System for Teaching Experimental Psychology (STEP) is a collaborative project designed to maximize the use of

E-Prime E-Prime (short for English-Prime or English Prime, sometimes denoted É or E′) denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb ''to be''. E-Prime excludes forms such as ''be'', ''being'', ''been'', present ...

PsyScope PsyScope is a graphical user interface (GUI) software program that allows researchers to design and run psychological experiments. It runs on Apple Macintosh computers and was originally designed for use with the Mac OS 9 platform. PsyScope was or ...

, and other experiment-generating systems for teaching undergraduate classes in

experimental psychology Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...

. It is a database of

scripts Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

based on classic and student-created psychological experiments,

tutorials A tutorial, in education, is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture, a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete ...

, utilities, and course frameworks. The project is directed by

Brian MacWhinney Brian James MacWhinney (born August 22, 1945) is a Professor of Psychology and Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University. He specializes in first and second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and the neurological bases of language, an ...

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, and other major contributors include Ping Li of the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

, Chris Schunn of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

, and James St. James of

Millikin University Millikin University is a private university in Decatur, Illinois. It was founded in 1901 by prominent Decatur businessman James Millikin and is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Media Decaturian The ''Decaturian'', also known as ...

. Support for STEP comes from the Division of Undergraduate Education of the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

. Students in psychology need to learn to design and analyze their own experiments. However, software that allows students to build experiments on their own has been limited in a variety of ways. E-Prime is the standard for building experiments in psychology, STEP is a Web-based resource that uses E-Prime as the delivery engine for a wide variety of instructional materials. The goal of the STEP Project is to provide instructional materials that will facilitate the use of E-Prime in various learning contexts. STEP is compiling a large set of classic experiments implemented in E-Prime and available over the Internet from http://step.psy.cmu.edu. The Web site also distributes instructional materials for building courses in experimental psychology based on E-Prime. STEP Resources include: The e-prime mailing list that is used to share ideas and issues regarding the use of E-Prime to build experiments. SCRIPTS-Classic: Runnable E-Prime scripts that can be used to demonstrate classic experiments in Experimental Psychology. These are accompanied by descriptions of the original articles. SCRIPTS-Plus: Additional E-Prime scripts for certain commonly used paradigms. These are not accompanied by descriptions of the original articles. Some of these are recent contributions. SCRIPTS-Techniques: E-Prime scripts contributed by various users and PST designed to illustrate specific programming techniques and tasks. SCRIPTS-Student: E-Prime scripts contributed by Brian MacWhinney's students in Cognitive Research Methods in 2002 and 2003. MATERIALS: The E-Prime Getting Started Guide and various PowerPoint tutorials from PST, as well as additional technical documents for response boxes, etc. UTILITIES: Utilities for working with E-Prime and PsyScope COURSE FRAMEWORK: Complete material set for a Lab course based on E-Prime from Chris Schunn at George Mason University

References

External links

Official website
Experimental psychology {{Psych-stub