伊利诺伊大学香槟分校心理学科研项目

UIUC Psychology Research

科研主题

以下领域内的相关课题，具体课题根据学生的基础，导师面试后确定。

Social and clinical pathology［社会与临床⼼理学］

Communication and reasoning［沟通与⼼理］

Communication and media［沟通与传媒］

Attitude and society Cognition［态度与社会认知］

Attitude and motivation are the motivations of change.［态度和⾏为改变的动机过程］

Motion markers and cognitive processes［⾏动⽬标和认知过程］

Application of social cognition in disease prevention plan［社会认知在疾病预防计划中的应⽤］

科研内容及计划

Introduction

This session aims to give the students a better understanding of what is psychology and what is psychology research. During the 4-week period, students will read extensively on the classics of modern psychology, think creatively into the currentissues in the field of psychology, actively develop their own research focus, and conduct some brief research to gain valuable hand-on experience. At the end of the session, students will write a preliminary research paper to present what they have observed in their research and what they have learned from the whole session.

Tentative schedule

Week 1

Session 1: What is psychology?

Psychology is absolutely not just about mind-reading or patient counseling. Psychology is a science! It tries to uncover the myths of the human mind and its functions, especially those that affect our thinking and behaviors. In this very first session, we will go over several common misunderstandings about psychology and figure out what psychology really is through reading a couple of classic work from famous psychologists.

Session 2: What is psychology research?

In this session, we will take a closer look at what is psychology research. Students will be introduced the several common methods to conduct psychology research, including survey, interview, lab behavioral study, etc. Students will have the chance to experience what it feels like to be a psychology student, a psychology researcher or even a psychologist.

Session 3: Challenge everything!

What’s the secret to be a good scientist? The answer is: challenge everything! This session will help the students to think out of the box, like a scientist does! Students will have to chance to develop their critical thinking and apply the thinking to everyday life.

Week 2

Session 4: Develop a research question

The biggest challenge for any psychology researcher is probably just asking an interesting and meaningful research question. In this session, we will explore the several ways to reach a good research question and students will have the chance to develop their very first research topic!

Session 5: Refine your research question

Now that we have a preliminary research topic, the next step will be to improve it. In this session, the students will learn to conduct some primary literature review to refine and improve the topic they have chosen.

Week 3

Session 6: Design a study

After we have a good research question, the next step will be to develop a study to test out the research question. In this session, students will learn useful skills to make a welldesigned study. They will also be guided through a very important process in conducting research: self-critique.

Session 7: Doing is always harder than thinking.

In this session, students will start to make their own study. They will gain hand-on experience on research-related tools, such as Qualtrics and Mturk. More importantly,they will start to experience the various difficulties and challenges in the process of a real research. We will work together to overcome these challenges and reflect on what we have done good and what can be improved.

Week 4

Session 8: Understanding data

Once you collected the data, how are you going to interpret it? This session gives students hand-on experience in interpreting data. Students will be briefly introduced some simple programming skills in data analysis. They will then apply these techniques to their own data analysis.

Session 9: Professional writing

The last step of research is to just write a good paper telling people about your work, but this is never an easy step. In this session, students will learn how to write in a professional way and receive useful advice on writing based on their writing level.

Session 10: Presentation and paper submit

In this last session, students will have a chance to make a formal presentation of what they have learned throughout the whole research process. This will also be the time for them to submit their final paper and receive valuable feedback