Emily F. Coyle, Ph.D.
Developmental Scientist
Mini Lesson
Here you can find a mini lesson in gender and psychology. This is taken from a longer lecture included in a course I have taught in the past at Penn State: Psychology of Gender (a 400-level psychology course generally taken by upper-level psychology majors but open to anyone who has taken introductory psychology and introductory social psychology).
This lesson is about how to conceptualize gender as a variable in research. Gender can be tricky because you cannot randomly assign someone a gender the way you can randomly assign other varaibles traditionally considered independant variables in research design. This lesson explains how we conceptualize and use gender in empirical research.
Please note that this is a sample mini lesson representative of those I have taught in the past. If you are a current student, please be sure you have access to the current lecture notes. Email me with any questions: ECoyle [at] stmartin.edu.