to test
research
hypotheses using z tests, t tests, ANOVAs, correlation, regression, and
nonparametric procedures such as chi square. This is a required
course
for psychology majors and should be taken in your sophomore or junior
year, and
it is strongly recommended for biology and chemistry majors as well.
RESEARCH METHODS
(PY 202): This
course is a 4-credit lab class in which you will learn how to read,
evaluate,
design, conduct, analyze, and report psychological research. The course
is
meant to provide you with knowledge and skills so that you can better
understand psychology as a scientific discipline. This is a
required
course for psychology majors and should be taken no later than
your the
junior year. Research methods is at the very heart of the
psychology
major, and as such it provides useful knowledge and skills for the
other
courses you will be taking. In addition, if you plan on being
involved in
additional research (supervised research with a faculty member,
independent
study, or an honors project), you need to take the course as
early as you
can so that these doors are open to you as you continue your education
here at
Fairfield. These additional research opportunities are very
valuable if you plan on continuing on to graduate school, though the
number of
openings are limited, so the early you start, the more you can
accomplish in
your undergraduate degree.
COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY (PY 285):
This course examines how people think -- how they pay attention
to
things, how they perceive the outside world, how they learn and
remember, and
how they reason, solve problems, and use language. We explore ow
the
brain produces these various cognitive processes, and we learn
the
application of principles from cognition into our everyday lives. This
is an
elective course for psychology majors that fulfills requirements from
Group II
of the psychology major requirements at Fairfield. It can
serve as
an elective for people majoring in areas in which better understanding
how
people think would be valuable --e.g., education, nursing,
business,
biology, and law.
INDEPENDENT RESEARCH (PY 395); In this course an individual student designs, runs, analyzes, and reports on a full research project. I will work closely with you every step of the way either building off of a project you worked on in Supervised Research or on a project that you develop on your own. Permission of instructor is necessary to register. If you are interested, please contact me at lhenkel@fairfield.edu
TEACHING INTERNSHIP IN PSYCHOLOGY (PY
296/297):
In this
elective course, the student serves as a teaching intern (TI) for my
Statistics
for the Life Sciences (PY 203) course. The TIS are responsible
for
running the weekly lab sections during which students learn how to run
SPSS and
complete structure exercises. This is an excellent opportunity to
see the
classroom and the dynamics of learning from the other side. You
not only
will refine your understanding of statistics, you will learn about what
you can
do as a teacher to help people learn. If you are
interested, please contact me at lhenkel@fairfield.edu