The key to receiving a good grade in this class is your performance on the multiple choice exams. My exams generally ask three types of questions that are designed to gauge three different levels of comprehension.

Definitions- Questions that measure your understanding of what a concept is:

1. ___________ is the procedure whereby participants are assigned to experimental condition based on chance:

Factual/conceptual- Questions that measure your understanding of how the concept operates or your understanding of the factors that make the concept operate

1. ____________ allows researchers to rule out individual differences among people as the cause of differences in an experiment:

Application/Critical thinking- Questions that measure your ability to think critically about the concept or that measure your ability to accurately use the concept to analyze social behavior.

1. A researcher wants to examine the effect of viewing TV violence on aggressive behavior. He has participants decide whether they want to watch a violent or a non-violent film, and then records the amount of aggressive behavior they show during a competitive game. However, the researcher cannot conclude that violent TV caused the effect on aggression because the study

a. is low in mundane realism

b. lacks random assignment

c. lacks random sampling

d. used only one dependent measure

*The answer to each example question above is random assignment. Make sure you know why before the first midterm....

**The exams tend to have roughly equal numbers of each type of question on them.

Every student in this class will feel like they know the course material, but many will feel like their grades on the exams do not reflect their knowledge of the material. Over the years I have developed a "profile" of what I think the grades reflect about your understanding of the course content. I hope you can use it to formulate your goals and approach to the material this semester:

"C" students tend to learn just the definitions of concepts in this course. They feel like they know the material, but their knowledge is limited to describing what a concept is. For example, they may know the definition of random assignment, but they are not sure when it is used and what it accomplishes. Students at this level have trouble with exam questions that measure the deeper knowledge of the concepts, such as the conditions under which it applies, which prevents them from using the concept to analyze why a particular social behavior occurred.

"B" students are those who know what a concept is and they also know how it works. But their approach to the material is mostly rote memorization and they have not integrated the various concepts. For example, they likely know the definition of random assignment and know that it relates to individual differences in experiments, but they do not recognize that it is missing in the critical thinking question, or they confuse it with random sampling. Students at this level feel like they know the material, but they struggle with questions that ask them to think critically and apply the material to analyze social behavior.

"A" students are those who know what a concept is and how it works, AND they demonstrate the ability to think critically about the material, AND they can accurately apply the material to analyze social behavior. They work to integrate the concepts and fully understand what distinguishes one concept from another. Students at this level feel like they know the material and their test scores indicate that they do!

How do the "A" students do it? They tell me they do all of the following:

1. They attend class regularly.

2. They read the assigned pages from the text before attending class

3. They complete everything on a study guide before class and they consistency complete the study guide as the class progresses. They do not wait until the night before the exam to complete a study guide!

4. They bring the lecture outlines and take copious notes during lecture.

5. They visit or email me or the TA with questions or observations.

6. They form study groups to rehearse and "play" with the material.

7. They take the practice exams on the CD that came with the book

8. They tell their parents and friends about the concepts in this class.

There are no guarantees, but I think that the more ways in which you process the material from this course, the better your performance is likely to be.