Introduction to Psychology (Psyc 100:15)

Page 1 of 6

COURSE SYLLABUS

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY (PSYC 100:15)

WINTER 2016

TUESDAYTHURSDAY2:15-3:30pm (Q1/Q2)

Instructor:Dr. Erika KochPhone:867-3950

E-mail:fice:Nicholson Annex 108

Office hours: Mondays 11:15-12:00; 1:00-2:00; Tuesdays 11:15-12:00; 1:00-1:45; Wednesdays 9:45-12:00 (or by appointment)

Website:

Additional materials—including instructions for the Winter writing assignment—are available on Moodle.

Textbook Student Website:

On this website you will find practice multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank questions, and other practice test material to go with each chapter. You will also find activities and links relevant to material in the textbook.

Course Description:

A survey of the major topics of psychology and an introduction to the methodology of psychological research. Students are normally expected to be involved with ongoing research in the department by participating in experiments during the course of the academic year. Six credits.

Course Objectives:

1.To provide core knowledge in psychology, thereby establishing a solid foundation for subsequent studies in psychology.

2.To encourage critical thinking skills.

3.To develop basic scientific research skills.

Evaluation:

In the Winter term, there will be one midterm and one final exam, which, unless announced otherwise in class, will consist of a combination of multiple choice and short-answer questions. The distribution of the questions will be discussed in more detail prior to the examinations.

MIDTERM will be held in class on Thursday, February 10, 2016. Material from the beginning of the 2nd semester to this point will be tested.

FINAL EXAMINATION will be held during the examination period at the end of semester (April 11th – 22nd) on a date to be announced. This examination will cover only material (textbook + lectures) from the second semester of the course.

Grades will be based on the scale presented below. You may wish to record your grades here.

Your final grade will be based ONLY on these elements (with any research participation points added at the end). Please do NOT contact me once the course is complete to ask for an “extra assignment” to boost your grade.

Assignment / Value / Your Grade
Fall term (i.e., December mark) / 50%
Winter midterm (i.e., February Quiz) / 10%
Winter writing assignment / 10%
Final Exam / 30%

Assignment: You will be required to complete a short written assignment.This assignmentis designed to introduce you to the basics of conducting a search for and being able to comprehend articles describing psychological research, and writing a paper in American Psychological Association (APA) format, which will be extremely important should you decide to major in psychology. The assignment will be worth 10% of your final grade. ALL ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE BY THE END OF CLASS ON THE DUE DATE. ASSIGNMENTS THAT ARE NOT HANDED IN BEFORE CLASS ENDS WILL BE CONSIDERED LATE. Full instructions for the assignment are available on Moodle.

Participant Pool Participation: Many psychology studies are conducted by professors and students in our department. You have an opportunity to participate in some of these studies. If you participate in these studies, you can earn up to 5 bonus points added to your final grade (up to a final grade maximum of 100%). See the PSYC 100 Sign-Up System Moodle page for more information.

Lecture Presentations

Each of the course examinations will require you to use material from both the textbook and lecture presentations. The lecture material will discuss aspects of some of the text material in greater detail, while other parts of the textbook will not be discussed in class. Students are responsible for knowing material that is covered in both the lecture and in the textbook, and may be tested on any material included in either of these sources. Lecture notes and Powerpoint slides will not be made available to the students before or after class time; therefore, it is essential to take notes during class in order to have this material available for study. Students are encouraged to make arrangements early in the term to be able to borrow the lecture notes from someone in class in the event that they cannot attend a class. I will be happy to answer specific questions about class notes once you have obtained them. All documentation of extended absences should go to the Dean’s office—not the instructor.

During class, you are encouraged to ask questions about concepts that are unclear, or to share examples that you think are relevant to the material. Outside of class, I encourage you to meet with me during office hours (or set an appointment) to discuss any questions or concerns. E-mail is the best way to contact me outside of class. *Please refer to page 4 of this syllabus for information on appropriate e-mail communication.

Classroom Etiquette

I expect that each of you will respect your classmates and me by arriving to class on time, ready to listen and participate. Please turn off your cellular phones when you arrive to class, and be sure to put away all phones and other personal devices (e.g., Blackberries, iPods). Devoting class time to non-academic activities such as text-messaging or listening to music is disruptive and creates a negative impression of the students engaging in such activities. In addition, please do not disrupt the class by carrying on private conversations during class time.

Departmental Laptop Policy

Students who wish to use a laptop during class time must seek permission from the instructor in advance. If permission is granted, please note that your laptop is to be used only for note-taking, not recreational purposes (e.g., Facebook, web-surfing), as this type of usage is distracting to your classmates. Inappropriate classroom laptop usage will result in laptop privileges being revoked.

Departmental Exam and Quiz policy

Check the course schedule on your syllabus before making travel plans (e.g., purchasing airline tickets); exams and quizzes will notbe rescheduled in the event that they conflict with such travel plans or other personal events. Quizzes and exams will be rescheduled on the basis of valid and documented excuses (e.g., illness, personal emergency) only. I reserve the right to administer a unique exam for any make-up. In the event of a storm on the day of an exam or quiz, official closure of the university will be the only situation in which an exam or quiz will be postponed. In such situations, you will be informed via e-mail of the postponement and the rescheduled exam date. If you require special accommodations for testing (e.g., extra time for a documented learning disability), please provide a letter from the Tramble Rooms describing your needs. (Note that Iam not requesting the details of your situation—just your needs.) I appreciate reminders of necessary accommodations before each exam/quiz.

Departmental Policy on Late Assignments

Students will be penalized 5% for each calendar day that an assignment/paper is late. Once 10 days have passed, a mark of zero will be assigned. Only valid excuses, such as illness or personal emergency (for which you must provide documentation), can effect a renegotiation of the due date with the professor. Note that disk failures, computer crashes, etc. are not valid excuses for failing to turn in assignments on time, nor are they valid excuses for turning in substandard work. Back up your work!!! Always be sure to keep hard and soft copies of each assignment for yourself, just in case the copy you turn in does not find its way to the instructor. Always keep graded assignments in the event that an error is made in recording your grade.

University Policy on Academic Integrity

St. Francis Xavier values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of such academic offences as plagiarism, cheating, tampering, and falsification under the St. Francis Xavier University Policy on Academic Integrity. You are responsible for knowing and following this policy; please refer to the Academic Calendar (section 3.8) for details. You may find this site helpful:

I WILL NOT TOLERATE PLAGIARISM OR CHEATING OF ANY SORT. The University’s Academic Calendar (section 3.8) notes that “Plagiarism is the misrepresentation of another’s work—whether ideas or words… as one’s own,” and that cheating includes “sharing papers” and “collaboration… on an assignment which an instructor did not specify was to be completed collaboratively.”Any student found to have plagiarized or cheated will be reported to the Chair of the Psychology Department, the Registrar’s office, and—when appropriate—the Academic Discipline Committee.

Appropriate E-mail Communication

You are expected to maintain a working St. FX e-mail account; please check on that account regularly to ensure that it is not “full.” Important notices may be sent to these e-mail addresses.Writing to a course instructor is not the same as writing to a friend. Although the communication is not on paper, e-mail still means that you are communicating with others who deserve consideration and respect. In addition, you may be expected to use e-mail in future employment situations, and it might be helpful to develop good habits now. The guidelines below are NOT listed in order of priority but in the order in which you would need the information while writing an e-mail or other electronic message.

1. Please do not e-mail questions about the course that could easily be answered by referring to the syllabus or other course materials.
2. Please do not e-mail requests for your grades, as e-mail is not secure.
3. When writing an e-mail, please write something in the “subject” line. If your e-mail is about a specific topic, write the name of it (e.g., “normal distribution question”).I am likely to assume that an e-mail without a subject line is spam and consequently may delete it.
4. Begin the communication with a salutation such as “Dear Dr. Koch.”
5. Use Proper English. Write complete sentences, which include the correct use of capital letters to begin a sentence and a period to end a sentence. Every e-mail message should be properly spelled and punctuated, and it should be grammatically correct. A poorly written and misspelled message reflects poorly on the author.
6. Do not write in all capital letters or all lower-case letters.
7. Delineate separate ideas by using paragraphs.
8. RE-READ the message before sending and check for spelling errors, poor grammar, unclear sentences, or other organizational errors that happened during the first draft.
9. Sign the communication with your first and last name and the course in which you are enrolled. It is helpful (though optional) to have your e-mail address and ID number underneath your name.
10. Politeness is important even in e-mail. Demands such as “write back” are unnecessary and even rude. If your message requires a response, I will respond at my earliest convenience.

The Dos and Don’ts for doing well in this course:

1. DO read the assigned chapters and readings before the class. Reading in advance will help you follow the lecture. Be sure not to forget material in the boxes as well as the main text, as they provide important examples of what is discussed in the text and lectures. When you are pressed for time, you should at least skim the assigned readings, paying attention to the headings and summaries.
2. DO come to every class (except when ill) and take good notes. The lectures will often cover different material than that covered by the text. The exams will cover both the text and the lecture material.
3. DO spend some time the night after the lecture going over your lecture notes, reconstructing the lecture and making sure you understand the key issues raised.
4. DO participate in class by asking and answering questions during lectures and contributing to class discussions. Your ideas and contributions to the course material are valuable to you and the rest of the class. By applying the material to your own life or to other real-life situations, you will be able to integrate the material as well as be able to share differing perspectives with your classmates.
5. DOschedule appointments with the Writing Centre, or with me, well in advance of an assignment’s due date in order to access the help and materials available to you.
6. DO NOT leave all the reading for the night before the exams. This course contains a vast amount of new information. You will not have enough time to go through it all.
7. DO NOT confuse familiarity with knowing the material. Reading the material twice is not studying. Studying is when you test yourself on the material to see if you can talk/write about it with no aids. For example, as you approach a section of the text, cover it up, and see if you can give an account of what the main points of that section are. If you are just reading the material several times, it will sound familiar, and you will think you know it, but you will find on an exam that you really do not and are drawing a blank.
8. DO NOT leave the writing of your paper or assignment until the day before it is due. Advance planning and preparation will help you to write to the best of your ability. The due date for the assignment was provided on this syllabus on the first day of the term. If your computer dies the night before an assignment is due, you will not be given an extension. Always make sure to have backup copies of your assignment saved so that if you lose your file, you will not have to start over from scratch.

Course Schedule

Note: The following is a tentative schedule. Class topics and order are subject to change. However, quiz and exam dates and assignment due dates will not change, except under unusual circumstances such as class cancellations due to inclement weather.

Below, chapter numbers refer to chapters in the course textbook.

DATETOPICREADING

Tues., Jan. 5
Thurs., Jan 7
Tues., Jan. 12 / Human Development / Chapter 9
Thurs., Jan. 14
Tues., Jan. 19
Thurs., Jan 21 / Emotion and Motivation / Chapter 10
Tues., Jan 26
Thurs., Jan. 28
Tues., Feb. 2
Thurs., Feb. 4 / Health and Well-Being / Chapter 11
Tues., Feb. 9 / MIDTERM – FEBRUARY QUIZ / will cover Chapters 9 – 11
Thurs., Feb. 11 / Personality / Chapter 13
Tues., Feb. 16
Thurs., Feb. 18 / MIDTERM RECESS – NO CLASSES
Tues., Feb. 23
Thurs., Feb. 25 / Personality (continued) / Chapter 13
Tues., March 1Thurs., March 3
Tues., March 8
Thurs., March 10 / Social Psychology / Chapter 12
Tues., March 15 Thurs., March 17
Tues., March 22 / Psychological Disorders / Chapter 14;
Winter assignment due
Thurs., March 24 Tues., March 29
Thurs., March31 / Treatment of Psychological Disorders / Chapter 15
Tues., April 5 / Wrap-up/Review
TBA / FINAL EXAM / will cover Chapters 9 – 15