Greeting TIPsters! I teach research methods and I have my students do original empirical projects each semester. I have been having my students come up with their own ideas for "original research" but you can imagine that it requires a lot of handholding and close supervision. That said, it has been mostly worth the headaches, as I've had some very cool projects get done (one is described below)
So I am thinking of taking an a la carte approach, where I'd give them 8-12 topic areas to choose from, and then they'd create their projects to adress questions within the topic area they chose. What I need are good topic areas to give them as choices. I need topic areas where the basics are pretty easy to understand, so I'd say "gender norms" would be one, but "game theory" would probably not*. Each area should allow for a potentially wide variety of possible empirical studies that use direct observation. Anything requiring surveys or psychometric tests are not what I am seeking at the moment (not that I don't cover the topic). So for example I've had a lot of success with "non-verbal communication" as a topic area. Last semester I had some girls go into the weight room and listen to guys grunt as they worked out. Turns out that guys grunt "strategically" in response to the sex ratio of males to females present in the room. They even rounded up a cadre of female confederates so that they could experimentally manipulate the sex ratio in the room. Worked like a charm. I've had successes with other types of nonverbal communication, including one on laughter, another on mate guarding, and still another on yawning. So I think "non verbal communication" will be one of my areas, but I need more. This is where you can help: Could you send in the topic areas which have worked for you in the past? If you could include examples of studies that your students have done, that'd be even better. My semester starts in a week, so any help you could render right now would be most welcome. TIA, Michael Donnelly Department of Psychology UW-Stout, Menomonie, WI * although I should note I did have a couple of guys who did a pretty fun project that touched on game theory last year. --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
