Psychology 2811A-650
WESTERN UNIVERSITYLONDON CANADA
Department of Psychology
Summer 2026
Psychology 2811A Section 650
Research Methods in Psychology I
1 Calendar Description
This course introduces students to the basics of data analysis for psychological research.
Topics include probability, sampling, estimation, data visualization, and the conduct and
interpretation of basic statistical analyses. Throughout the term, students will gain
experience in computer-based data analytic methods.
Antirequisite(s): Biology 2244A/B, Economics 2122A/B, Economics 2222A/B, Geography
2210A/B, Health Sciences 3801A/B, MOS 2242A/B, the former Psychology 2810, the former
Psychology 2820E, Psychology 2830A/B, Psychology 2850A/B, Psychology 2851A/B, Social
Work 2207A/B, Sociology 2205A/B, Statistical Sciences 2035, Statistical Sciences 2141A/B,
Statistical Sciences 2143A/B, Statistical Sciences 2244A/B, Statistical Sciences 2858A/B.
Antirequisites are courses that overlap sufficiently in content that only one can be taken for
credit. So if you take a course that is an antirequisite to a course previously taken, you will lose
credit for the earlier course, regardless of the grade achieved in the most recent course.
Prerequisite(s): At least 60% in 1.0 credits of Psychology at the 1000 level; a passing grade
(i.e., at least 50%) in Data Science 1000A/B and a passing grade (i.e., at least 50%) in 0.5
credit of Year 1 Math from among the following courses: Calculus 1000A/B, Calculus
1301A/B, Calculus 1500A/B, Calculus 1501A/B, Mathematics 1225A/B, Mathematics
1228A/B, Mathematics 1229A/B, Mathematics 1600A/B, or Applied Mathematics 1201A/B.
Students enrolled in Year 2 of an Honours Specialization in Neuroscience may enrol with 0.5
credit of Applied Mathematics 1201A/B and 0.5 credit of Computer Science 1026A/B.
Students who have completed Statistical Sciences 1024A/B (or other introductory statistics
course, in addition to 0.5 credit of Year 1 Math) may enrol after completing an introductory
programming class from the following list: Computer Science 1025A/B, Computer Science
1026A/B, Computer Science 2120A/B, Data Science 1200A/B, Digital Humanities 2220A/B,
or Engineering Science 1036A/B. Data Science 2000A/B may be substituted for Data Science
1000A/B for students entering the program with 1.0 Year 1 Math courses.
Unless you have either the requisites for this course or written special permission from your
Dean to enroll in it, you will be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your
record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the
event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.
Online Course. 12 weeks. Exams will be held in-person on campus.
2 Lecture Hours; 2 Laboratory Hours; Course Weight: 0.5
2 Course Information
Instructor: Dr. Corey Isaacs
Office Hours: via Zoom by appointment
Email: cisaacs3@uwo.ca
When emailing, please include “Psych 2811” in the subject line and send emails only from
your Western email account. I will always do my best to respond to your email within 48
hours (Monday to Friday), but during busy times it may take a little longer.
Time and Location of Classes: Lectures and lab modules will be completed asynchronously
online, and exams will be administered in-person at Western University. Lecture videos will
be released on OWL every Sunday and will remain available for the remainder of the course.
Labs will be open from Monday to Friday of the respective weeks, with the corresponding
assignment due by that Friday.
To complete this course, students must have a reliable internet connection and computer
that are compatible with online learning system requirements.
3 Course Materials
This class uses an open textbook that is free to download:
Cote, L. R., Gordon, R. G., Randell, C. E., Schmitt, J., & Marvin, H. (2021). Introduction to
Statistics in the Psychological Sciences. UMSL Libraries.
You can read the textbook or download it in your preferred digital format at this address:
https://umsystem.pressbooks.pub/isps/
If you prefer your textbook in a physical format, you can print the book at one of Western’s
libraries: https://www.lib.uwo.ca/services/printingandphotocopying.html
Some lessons include additional readings that can be found on the OWL course website.
4 Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes
The aim of this course is to develop students’ basic data literacy skills by learning to use a
data-driven approach to think critically about data. Students will develop statistical
knowledge via sampling data from real and simulated datasets, visualizing their results,
testing for relationships in their data, and interpreting the patterns they see. The class will
extend basic data science training by teaching students to code their own statistical tests and
visualizations in Python.
Learning Outcome Learning Activity Assessment
Depth and Breadth of Knowledge.
Demonstrate basic knowledge of probability as
it applies to sampling.
Describe the logic and basic elements of null
hypothesis significance testing.
Lectures; readings;
lab activities
Lectures; readings;
lab activities
Homework; exams
Homework; exams
Application of Knowledge.
Produce appropriate statistics to describe
sample data.
Plot sampling distributions and graphs that
show the relationships between different types
of variables.
Interpret both graphical and statistical
evidence to make conclusions about data.
Recognize from data and/or study design
descriptions which statistical tests should be
used.
Lab activities
Lab activities
Lectures; readings;
lab activities
Lectures; readings;
lab activities
Homework; exams
Homework; exams
Homework; media
project; exams
Homework; exams
Application of Methodologies.
Produce code in Jupyter Notebook to calculate
statistical tests and data visualizations.
Demonstrate basic data wrangling skills
including outlier exclusion, data cleaning and
transformation.
Lectures; readings;
lab activities
Lab activities
Homework; Exams
Homework; Exams
Awareness of Limits of Knowledge.
Explain the strengths and weaknesses of null
hypothesis significance testing.
Lectures; readings Homework; media
project; exams
5 Evaluation
The evaluation and testing formats for this course were created to assess the learning objectives
as listed in section 4 and are necessary for meeting these learning objectives.
The course requirements, with relative weightings in the determination of final grades, are:
• Lab/Homework Assignments 15%
• Media v Science Project 15%
• Midterm Exam 30%
• Final Exam 40%
Exams will be administered in-person at Western University. There will not be an online
exam option. All other work will be completed online and asynchronously.
Bi-weekly Lab/Homework Assignments (15%):
*This assessment has built-in flexibility. It is exempt from the academic consideration
policy.
For each assignment, you will complete a set of lab/homework problems in a Jupyter
Notebook. The lab elements will be guided by video tutorial. The homework problems you
will do on your own. The homework problems will relate to the corresponding lab material.
The Jupyter Notebook with the lab/homework assignment will be released on OWL on the
same day as the video tutorial it corresponds with. It will be due on Friday at 5:00 PM of the
same week (see schedule below). You must upload the Notebook (‘.ipynb’ extension) to the
assignment portal on Gradescope. You are responsible for uploading the correct file, in
the correct format, to the correct portal on Gradescope. If you upload the file
incorrectly, you will receive a mark of 0. It is your own responsibility to check that you
have uploaded the assignment correctly.
There are a total of 6 assignments that you will complete over the course of the term. We will
drop your lowest grade, which means that you can skip one assignment without penalty. Each of
the remaining 5 assignments will count toward your grade. This assignment has a 24-hour
grace period. The grace period extends from Friday at 5:00 PM to Saturday at 5:00 PM. If
your assignment has not been submitted by this time, you will receive a grade of 0. To
maintain fairness to all students, there will be absolutely no exceptions to this policy.
Media v Science Project (15%):
*You may use the ‘undocumented absence’ option on this assessment.
We frequently see statistics reported in the news. But have you stopped to consider where
those statistics come from what they really mean? The goal of this assignment is to critically
evaluate how a research study, as reported in a media outlet, compares with its original
source. You should select a recent news article (no more than 1 year old). The article should
report on a peer-reviewed research article published in a scientific journal. You should then
critically evaluate the news article, as well as the original source article, using evidence from
both sources. You will write a 500-word critical analysis of the media and the scientific
source article. You must document your workflow on this assignment. To support this, there
will be a series of interim due dates. Additional details and rubrics are available on OWL.
Exams (70%):
*The Midterm Exam is the designated course component that is exempt from the
‘undocumented absence’ academic consideration policy.
*Final Exams are always exempt from the ‘undocumented absence’ academic
consideration policy.
This course includes two exams, which will be administered in-person on the Western
University campus. Exams will cover material from both the readings and the OWL lessons
(see Section 7). The midterm exam will cover material from weeks 1 – 5 and the final exam
will cover material from weeks 7 – 12.
Policy on Missing Coursework
Lab/Homework Assignments: Assignments are due at 5:00 PM on Friday of the week they
are assigned. The 24-hour grace period for assignment submission lasts until Saturday at
5:00 PM. Ensure that you give yourself enough time to complete your submission by this
time. The submission portal will remain open until the grace period closes. If your
assignment has not been completed and correctly uploaded by the time the
assignment portal closes, it will receive a grade of 0. Because the assignments are worth
only 3% each, there is a grace period between the due date and assignment submission
portal closure, and the lowest grade is dropped, absolutely no excuses will be accepted for
missed assignments.
Media v Science Project: This project consists of three elements, each with a separate
submission deadline (see section 6). You must upload the completed element to the
correct assignment portal before the deadline, or you will receive a grade of 0 on that
element. You may use your single ‘undocumented absence’ for any of the project deadlines,
which will extend your submission deadline by 48 hours. Approved academic consideration
requests on the basis of illness or other extenuating circumstance will extend your deadline
according to the duration of the approved academic consideration.
Exams: Students who fail to write an exam at the scheduled time will receive a grade of zero
unless they receive academic considerations from their Academic Dean’s office.
There will be a makeup midterm exam at 12:00 – 1:00 PM on Saturday, June 20. If a
student is absent from both the midterm exam and the makeup exam with permission from
their Academic Dean’s office, that portion of their course grade may be reassigned to the final
exam.
There will be a makeup final exam at 12:00 – 2:00 PM on Saturday, August 8. Students
will need to receive academic considerations from their faculty to write the makeup final
exam.
Important Notes About Grades
The Psychology Department follows Western’s grading guidelines:
https://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/general/grades_undergrad.pdf
The expectation for course grades within the Psychology Department is that they will be
distributed around the following averages:
70% 1000-level to 2099-level courses
72% 2100-2999-level courses
75% 3000-level courses
80% 4000-level courses
In the event that course grades are significantly higher or lower than these averages,
instructors may be required to adjust course grades. Such adjustment might include the
normalization of one or more course components and/or the re-weighting of various course
components.
Policy on Grade Rounding
Please note that although course grades within the Psychology Department are rounded to
the nearest whole number, no further grade rounding will be done. No additional
assignments will be offered to enhance a final grade; nor will requests to change a grade
because it is needed for a future program be considered.
6 Assessment/Evaluation Schedule
Times indicated in this course outline and on the OWL course website are listed in London,
Ontario local time (i.e., Eastern Time). If you are in a different time zone, you'll need to adjust
your deadline times accordingly to ensure you don't miss exams or assignment deadlines.
The listed dates/times are tentative and subject to change; you will be notified via
Brightspace of any changes to the course schedule.
Exam Relevant Material Date/Time
Midterm Exam Lectures & readings from
Lessons 1 – 5 Saturday, June 13 @ 12:00 – 1:00 PM
- Makeup Midterm Exam Saturday, June 20 at 12:00– 1:00 PM
Final Exam Lectures & readings from
Lessons 6 – 11 TBA (July 27 – 30)
- Makeup Final Exam Saturday, August 8 at 12:00– 2:00 PM
Assignment Submission Deadline
Lab/Homework #1 May 15 @ 5:00 PM
Lab/Homework #2 May 29 @ 5:00 PM
Lab/Homework #3 June 12 @ 5:00 PM
Media v Science Article Annotations June 19 @ 5:00 PM
Lab/Homework #4 June 26 @ 5:00 PM
Media v Science Comparison Chart July 3 @ 5:00 PM
Lab/Homework #5 July 10 @ 5:00 PM
Media v Science Critical Analysis July 17 @ 5:00 PM
Lab/Homework #6 July 24 @ 5:00 PM
7 Class Schedule
Week/Dates Topic Lab Topic(s) Readings
1. May 4 – 8 Descriptive Statistics Ch. 1 – 6
2. May 11 – 15 Sampling Distributions Introduction to Jupyter/
Python; Descriptive stats
Lab/Homework 1 due
Ch. 1 – 6
3. May 18 – 22 Probability Ch. 1 – 6
4. May 25 – 29 Effects Sizes & Precision Distributions and sampling;
Probability
Lab/Homework 2 due
Ch. 1 – 6
5. June 1 – 5 Hypothesis Testing Ch. 7
6. June 8 – 12 Midterm Exam
(Weeks 1 – 5)
Estimating differences;
NHST basics and limitations
Lab/Homework 3 due
7. June 15 – 19 Tests of Association Media v Science:
Article Annotations due
Ch. 12 & 14
8. June 22 – 26 Single-Sample Tests Simple Correlation/
Regression & Chi-square
Lab/Homework 4 due
Ch. 4 & 8
9. June 29 – July 3 Two-Sample Tests Media v Science:
Comparison Chart due
Ch. 10
10. July 6 – 10 One-Way ANOVA Z-tests, t-tests; Simple
group comparisons
Lab/Homework 5 due
Ch. 11
11. July 13 – 17 Correlated-Samples Tests Media v Science:
Critical Analysis due
Ch. 9
12. July 20 – 24 [no new lecture content] Comparing multiple groups;
Non-independent data
Lab/Homework 6 due
13. July 27 – 30 Final Exam (Weeks 7 – 12)
8 Academic Integrity
Scholastic offences are taken seriously, and students are directed to read the appropriate
policy, specifically, the definition of what constitutes a Scholastic Offence, at the following
website:
https://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/scholastic_discipline_undergr
ad.pdf.
Possible penalties for a scholastic offence include failure of the assignment/exam, failure of
the course, suspension from the University, and expulsion from the University.
Statement on Use of Electronic Devices
No electronic devices or other aids will be allowed during examinations.
Plagiarism Detection Software
All required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to the
commercial plagiarism detection software under license to the University for the detection of
plagiarism. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in
the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently
submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently
between Western and Turnitin.com.
Use of AI
The use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT to produce written work is not permitted
unless permission is granted by the instructor for specific circumstances. Any work
submitted must be the work of the student in its entirety unless otherwise disclosed. When
used, AI tools should be used ethically and responsibly, and students must cite or credit the
tools used in line with the expectation to use AI as a tool to learn, not to produce content.
AI Policy for Psychology:
Responsible use of AI is allowed in Psychology. This includes using AI for brainstorming,
improving grammar, or doing preliminary/background research on a topic. AI is not to be
used in place of critical thinking.
The misuse of AI undermines the academic values of this course. Relying on AI to create full
drafts or fabricate sources is prohibited. You are ultimately responsible for any work
submitted, so it is highly advised that you critically review your Generative AI output before
incorporating this information into your assignments.
If you use AI, you must clearly explain its role in your work. All written assignments will
require an AI Usage Statement, in which you will indicate what tools you have used, what you
have used them for, and (broadly) how you have modified this information. Assignments
without an AI Usage Statement will not be accepted.
Violations of this policy will be handled according to Western’s scholastic offense policies.
Multiple-Choice Exams
Computer-marked multiple-choice tests and/or exams will be subject to submission for
similarity review by software that will check for unusual coincidences in answer patterns
that may indicate cheating.
9 Academic Accommodations and Accessible Education
View Western’s policy on academic accommodations for student with disabilities at this link.
Accessible Education provides supports and services to students with disabilities at Western.
If you think you may qualify for ongoing accommodation that will be recognized in all your
courses, visit Accessible Education for more information. Email: aew@uwo.ca Phone: 519
661-2147
10 Absence & Academic Consideration
Academic Considerations:
https://registrar.uwo.ca/academics/academic_considerations/index.html
11 Other Information
• Office of the Registrar: https://registrar.uwo.ca
• Student Development Services: www.sdc.uwo.ca
• Psychology Undergraduate Program:
https://www.psychology.uwo.ca/undergraduate/index.html
Students who are in emotional/mental distress should refer to Health and
Wellness@Western https://www.uwo.ca/health/ for a complete list of options about how to
obtain help.
Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you
require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you.
If you wish to appeal a grade, please read the policy documentation at:
https://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/appealsundergrad.pdf. Please
first contact the course instructor. If your issue is not resolved, you may make your appeal in
writing to the Undergraduate Chair in Psychology (psyugrd@uwo.ca).
Copyright Statement
Lectures and course materials, including power point presentations, outlines, videos and
similar materials, are protected by copyright. You may take notes and make copies of course
materials for your own educational use. You may not record lectures, reproduce (or allow
others to reproduce), post or distribute any course materials publicly and/or for commercial
purposes without the instructor’s written consent.
