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

• 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

Week 02, Wednesday, 01/28 Experiments, causality, and the two disciplines of psychology

• 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?

Week 03, Wednesday, 02/04 Measurement: Validity, reliability, the reliability paradox

• 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 the challenges in establishing one of the discussed types of validity in your ongoing research.

Week 04, Wednesday, 02/11 Experimental Design 1: Design basics; the ergodic fallacy

• Readings: Experimentology: Design; Speelman & McGann (2020)

• Extra: Speelman et al. (2024); Rouder & Haaf (2019)

Section: Monday, 02/16

TBD

Week 05, Wednesday, 02/18 Sampling, power, and effect sizes

• 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

TBD

Week 06, Wednesday, 02/25 Data management best practices

• Readings: Experimentology: Project management; Wilkinson et al. (2016)

Section: Monday, 03/02

TBD

Week 07, Wednesday, 03/04 Experimental Design 2: Participant consent & recruitment; counterbalancing; instructions; data quality checks

• Readings: Experimentology: Data collection; Westwood (2025)

• Extra: Kay (2025); Anders et al. (2026)

Section: Monday, 03/09

• Practice with designing effective data quality checks

Week 08, Wednesday, 03/11 Experimental Design 3: Introduction to some common behavioral methods

• Readings: Skim through these, pausing on what most interests you: Bower & Clapper (1989); Leek (2001); the first chapter or two of Macmillan & Creelman (2005)

Section: Monday, 03/16

• TBD

Week 09, Wednesday, 03/18 Quantifying Qualitative Data

• Readings: Charlesworth et al. (2024); TBD

Section: Monday, 03/23

• TBD

Week 10, Wednesday, 03/25 Non-Experimental Design 1: Surveys; Item Response Theory; Propensity score matching

• 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

• Readings: TBD; Goldstone & Lupyan (2016)

Section: Monday, 04/13

• TBD

Week 13, Wednesday, 04/15 Meta-Analysis

• Readings: Experimentology: Meta-Analysis; TBD

Section: Monday, 04/20

• TBD

Week 14, Wednesday, 04/22 Putting it all together: Maximizing knowledge gain

• Readings: Yarkoni (2020); Giner-Sorolla (2019); Rozin (2009)

Section: Monday, 04/27

• Workshopping your final presentations

Week 15, Wednesday, 04/29 Final presentations