Living in a Social World
Psy 324: Advanced Social Psychology

Guidelines for World Wide Web Tutorial Projects

Overview

    The tutorial project is a major component of our course activities. It is intended to give you the opportunity to use your knowledge of social psychology, your skills in acquiring new information, and your ability to communicate with others in creating something that will have lasting impact. Your tutorial will be published on the World Wide Web and will remain there for at least four years, available to future students at Miami and around the world.

    The overall goal of the tutorial is to inform and educate a visitor to the website about a specific topic in Social Psychology. You should assume the visitor is intelligent but not necessarily familiar with the field of psychology -- a reasonable model might be a student in the Introductory Social Psychology class.

Possible Topics :

    The topic for the tutorial should be an important and interesting aspect of the field. Avoid topics that are too broad (e.g., "prejudice" or "group processes") or too narrow (e.g., "prejudice toward people from eastern Latvia" or "group interaction in advanced psychology courses"). Some examples of topics that might be appropriate are:

• The Role of Counterfactual Thinking in Assessing Responsibility and Blame
• Positive and Negative Aspects of Belief Perseverance
• Escalation of Commitment in Groups
• Lying and Deception in Everyday Life
• Persuasion in the Courtroom

    You may use any of these ideas or come up with another. Even if you do use one of those listed, selecting a topic should involve some careful thought and research by your team. Sources of information and of ideas might include Intro Social Psychology textbooks, our own textbook, and your own experience and that of your teammates.

    Your topic must be submitted in writing by 5 p.m. February 11th and approved before you can proceed.  Note that duplication of topics with another team is not permitted. We will follow the FIGIT procedure in case two or more teams have the same idea ("First in Gets IT"). Each team should email me a 1-page summary description of their topic and subtopics (see below) no later than 5 p.m. Friday, February 11th. These descriptions, when approved, will be posted on our website, and we will discuss them in class.

Minimal Features of Tutorial

• Opening Page: Overview of concept (2-3 pages), with links to at least 3 Subtopic Pages (2-3 pages each).
• Opening Page and each Subtopic Page must contain 1 graphic element (picture, diagram, chart, etc.).  You must obtain written permission to use all graphic elements not in the public domain.  This takes time and you should start this process as early as possible.  Acceptable procedures for obtaining permission will be discussed at the appropriate time.
• Minimum of 4 links to WWW sites, on at least 2 different pages.
• Minimum of five references (cited using APA style in either Opening Page, Subtopic Pages, or both) to source material about the topic ("mainstream" journal articles, books). Reference section will appear at the end of the Opening Page, and is not counted as one of its 2-3 pages.
• A non-web description of how your team would evaluate the effectiveness of your tutorial.  The evaluation plan should spell out the procedure you would follow to gather and analyze data that would test whether the tutorial has significant educational value.  This should include specific questions and their formats.  The evaluation plan should be 2-3 pages in length,  not counting the evaluation questions (these should be included as an appendix).  This portion of the project will be evaluated on its clarity and scientific rigor.

[Note:  At this time we are attempting to make arrangements with Psy 221 Instructors to allow a small-scale evaluation of your tutorial near the end of this semester.  If this is the case, your evaluation instrument may have to be prepared and available earlier than presently indicated.]

The overall structure of the tutorial might be pictured as follows:

    The tutorial should make effective and interesting use of hypertext and involve active decision making that leads to significant consequences (for example, to receiving feedback or providing opportunity to delve more deeply into a subtopic). We will discuss the pedogogical principles of incorporating hypertext into the web tutorial structure at various points in the course. 

Examples

    The best examples of existing tutorials that use the above structure are those constructed by students in earlier offerings of this course.  Their work should be regarded as a starting point, not as blueprint to be followed exactly.  Examine the earlier tutorials carefully, then strive to improve on them.

Back to Top
Back To Psy 324 Home Page