Psych Courses: Syllabus

• Supplementary readings and materials will be available on the course website. You will be responsible for any additional posted articles as indicated in the syllabus or in class.

Course Objectives / Overview

This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the concepts related to the scientific study of human behavior, and is a prerequisite for all advanced psychology courses. The primary goals of this class are to help you think critically about the material and to create a conceptual foundation for further learning. By the time you have completed this course you will know the basic terms, concepts, methods, and perspectives in the psychological discipline.

Introductory Psychology covers material selected from an incredibly diverse field. While originally based on experimental approaches to physiology and philosophy, psychology shares close ties to a number of different fields, including biology, mathematics, history, literature, and art. Psychological issues tend to underlie studies in almost any imaginable discipline, as the quest for knowledge is essentially a very human characteristic. Therefore, an understanding of the fundamental aspects of human behavior and reasoning can be applied in many aspects of everyday life. Among the topics covered in this class are the nature of consciousness, memory, intelligence, human socialization, consciousness, language, development, perception of the external world, and personality, all of which play out in our lives on a daily basis.

Lectures and attendance policy

Classes will consist of a variety of activities, including group work, film clips, demonstrations, and lectures. While class attendance is not required, writing assignments will make up 25% of your overall grade for the course (see writing assignments below), and must be submitted during class time for credit. Additionally, lectures will cover material from the book in greater depth, and may include subjects that are not discussed in detail in the text. You will be responsible for all material covered in the course, regardless of your attendance. If you miss class, you are responsible for getting notes from a classmate. Slides of the PowerPoints for upcoming lectures will be available on the course website at least 24 hours before the class in which the material is taught. You are welcome to print these slides and bring them to class, but they will not be passed out during class itself due to the amount of wasted paper it would generate. The posted slides will not contain all the material covered in lecture, as I wouldn't want to spoil any of my jokes by giving you the punch line in advance. Only the most essential (and note-taking intensive) material will be included in the lecture slides.

Student Conduct

A number of the issues covered in this course are the source of intense debate, and may elicit some strong emotional reactions. While I enjoy a great debate, I expect all of you to be respectful of the opinions of others regardless of the strength of your own beliefs.

Every student has the right to a civil, productive, and stimulating learning environment, and as such, you are expected to abide by the College of Liberal arts student conduct regulations. Accordingly, students whose behavior is disruptive to the instructor or other students will be asked to leave the classroom. The full student code of conduct is available at http://advisingtools.class.umn.edu/cgep/studentconduct.html

Sexual harassment (defined as any unwelcome sexual advance, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature) will not be tolerated, and complaints should be directed to the University's Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (624-9547).

Academic dishonesty

Students are expected to adhere to the university's policy on academic dishonesty, as defined by the Committee on Student Academic Affairs. Any misrepresentation of a student's own work will not be tolerated, including cheating on assignments or exams, plagiarizing, submitting the same paper or material for more than one course, or the willful sabotage of another's work. Students suspected of cheating on an exam, quiz, or essay will receive a 0 on that assignment and, in accord with University policy, further action may be taken.

Students with special needs

The University of Minnesota is committed to providing equal access to learning for all its students. If you need any special accommodations, please contact me as soon as possible. Please remember that the office of disability services is at your disposal to aid you in your studies, and can be contacted at (612) 626-1333 . As an instructor, I am not authorized to honor any request that has not been brought to the attention of this group. I can assure you, however, that your confidentiality and success at learning are of utmost importance to the office of disability services, and I strongly encourage that you seek their aid, if necessary. Students with special needs or those for whom English is not their native language can arrange to be granted extra time on tests, and quizzes will be administered at the end of the class period, leaving you as much time as required to complete the assignment. While the use of foreign language dictionaries and computers will not be permitted during quizzes or exams, all students are permitted to ask for help with words that are not technical psychological terms covered in the course.

Syllabus changes

While the general structure of the assignments and the topics covered each day should remain as indicated, some changes to the syllabus may occur during the semester. You will be informed of these changes in class, and updated syllabus information will be posted on the course website and distributed to the class.

Grading

You will be graded based on total points earned, not on performance in comparison to other students. Given that your grade is based on your own performance, there is no reason that every one of you cannot achieve an A grade in the course. Alternately, it is also in your power to choose to earn an F. As you will learn in class, people tend to attribute their own behavior to others as a defense mechanism, and I'd rather you did well in the class and didn't waste your precious emotional energy on hating me for the rest of your natural lives. The grading scale is as follows:

Points Earned	Percent	Letter Grade
250 – 232	100% - 93%	A
231 – 225	92.9% - 90%	A-
224 – 217	89.9% - 87%	B+
216 – 207	86.9% - 83%	B
206 – 200	82.9% - 80%	B-
199 – 192	79.9% -77%	C+
191 – 182	76.9% - 73%	C
181 – 175	72.9% - 70%	C-
174 – 167	69.9% - 67%	D+
166 – 150	66.9% - 60%	D
149 - 0	59.9% and below	F

Students registered for a S-N grade in the course must earn a minimum of 70% of the points to receive an S grade. Grades will be available at any time on request, but I encourage you to keep track of your score using the worksheet provided below. If you are concerned about any of the grades you have received, feel free to talk to me during office hours.

The University of Minnesota has adopted the following definitions for letter grades:

Grade Definition

A Outstanding achievement relative to the level necessary to meet course requirements

B Achievement significantly above the level necessary to meet course requirements

C Achievement that meets the course requirements in every respect

D Achievement that is worthy of credit even though it fails to fully meet the course requirements

S Achievement that is satisfactory and is equivalent to a C- or better

F or N Represents failure (and no credit) and signifies that the work was either (1) completed but at a level of achievement that is not worthy of credit or (2) was not completed and there was no agreement between the instructor and the student that the student should be awarded an I.

I Assigned at the discretion of the instructor when, due to an extraordinary circumstance (e.g. hospitalization) a student is prevented from completing the work of the course on time. Requires a written agreement between the instructor and the student.

Writing assignments (60 points total, 6 points / assignment)

Many Wednesdays you will be provided an essay topic to prepare for the following Monday (see the class schedule for specific due dates). This essay will require you to think critically about a topic discussed in class or in the text, and will require little in the way of factual support or references. Instead, I would like to provide you an opportunity to share your own thoughts about the important issues that psychologists must consider. Essays are worth 6 points each, and you will always be provided 5 days to prepare this 1-2 page essay (no more, no less!). While this is an opinion-based assignment, I expect that it is proofread and grammatically correct. There is no reason why you should not be able to gain all 6 points on each essay assignment should you take the time to carefully check your work. There will be a total of 11 essays assigned during the summer, and they comprise about 25% of your final grade. Essays will be collected at the beginning of class on Monday . No late submissions will be allowed, and all essays must be double-spaced, typed and submitted in paper form. If you are unable to make it to class on a Monday in which an essay is due, you may contact me in advance or have a friend bring your essay along to class. Only 10 of these essays will count towards your final grade, so you may miss one without any penalty to your grade. In other words, you are allowed to miss one class period without penalty. Those of you submit all 11 essays will receive a maximum of 6 extra credit points for the extra essay. No further absences on these assignments will be excused, so plan ahead.

Research report and experimental design project (40 points)

Students will work in groups of 4 with students on a 4-phased, semester-long research project. Group meetings will take place in a WebVista-enabled chat room environment. While more information will be provided to you in the upcoming week, here is a brief preview of what the project will entail:

Student groups will choose a relevant research question, such as What motivates students to do well in college. After having your topic approved by your group's TA, each group member will find one research article related to your group's topic and will provide a summary. Next, groups will brainstorm ideas for how to conduct a small case study to find first-hand information on your group's topic from “real” people. Group members will then collect a small amount of data. Lastly, groups will write a short paper, where they will describe the group's original hypothesis, their findings, and any differences or similarities between the research articles group members read and the group's findings.

This project will be carried out in stages. You will be provided with very detailed guidelines for how to successfully complete each stage. You will produce a short paper at the end of each project stage. You will receive feedback on these short papers by your group's TA. At the end of the project, during your last meeting, you will use these short papers and the feedback you received to create a Final Project Paper. Only the Final Paper will be graded. However, you will lose points off of the Final Paper if your intermediate assignments are not turned in on time (5 percentage points off per day any assignment is late). You will be working with your TAs in the idea-generation, research and paper-writing process throughout the semester.

Furthermore, the Department of Psychology is interested in learning more about student group work on this class project, and you will be asked to take short surveys related to the project at 5 times during the semester. These surveys are a part of the project; failure to complete them will also result in losing 5 percentage points off the final group project grade.

More detailed information about the group project, group membership, TA support and WebVista will be provided during the 1st week of the semester.

Examinations

Four exams will be given throughout the semester. These exams will include questions based on readings from the text, supplementary materials, and lectures. Each will consist of 50 multiple choice questions worth 1-point each. Review materials will be distributed in class and will become available online in the week preceding the exam. You will be allowed the full class period to complete the tests, but do not arrive late and expect that you will be able to finish should you go over the allotted time. NO dictionaries will allowed during the exam. The final will be held from 6:30 – 8:30 on Dec. 17 th .

While there are going to be 4 exams, only 3 of these exams will count towards your final grade. This allows you to learn from the test taking process, and insulates you against a catastrophic test-taking failure or missed exam. Please remember that the dropped exam score does not represent a chance for you to skip an exam if you don't feel like taking it. This would be a very, very bad idea, as I will be unsympathetic if you need to miss a later exam for a legitimate reason. For this reason, all missed exams need to be approved by me . The studying process for an exam is crucial to your understanding of the material, and you need to take every test. I will only allow those with a legitimate reason to skip an exam entirely, and if you skip an exam you are personally responsible if you should need to miss a later test . I am providing you with a chance to get a great grade in the course by dropping your lowest test grade, and I hope you can show me respect by not attempting to abuse this policy!

Summary of grades

Essay assignments (10 required) 60 points

Midterm 1 -50 points

Midterm 2 50 points

Midterm 3 50 points

Group research project 40 points

Final 50 points

- lowest test score

Total 250 points

Extra credit & The Research Experience Program (REP)

The Research Experience Program (REP) is a voluntary part of the 1001 course that gives you an opportunity to gain extra credit through participation in research projects conducted by members of the Department of Psychology. This program serves two main purposes: 1) to expose students to educational opportunities for learning about contemporary research in psychology; and 2) to sustain the University of Minnesota's extensive and internationally recognized research program by providing a source of research participants.

Students may participate in as many research studies as they wish, and each is worth a varying number of extra credit points (typically 2 points / hour of participation). However, students may earn a maximum of 15 extra credit points throughout the summer session. These points must be accumulated between Sepember 17 th and December 7 th .

For a list of eligible studies and further information, visit the REP website at:

http://www.psych.umn.edu/research/rep/default.htm

When you agree to take part in a research study, you are required to meet any scheduled obligations that you have made. Skipping a research session is an enormous waste of time and resources, and is unfair to those that are trying to perform their research. For this reason, skipping a research session will cost you a -1 point penalty to your grade for each missed session.