PBS2 introduces the research design and experimental element of psychology. For this module there will be two lectures per week, a two-hour practical class per week, and usually one supervision per week. These supervisions may vary in format, but typically will involve you submitting short answers to questions during Michaelmas and the first part of Lent, before moving onto answering statistics questions towards the end of Lent when the lectures and practical’s move onto this.
During Michaelmas you will study experimental techniques to investigate brain function: brain structure/basic neurobiology, fMRI, EEG, brain interventions, and neuropsychology. You will then move onto study design, ethics, communicating research, qualitative research, Matlab, and statistics. For the statistics section, there will be seven lectures on data & graphs, correlation & regression, normal distribution, probability, and hypothesis testing.
These lectures are accompanied by a series of weekly practical classes. During Michaelmas, each of the topics being taught in the lectures will have a practical to reinforce and extend the content learned. In Lent, there will be one practical on study design and two practical’s introducing you to Matlab, with the rest being statistics exercise classes. These practicals are all unassessed but they provide a good opportunity to consolidate the material learned during the lectures, and to practice yourself experimental design and analysis.
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