MTS 525-0
Special Topics Research Seminar
Section 20: Generalizing about Message Effects
Spring 2020
2:00-4:50 p.m. Mondays
via remote instruction
GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION
Instructor: Daniel O’Keefe
Course description: One recurring concern in communication research is understanding how and why messages have the effects they do. This course takes up issues concerning evidence-based generalizations about message effects. It addresses the design and analysis of primary research (e.g., case-category confounds, effect sizes and confidence intervals, the “replication crisis”) and the pursuit of research synthesis through meta-analysis.
Prerequisite: Completion of, or concurrent enrollment in the last term of, a year-long statistics course.
General plan of the course: Class meetings will be devoted to discussion of assigned articles (available online). Students will be expected to participate in discussion and submit a paper on some appropriate topic.
Tentative list of topics:
TOPIC 1: Primary research design in message effects research
1.1 The logic of experimental message effects research
1.2 Single-message designs, case-category confounds
1.3 Message variation definition
1.4 Alternative comparison conditions
TOPIC 2: Describing primary research results: NHST and its discontents
2.1 Null hypothesis significance testing
2.2 Effect sizes and confidence intervals
2.3 Message-effect effect sizes
TOPIC 3: The “replication crisis” and affiliated ideas
3.1 Crises of replication in psychology and other fields
3.2 Statistical power
3.3 Questionable research practices
TOPIC 4: Research synthesis via meta-analysis
4.1 The general idea
4.2 Formulating the research questions
4.3 Locating relevant research
4.4 Managing the information
4.5 Analytic procedures
4.6 Reporting meta-analyses
TOPIC 5: Message design guidance: generalization and its alternatives