Discuss general strategies for generating research ideas

For this discussion, you may find it useful to distribute handouts 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.

To provide a slightly different slant on idea generation, introduce and discuss the heuristics suggested by Richard Kaschau (1990).

Heuristics that involve reflecting on one's own opinions.

1. "I wonder what if?"

2. "What makes _____ happen? What could increase/decrease ____? "

3. "I don't believe that. "

4. "If that's true, wouldn't it also be true that...? "

5. "But the experts (theories) disagree on this point! "

6. "That's only the expert's (theory's) assertion. There's little evidence for that contention. "

If students are really stuck, you could do any of the following:

• Refer them to the Creativity Web page
• Let them play with some illusions (the site also provides scientific articles related to those illusions)
• Let them explore interesting psychological phenomena.
• Give them experience with an experimental paradigm, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma game, which is now available on-line as either the "gold coin" version or the classic version.
  
• Psychological experiments are available on-line from several sources. One very teacher and student friendly source is psychexperiments. Although most of the experiments are for Windows users, there are several (clearly identified) experiments for people using Macintosh computers.
  Macintosh users who like cognitive research might download a free computer program geared to help students run their own studies from Robert Goldstone at Indiana University.
• Assign one of these readings:

  Campbell, J. P., Daft, R. L., & Hulin, C. L. (1982).

  What to study: Generating and developing research questions.

  Beverly Hills, CA.: Sage Publications.

  DeBono, E. (1970). Lateral thinking: Creativity

  step-by step. New York: Harper & Row.

  Dillon, K. (1990). Generating research ideas; or,

  that's salada tea .... High School Psychology Teacher, 21, 6-7.