Exercises

Exercises to support the book:
A Guide to Coursework in Psychology
by Eamon Fulcher

These exercises in research methods in psychology have been developed in Macromedia Flash by Eamon Fulcher.

If you have any suggesttions for an exercise and would like to use it in your teahcing or studies please email me.

[This page is still in progress]

 

Exercise 1. Check the Result

The aim of this exercise is to understand how to interpret values of P (the test result) that are produced by statistical tests. Usually, alpha is set to 0.05 and P is compared to this value. If P < 0.05 (or P = 0.05) then the result is said to be statisticially significant, else if P > 0.05 the result is not statistically significant.

Click the button "Test me again" and a random test result (or P value) will be displayed and you have to say whether it is not significant, significant, or highly significant.

Exercise 2. Bar Chart

You can use this exercise in two ways. Firstly, you can use it to practise creating bar charts — especially the use of appropriate labels. Secondly, you can use it to plot any data you have and print a hard copy.

To change the maximum and minimum points on the y-axis, click on the digit, type in the new value, and then click "update". To change any label or graph title, just click on the text and type.

To change the values of the bars, click on a bar and type in the new value.

For advice on how to label a bar chart, see pages 83-84 and page 88 of the book A Guide to Coursework in Psychology.