Internet Research Methods in Psychology

Internet Research Methods in Psychology

Internet Research Methods in Psychology
Seminar - PSYC 593 CF
CRN: 48584
Thur 1:00 - 2:50

Instructor

R. Chris Fraley, PhD
Department of Psychology, Room 409
E-mail, phone, and other information: http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~rcfraley

Class web page

http://www.web-research-design.net/P593/

Updates

Jan 17, 2010

Updates will be posted here throughout the semester.

Readings

There is one book for this class:

Fraley, R. C. (2004). How to conduct behavioral research over the Internet: A beginner's guide to HTML and CGI/Perl. New York: Guilford.

It is not available at the Univ. bookstore, so you'll need to order a copy on-line. You can obtain copies at Amazon.com or the Guilford Press.

You will also need a web hosting account for this class. I use Netfirms hosting for everything I do and I encourage you to do the same so you can follow along with some of my "step by step" explanations of things. You can see Netfirm's hosting packages via this link. The most basic, paid package (i.e., "Netfirms Plus") costs $59.40 at the time of this writing, plus about $8 for a domain name of your chosing.

Technically, you can get "free" hosting via Netfirms. However, as of 2010, you still need to pay approximately $8 for a domain name itself. I strongly discourage you from following the "cheap" route unless you're strapped for funds. The advantages of having a legit account are numerous and, if your time is worth money, you'll save a lot of it by investing in a paid account. Half of the problems students have had in this class in the past have stemmed from using a "free" account that gets low-priority by the hosting service in terms of CPU time, bandwidth, etc.

Overview of the Course

During the past decade, an increasing number of psychologists have begun to use the Internet as a tool for conducting psychological research. It is easy to understand the appeal of using the Web for research purposes. Just about any study that can be conducted via traditional pencil-and-paper methods can be implemented on-line, but without the hassles of data entry by hand, the scheduling of participants, and paper costs. Moreover, researchers who use computers in their experiments for manipulating visual or narrative stimuli, randomizing trials, or creating customized assessments can easily implement their protocols on-line. Most importantly, although researchers can use the Web simply as an efficient way to collect data from undergraduates in their departmental subject pools, the Web allows us to open our laboratory doors to people from across the world.

My objective in this class is to teach you how to create web programs so that you can use the Internet as a medium for conducting psychological research. We will focus on CGI programming in Perl. CGI programs are designed to run on a web server, and, unlike standard HTML web pages, these programs can be used to create a dynamic, interactive web experience for the user. By using CGI programs, researchers can (a) randomize the presentation order of stimuli, (b) randomly assign subjects to conditions, (c) automatically save response data to a file for data analysis, (d) provide subjects with customized feedback based on their responses, (e) exploit both text and image-based stimuli, (f) measure reaction times, and (e) employ complex branching operations within a project.

Throughout the semester we will work our way through these and other topics, beginning with the basics (e.g., how to create a simple web page using HTML) and progressing through the more complex topics (e.g., how to write CGI/Perl scripts that create customized feedback to subjects). We will also discuss some conceptual and practical issues, such as those concerning ethics, sampling, data security, the quality of Internet data, and how to submit IRB's for web-based research. If time permits, we will devote time to some "hot topics," such as creating Facebook mods.

This class is intended for anyone who currently conducts research in the behavioral sciences. The seminar is designed to be a practical one and, as such, will be of most use to students who actually want to use the Internet to collect data.

The Class Webpage

I will post lecture notes and other materials relevant to the class on the class web page. You should treat the class web page as your primary syllabus. I will be updating it on a regular basis and it will be your responsibility to keep up-to-date on any changes that are made. (I will, however, announce significant changes in the lecture sessions.)

Workload, Grading, and Expectations

We will work through approximately one chapter of the book a week. I will introduce the basic concepts to you in class and walk you through some examples. After that introduction, however, I expect you to read the chapter and work through the examples discussed therein. You probably need to set aside 6 hours a week outside of class for reading and practicing your programming skills.

You will be given mini-projects throughout the semester as a way of keeping you on track and helping you evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. From a grading perspective, one of the nice things about web design is that a program either works or it does not and, more importantly, it is quite clear when the program is working well. As such, these projects will be graded on a pass/fail basis.

Beyond these assignments, you will have one mega-project for the class. Specifically, I will ask you to create a sophisticated web study from the ground up. This study will be one of your choosing and, as such, it should be one that fits naturally into your research program. For this project you will write and submit an IRB, do the programming, and begin collecting the data. I realize that some people have more lofty ambitions than others, so I will work with you early in the semester to ensure that your project is manageable (if it originally seems too complex) or more complex (if it originally seemed too rudimentary).

If you do not have some sense of what you would like to do for your final project by the end of the first week, this is not the class for you. I say this because there is limited space in the class and I want to make sure that those taking it are the ones most likely to benefit from it.

Policy on Missed Tests and Assignments

Homework assignments should be organized on your personal website. You should create a directory called "p5930" and in that folder create a web page called "homework.htm". A link to each homework assignment should be listed there, along with the date in question and links to any perl code that was used. I will start reviewing homework assignments on Thursdays at 9:00 a.m. If you have not completed your assignment by that time, it will be considered late and, depending on what kind of time I have available to me, potentially overlooked. Example: http://www.jenklafehn.netfirms.com/index.html

Student Homework Links

I will list the links to the student homework pages here for easy reference.

Schedule for the Class

I will be constructing my lectures over the course of the semester. As the lectures and plans become more crystallized, I'll post the necessary materials on the class web page. The outline below is a preliminary outline (i.e., one that is subject to change) of what will be covered during the lab sections of the class.

Date	Topic	Files or links
Jan 21	Introduction: What can be done over the Internet. Creating a web server account.	Lecture notes 1 - Internet Possibilites [PowerPoint] Lecture notes 2 - Setting up a web server via Netfirms [PowerPoint] Some useful links for EditPlus and Netfirms EditPlus Great text editor for windows Netfirms web hosting
Feb 4	How to make a basic HTML web page	Useful links to HTML sources HTML colors and references CSS tutorials and references HTML table tutorial HTML Tags and attributes Lecture notes 3 - Creating HTML web pages [PowerPoint] Details on homework assignment [create a web page]