Class Schedule1
We recommend reading the papers in the order in which they are listed.
Week 01, Wednesday, 01/21 The scientific method as it pertains to psychology [Gary & Joao]
- Readings (in class): Forscher (1963); Chiang (2000)
Section: Monday, 01/26
- Read for section: Feynman (1974); Gelman & Higgs (2025); Cohen (1994); Experimentology: Primer on research ethics [Gary]
Week 02, Wednesday, 01/28 Experiments, causality, and the two disciplines of psychology [Gary]
- Readings: Experimentology: Experiments & causal inference; Experimentology: How data inform theoretical constructs; Cronbach (1957)
Section: Monday, 02/02
- Read Smaldino (2017); discussion of when should we (not) do experiments? A discussion of what (non)experimental methods can and can’t tell us. What are good uses of modeling? [Gary]
Week 03, Wednesday, 02/04 Measurement: Validity, reliability, the reliability paradox [Gary]
Readings: Experimentology: Measurement; Westfall & Yarkoni (2016); Hedge et al. (2018); Zorowitz & Niv (2023)
Extra: Sijtsma (2009); Cortina et al. (2020);
Section: Monday, 02/09
- Assignment 1: With a partner, prepare a short (~5 minute) presentation on what you know and don’t know about the reliability and validity of the measures you are using in your research and how you could go about further improving them or (2) Reflect on the money–>happiness example and come up a validation strategy for a specific measure of happiness. In either case, discuss different types of validity. What type of data collection would this validation effort require? [Gary]
Week 04, Wednesday, 02/11 Experimental Design 1: Design basics; the ergodic fallacy [Gary]
Readings: Experimentology: Design; Speelman & McGann (2020)
Section: Monday, 02/16
- [Gary]
Week 05, Wednesday, 02/18 Sampling, power, and effect sizes [Joao]
Readings: Experimentology: Sampling; Funder & Ozer (2019); Smallest Effect Size of Interest
Extra: Wagenmakers (2007); Lovakov & Agadullina (2021); Marek et al. (2022)
Section: Monday, 02/23
- [Joao]
Week 06, Wednesday, 02/25 Data management best practices [Joao]
Section: Monday, 03/02
- [Joao]
Week 07, Wednesday, 03/04 Experimental Design 2: Best practices in running behavioral studies; data quality checks [Gary]
Readings: Experimentology: Data collection; Barbosa et al. (2023); Westwood (2025);
Extra: Kay (2025); Anders et al. (2026)
Section: Monday, 03/09
- Practice with designing effective data quality checks [Gary]
Week 08, Wednesday, 03/11 Experimental Design 3: Closer look at some common/useful behavioral methods [Gary]
- Readings: Skim Bower & Clapper, pausing on what most interests you & reading those parts more thoroughly Bower & Clapper (1989); skim over Leek (2001) to make sure you understand the goal and key parts of these adaptive methods; Look over the first chapter or two of Macmillan & Creelman (2005)
Section: Monday, 03/16
- [Gary]
Week 09, Wednesday, 03/18 Quantifying Qualitative Data [Joao]
- Readings: Charlesworth et al. (2024); Lin et al. (2023)
Section: Monday, 03/23
- [Gary]
Week 10, Wednesday, 03/25 Non-Experimental Design 1: Surveys; Item Response Theory; Propensity score matching [Joao]
- Readings: Reise & Waller (2009); Clark & Watson (2016)
Section: Monday, 03/30
- Spring Break. Enjoy!
Week 11, Wednesday, 04/01 Spring Break. Enjoy!
Week 12, Wednesday, 04/08 Non-Experimental Methods 2: Longitudinal & In-the-Wild Data [Joao]
- Readings: TBD; Goldstone & Lupyan (2016)
Section: Monday, 04/13
- [Joao]
Week 13, Wednesday, 04/15 Meta-Analysis [Gary]
- Readings: Experimentology: Meta-Analysis; TBD
Section: Monday, 04/20
- [Joao]
Week 14, Wednesday, 04/22 Putting it all together: Maximizing knowledge gain [Gary]
- Readings: Yarkoni (2020); Giner-Sorolla (2019); Rozin (2009)
Section: Monday, 04/27
- Workshopping your final presentations [Gary & Joao]
Week 15, Wednesday, 04/29 Final presentations [Gary & Joao]
Subject to revision ↩︎