Psychology 290

Special Topics Study Course

Seminal Papers in Quantitative Psychology

Spring Semester, 2021

Syllabus for Spring, 2021

Instructor:

Jack L. Vevea (jvevea@ucmerced.edu)
Social Science and Management Bulding, Room 306-A
Office hours: Wednesdays, 9:00-11:00 A.M. Telephone: (209) 658-1706

Text:

There is no required text for the class; articles to be read before each class meeting will be posted on the web site. Look for links in the syllabus.

Meeting times:

We will meet virtually via Zoom on Tuesdays 2:00 to 4:45 P.M. An announcement on Catcourses gives a link to my Zoom room.

Course description:

We will examine seminal papers in quantitative psychology. Each week, I will post two to four papers for discussion the following week.

Course learning goals:

In the class, you will become acquainted with important, groundbreaking papers in various areas of quantitative psychology.

Course learning outcomes:

By the end of the class, you will:

be familiar with important groundbreaking work in various areas of quantitative psychology;

be conversant with various strategies for reading complex papers;

expand your knowledge of your field beyond the content of the specific papers assigned in class.

Prerequisites:

Graduate status and an interest in quantitative psychology.

Evaluation:

Grading will be based entirely on class participation and weekly response papers. Each week, two to four papers will be assigned as reading. Students will:

read the papers and come to class prepared to discuss them;

write a one-paragraph response that summarizes the papers;

prepare two to three questions about each paper (included with the response essay)

identify and share highlights of one or two related papers that you identify yourself.

Academic Integrity

Students should be familiar with University policies on academic honesty. You will find relevant information here.

Students with Disabilities

UC Merced has a variety of services available to accommodate students with disabilities. Information is available here.

Readings

Here are readings for January 26:

Here are readings for February 2:

Here are readings for February 9:

On February 9, we agreed that it would be useful to look back at some of the earlier papers cited by the authors we read. The first two readings, below, are two of those papers. (Warning: dense and difficult material.) The third is the famous paper on James Stein estimation that Raudenbush and Bryk cite. So the readings for February 16 are:

Here are readings for February 23. (Please see my email regarding another reading I am trying to locate.)

Here are readings for March 2. This is a somewhat arbitrary selection of papers that represent aspects of the beginnings of psychometrics, and some important figures are not included. There will be more next week.

Our readings for March 9 follow up on some themes that emerged on March 2. First, we consider a survey paper Lydia found that discusses the history of thought about the dimensionality of intelligence. Second, we look at Larry Hedges' paper "How Hard is Hard Science, How Soft is Soft Science," which relates to our discussion about early thinking regarding legitimizing psychology as a science. Third, we consider a transcript of an address by Galton that Hope provided, in which he discusses eugenics. Finally, we'll look at Galton's book on "human faculty," in which his views on eugenics are expounded.

For the Galton book, I would like each student to choose two chapters to present, summarize, and comment on in class on Tuesday. As soon as you have chosen your chapters, please email your selections to all four of us so that we don't have duplication.

Here are the readings:

(By the way, I listed them in that order partly because it's fun to have the list start with Benson and Hedges, a brand of cigarette.)

Readings for March 16:

This week, we are going to consider S.S Stevens' taxonomy of levels of measurement. Here is his original paper.

Here are several papers that are critical of Stevens:

Finally, here are some papers criticising the critics:

This week (week 9 of the class), we return to IRT, focusing on the problem of estimation. I'm going with only three items this week because the readings are a bit dense.

In Week 10 (4/6/2021), we will begin two week of readings on meta-analysis. First, the controversy:

In Week 11 (4/7/2021), we continue with week two on meta-analysis (of what will actually be a three-week sequence. Sorry, but I'm really interested in meta-analysis.)

Here are the readings:

Here are readings for week 12:

Here are readings for week 13: