As with any new program, I've found that the easiest
way to learn these tools is through an active learning experience.
To facilitate this, I've developed a simple exercise with several of the
instruments. You can use these projects to work on the programs or
have students complete them as learning exercises. The exercises
are accessable as webpages or as a printable handout.
In addition, I offer suggestions for more exercises
and for using these tools in your classes. These are ideas that I've
come up with, but I'm open to adding more. If you have a suggestion
or exercise, let me know and
I'll include it (giving you credit, of course). Also, references
for several of the tools include examples or practice exercises themselves.
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* In the sample
project, you construct a simple survey composed of several items assessing
students' anxiety associated with college and a depression scale.
Additional survey items can easily be added.
This simple survey not only allows practice with SurveyWiz, but provides an opportunity to talk about sampling issues, response bias, and construct validity. |
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* In the sample
project, you construct an experiment to demonstrate impression formation.
In the experiment, an identical set of traits is presented in one of two
orders to demonstrate order effects. There is one between-subjects
and one quasi-experimental variable.
WEXTOR's structured format makes it a useful exercise for students. They can practice distinguishing variables, think about their measurement, and dealing with potential confounds. |
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* In the sample project, you construct a short questionnaire assessing several measures of socioeconomic status. The exercise includes creating several different types of response options. |
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* In the sample
project, you devise a short questionnaire to assess the importance
of different factors when rating physical attractiveness. Specifically,
we want to know if being tall, dark, and handsome is really the best combination.
So, we want to manipulate 3 factors: a) Height (Short vs. Tall);
b) Skin Tone (Fair skinned vs. Dark skinned); c) Appearance (Ugly vs. Handsome).
This makes students think about crossed factors and interactions. |