Potential Potholes: Predicting Challenges and Learning Outcomes in Research Methods in Psychology Courses

Identifying impediments to learning can help both instructors and students. In this study students (N ¼ 222) from across the nationlisted concepts from research methods they found the most challenging—“potholes” or impediments to learning, and also ratedthe difficulty of various concepts from the class. We also measured student attitudes and perceptions of the course. Our resultsshowed validity is one of the hardest concepts for students to understand in RM. Not surprisingly, within a list of concepts inresearch methods, students tend to be tripped up by terms of similar grouping. Perceptions of a research methods course wasstrongly related to the students’ attitudes and canonical correlation analysis revealed several important findings from our data set.For example, we found that when students perceive more value, expectancy for success, cognitive strategies, and resourcesmanagement strategies, they are less likely to be challenged by the concepts of samples and variables and threats to internalvalidity. Our findings provide a clear map of student potholes in research methods courses and suggest ways to change studentattitudes about the same.