Reproducibility crises have arisen in psychology and other behavioral sciences, spurring efforts to ensure research findings are credible and replicable. Although reforms are occurring at professional levels in terms of new publication parameters and open science initiatives, the credibility and reproducibility of undergraduate research deserves…

Integral to most undergraduate psychology degree programs are research methods courses. Students learn about theory, study design and hypothesis testing, and gain knowledge that is assessed by laboratory reports. We describe a problem-based learning approach with an emphasis on acquisition of study design skills. Working in small groups, students…

Could the research you read be fundamentally flawed? Could critical defects in methodology slip by you undetected? To become informed consumers of research, students need to thoughtfully evaluate the research they read rather than accept it without question. This second edition of a classic text gives students the tools they need to apply critical…

Argues that reliance upon verification procedures has inhibited theory building in communication. Advances four falsification procedures and presents examples from communication studies. Offers several implications these procedures have for empirical research in communication. (PD)

The paper uses both the author's experience of research training, and the empirical studies of autism in which he participated over the last 40-plus years, to derive research lessons and to consider the needs and prospects for future research. Attention is drawn to: the importance of mentors; the need to use technologies in a hypothesis-testing…

Confidence intervals are beginning to play an increasing role in the reporting of research findings within the social and behavioral sciences and, consequently, are becoming more prevalent in beginning classes in statistics and research methods. Confidence intervals are an attractive means of conveying experimental results, as they contain a…

35 undergraduates segmented one of two videotapes of an actor methodically assembling 20 five-page questionnaires. Tests the hypothesis that behavior that differs systematically in the availability of action-defining changes will be segmented into perceived actions in a systematically different way. (Author/RK)

Inter-relationships between subtests of the WISC, intellectual and behavioral impulsivity, were examined separately for boys and girls in an attempt to confirm that impulsivity is differently related to attainment for the two sexes. (Authors)

Provides evidence that subjects who have experienced deception in experiments exhibit altered behavior and/or attitudes in subsequent experiments. Bibliography, tables, and graph. (RW)

This study tested Levine's hypothesis testing model of discrimination learning with a procedure for determining which hypothesis is sampled without introducing blank trials. (DP)

Research was conducted to investigate the phenomena associated with an individual's having perceived control or actual control over aversive stimuli. In all, 10 studies were conducted, 7 of which were directly relevant to investigating variables affecting perceived or actual control, and 3 being "spin-off" experiments. The seven studies…

The authors examine published research in speech communication and evaluate its potential for theory development. Two major suggestions are advanced that will facilitate the quest for viable theory of speech communication. First, research should begin to focus on relevant communication behaviors rather than merely using them as convenient contexts…