Graduate students often ask me to share examples of comprehensive papers, approved ethical review protocols, data collection and analysis instruments, etc. Much of my comps and thesis proposal, including instruments and ethics protocol, were incorporated into my dissertation.On this page, I’ll continuously add useful resources for students.
As my role has changed from being a from traditional faculty member to becoming an educational developer, I will update this page with resources appropriate for instructors.
Handouts from Workshops, Conference Presentations, etc.
Handout to get you started on using lightboards: stlhe_2016_lightboard_handout_v2 From Fujita, N., Baker, N., & Lubrick, M. A brilliant design: Using the lightboard to rapidly develop innovative online and blended learning resources. A pecha kucha presented at the Society of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 2016 Conference. London, ON.
Academic Writing
All students should buy a hardcopy version of Strunk and White (1918)’s The Elements of Style, but here is the link to the online version of this classic book.
Dr. Rachael Cayley, a Lecturer in the Office of English Language and Writing Support in the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto, writes a blog on academic writing for graduate students with useful suggestions and interesting links.
APA format
Here is a good website for APA format that features examples: http://psychology.vanguard.edu/faculty/douglas-degelman/apa-style/
This page has examples for citing online sources, including blogs, wikis, and podcasts
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/
Here is a link to a pdf for reporting statistical tests in APA format:
http://web.psych.washington.edu/writingcenter/writingguides/pdf/stats.pdf
Keeners can subscribe to the APA style blog: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/
There are templates for APA format that you can get through formatting workshops or EndNote that will make formatting your thesis much easier. I can’t upload .dot files to this blog page, but they are available 1.5 spaced and double spaced.
EndNote
I really like EndNote to create bibliographies and make quick notes on publications. The Cite While U Write feature works for me. There is a little trick for putting in page numbers on references. The page numbers you enter on a new reference will not show up in your document unless you put the number(s) in the suffix of the inserted reference. Alternatively, you can use the prefix to insert things like ‘cf.’ or ‘e.g.,” in front of your reference. This will make more sense to you once you start using EndNote. You may be able to purchase a student or faculty version for reduced cost at your institution.
Exporting data from online survey service
Most online survey services (e.g., SurveyMonkey, SurveyXact) allow you to export your data as .csv files. Choose the unicode version, especially if you’re using a language like Danish or Greenlandic. You can import the .csv data into statistical analysis software like R, which is free, or one that your institution might support, like SPSS.
Online surveys
You can choose from a number of reasonably priced online survey services (e.g., SurveyMonkey, SurveyXact). They make data collection much easier and more efficient than paper questionnaires. You can build your informed consent form into your questionnaire (check with supervisor or your ethics review board if you’re not sure about your institutional regulations), and send out reminder emails to only those people who have not responded to your initial invitation.
At University of Windsor, graduate students have free access to FluidSurveys. This avoids the ethical problem of storing data on foreign servers. It has much of the same features as the other services mentioned above and below.
Theories
I find many graduate students struggle with understanding theories and how to use them as explanatory lenses. Unfortunately, I think students have to struggle through reading primary works, which are often philosophical and abstruse, but eventually it starts to make sense.
Here are some introductions to various theories that I found useful early on:
Explorations in Learning & Instruction: The Theory into Practice Database http://tip.psychology.org/
The Encyclopedia of Informal Educationhttp://www.infed.org/ – check out the ideas, thinkers, practice
Learning Theories Knowledge Base and Webliography
http://www.learning-theories.com/
Writing abstracts for publication
I learned how to write abstracts as an undergraduate student in psychology a long time ago. I followed the APA style guidelines and looked at examples: http://www.apastyle.org/.
Another good resource is Phillip Koopman’s (1997) essay, How to write an abstract