Online courses directory (148)

This course will introduce you to the fundamental principles of psychology and to the major subjects of psychological inquiry. It has been designed to not only provide you with the tools necessary for the study of psychology but to present you with a sampling of the major areas of psychology research. The course begins with a short overview of how psychology developed as an academic discipline and an introduction to a number of the principle methodologies most commonly deployed in its study. The subsequent units are arranged around broad areas of research, including emotion, development, memory, and psychopathology. We will focus on well-substantiated research and current trends within each of these categories.

This course will introduce you to the concepts and ideas in the area of social psychology. Social Psychology aims to discover the different ways in which people interact with other individuals, groups, and the larger society as a whole, as well as why people act in certain ways. As with an anthropology or sociology course, social psychology looks at the inner workings of groups of people. However, it differs from these courses in terms of its focus; social psychology focuses primarily on the single individual’s psychology as part of the group or society, rather than the culture or group interaction (though both of these areas have some relevance in social psychology). This may seem to be quite a broad subject area and it is. Humans are social creatures (in other words, they have evolved to be able to interact and communicate at high levels with individuals of their own species) and almost invariably exist in a social context (even a situation in which society is absent could be studied by social psychologi…

Cultural Psychology reviews the cultural, community, and ecological factors that play a role in how people perceive their environment.  It is the integration of the nature and nurture phenomenas, whereby an individual’s psyche is determined, or at least influenced, by both that individual’s culture and those other cultures to which the individual is exposed.  This may include many layers and levels, such as those discussed by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, including the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. For example: On a small scale, it is easy to see how an individual living in New York City would encounter different psychosocial stressors than a person living on a farm in Iowa might.  On a much larger scale, a person living in the United States may differ greatly, in cultural terms, from an individual living in China.  It may be easy to tell that two cultures are different from one another, but identifying exactly what we meanand all that is encompas…

Psychotherapy refers to the practices clinical psychologists use to treat mental disorders. While “therapy” can denote any intervention undertaken with the goal of healing someone (including medicinal treatments for physical problems), psychotherapy is specific in that it uses certain cognitive, behavioral, and emotional regulation techniques. Based on pop culture portrayals of psychotherapy, you may be imagining a patient lying on a couch, talking freely about whatever is on his or her mind, while a doctor scribbles notes. While there is some truth to this portrait, it is an obvious oversimplification. Psychotherapy often involves a pre-defined set of techniques that a counselor will use in order to solve the problems that his patient is encountering. These techniques often vary from therapist to therapist and depend on which school of thought the therapist subscribes to, that is, which perspectives he or she has adopted in order to explain the causes of and appropriate treatments for various disorders.

Human societies have always been dependent upon local and regional environments for critical natural resources, and loss of these resources (either due to environmental changes or human overuse) has often reduced a society’s resilience to future challenges.  When resilience decreases, the risk of societal collapse increases.  Today, our globalized, highly connected societies have increased access to environmental resources, yet they leave us more vulnerable to disruptions and disasters that begin in other regions or systems.  By understanding how our societies are connected to each other and to the environment, we can better manage our interactions so that they do not increase the potential for societal collapse.  This course will use a complex systems theory perspective to investigate how coupled human-environment systems interact to either increase or decrease their risk of collapse.  This complex systems approach works across many disciplines, so that human-environment linkages can be understood fro…

Sociology is the scientific study of society. As such, it closely examines human interactions and cultural phenomena, including topics like inequality and urbanization and the effects of these on groups and individuals. To do their work, sociologists rely on a philosophy of science called positivism, which you will study in Unit 1. The philosophy of positivism asserts that authentic knowledge, or truth, can only be gained through empirical observations. In other words, we need to be able to experience our observations or use scientific measurement with a form of sensory experience, as opposed to using faith-based or emotional experiences. Another central concept to sociology is that of the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination allows sociologists to make connections between personal experiences and larger social issues. For example, did you know the U.S. has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world? In order to understand this trend, sociologists use scientific methods…

In the 1960’s, H. Marshall McLuhan, media theorist, critic, and visionary, asserted that societies are changed by the advances of technology, especially communication technologies.  He is well known for his prophecy that communication technology would one day make us one great “global village.”  In the end, the processes and theories regarding communication in our daily lives to exchange information, create meaning, and share understanding remain a critical component of human relationships.  Whether we are chatting with a stranger while waiting for a bus, solving a problem with a group of coworkers, or sharing our dreams and goals with our best friend, principles and practices of human communication are at the foundation of each of these human transactions. This course provides an introduction to the human communication concentration in the communications major.  This course will introduce you to communication principles, common communication practices, and a selection of theories to better unders…

The purpose of this course is to systematically examine the elements and factors which result in an effective speech.  The textbook and associated lectures present an element-by-element examination of the essentials of public speaking while also identifying traits of the individual speaker and how they impact preparation and presentation.  In addition to these resources, a comprehensive series of brief videos demonstrate specific, performance-oriented aspects of public speaking.  Tying each of these course elements together are the themes of information and ethics, emphasized in each resource because they are becoming increasingly important to all communicators.  For example, the textbook constantly returns to the discussion of society’s ever-increasing access to information and the demands on the individual to use it effectively and ethically.  The authors note that “the New York Times has more information in one week than individuals in the 1800s would encounter in a lifetime,” which illustrates…

The purpose of this course, as governed by the textbook at its core, Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, is to complete a fairly comprehensive examination of the evolution and impact of the media, primarily in the United States.  Each of the major media (newspapers, magazines, books, radio, movies, music, and television), as well as new media (electronic entertainment, social media, and the Internet), are examined from their conception to the present and future possibilities.  Emphasis is placed on how each media industry has evolved over time, responding to changes in society, technology, politics, and economics.  The course also explores the cultural impact of the media, from individual media products to entire industries, with particular emphasis on the cultural and ethical factors that influence production, consumption, and also, due to the advent of new media, participation.  Upon completing this course, you should be more conscious of how your viewpoints are shape…

We live in an increasingly globalized world.  Technology enables us to do business just as easily with our neighbors as with a businessperson thousands of miles away from us.  Knowing how to navigate cultural differences is an increasingly valuable skill that will make you a more valuable employee.  Encounters among members of different cultures frequently fail simply because of basic cultural differences, such as the importance of time, proper greetings, or even the use of eye contact.  This course is designed to help you identify how to become a better communicator in these sorts of cross-cultural situations.  You will learn about barriers to successful communication that involve cultural differences.  You will also learn more about your own communication style and how it can be developed to facilitate more successful intercultural encounters. Though some of this course addresses a Western/U.S. perspective, much of the course focuses on characteristics of specific cultures and how generally one cultur…

There is no shortage of quotes in which inspirational business leaders describe the sources of their success. Their reasons are often diverse, but almost everyone comes back to the same thing: people. The people are the company; they create the success. In BUS301: Managing Human Capital, you learned how to find, train, and manage these people. Please keep in mind that there is more to successful business leadership than managing human capital. You must have a suitable structure and culture at your firm in order to achieve success. Imagine the U.S. military; it boasts some of the best-trained soldiers in human history, but that talent would be wasted without a structure designed to appropriately deploy forces. In other words, the military would not be as successful without streamlined organizational behavior. Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of how people interact in organizations. These interactions are governed by a number of factors, including your personal life, the personality of your boss or you…

Scott McLean, formerly the Shadle-Edgecombe Endowed Faculty Chair at Arizona Western College, introduces the textbook used throughout this course by noting that “[E]ffective communication takes preparation, practice, and persistence.  There are many ways to learn communication skills; the school of experience, or ‘hard knocks,’ is one of them.  But in the business environment, a ‘knock’ (or lesson learned) may come at the expense of your credibility through a blown presentation to a client.” Effective communication skills are a prerequisite for succeeding in business.  Communication tools and activities connect people within and beyond the organization in order to establish the business’s place in the corporate community and the social community, and as a result, that communication needs to be consistent, effective, and customized for the business to prosper.  McLean’s textbook provides theories and practical information that represent the heart of this course, while additional resources a…

Whether you know it or not, you are actively contributing to a comprehensive media environment forged on both regional and global levels even when you are privately using social media websites!  The media we use today has come a long way, but the basic pattern of development remains consistent.  This course introduces various academic theories, cases, and models to make sense of local and global media development.  How does a locally operated newspaper trigger development of the national mass media market?  How does a global conglomerate media company set agendas for international news distribution?  Consider how the following historical events may be connected: In 1833, The Sun, a New York-based newspaper, became available to the general public for the first time.  This marked the beginning of the mass production of information and created a market sector that could be influenced by average people. In 1995, conglomerate media company, News Corporation, headquartered in New York City, acquired the H…

Marketing is an understanding of how to communicate with the consumer.  It includes four activities: Creating products and services that serve consumers; Communicating a clear value proposition; Delivering products and services in a way that optimizes value; Exchanging, or trading, value for those offerings. Many people incorrectly believe that marketing and advertising are the same thing.  In reality, advertising is but one of the many tools used in marketing, which is the process by which firms determine which products to offer, how to price those products, and to whom the products should be made available. In this course, you will learn about the marketing process and examine the range of marketing decisions that an organization must make in order to sell its products and services. You will also learn how to think like a marketer, discovering that the focus of marketing has always been on the customer.  You will begin to intuitively ask: what does the customer need?  What does the customer…

Effective public relations skills are essential to so much of the success in private and public spheres.  Public relations efforts address how we wish to present ourselves to others and how to deal with the perceptions of who others believe we are.  Public relations tactics are useful for large international corporate projects, or something as personal as networking for your own career advancement. If you are taking this course as part of a communications major, you may well find most every other course in the program is based on addressing how we relate to others.  The field of public relations takes the theories of human interaction and applies these theories for real-life results. This course will help prepare you to conduct public relations suitable for small start-up businesses, international companies, political campaigns, social programs, personal development, and other outreach projects.  There are many tools useful to effective public relations.  As we review the components of a public relat…

In this course, we will look at the properties behind the basic concepts of probability and statistics and focus on applications of statistical knowledge.  We will learn how statistics and probability work together.  The subject of statistics involves the study of methods for collecting, summarizing, and interpreting data.  Statistics formalizes the process of making decisionsand this course is designed to help you cultivate statistic literacy so that you can use this knowledge to make better decisions.  Note that this course has applications in sciences, economics, computer science, finance, psychology, sociology, criminology, and many other fields. Every day, we read articles and reports in print or online.  After finishing this course, you should be comfortable asking yourself whether the articles make sense.  You will be able to extract information from the articles and display that information effectively.  You will also be able to understand the basics of how to draw statistical conclusions.

This Research Methods course is part one of the two-part Research Methods series, which also includes the Research Methods Lab course. Research is the foundation on which any solid science is built. This course will introduce you to research methodologies frequently used in the social sciences and especially those used in the field of psychology. It is important that you are able to not only identify the techniques used by others but also employ them yourself. The course is designed to provide you with the foundation you will need to apply certain techniques in the search for your own answers. The course will begin with an overview of how research, and its appropriate methodology, came about in science and, more specifically, psychology. We will then go over the ABCs of conducting research, learning how to define “variables” and why they are important. While this course will also touch upon statistics and their importance, it will not require a comprehensive knowledge of the subject. The course will concl…

This Research Methods Lab course is part two of the Research Methods series. You should not attempt this course without having first completed the Research Methods course (PSYCH202A [1]). This Lab extends beyond the basics of research methodology and the logic of experimental design, concepts you learned in PSYCH202A [2].  You will learn to put these concepts into practice while conducting laboratory experiments. While we may not explicitly apply all of the concepts introduced in the Research Methods lecture course, remember that each of them will remain relevant during the evaluation and review phases of your research. This course intends to acquaint the student with a variety of different research techniques.  Students will participate in every stage of experimentation, from creation and editing to evaluation and review.   As such, this course will not only review relevant concepts from the Research Methods lecture, but will also broach a number of practical matters, including the standard organizatio…

This introductory course in biology starts at the microscopic level, with molecules and cells.  Before we get into the specifics of cell structure and behavior, however, let’s take a cursory glance at the field of biology more generally.  Though biology as we know it today is a relatively new field, we have been studying living things since the beginning of recorded history.  The invention of the microscope was the turning point in the history of biology; it paved the way for scientists to discover bacteria and other tiny organisms, and ultimately led to the modern cell theory of biology. You will notice that, unlike the core program courses you took in chemistry and physics, introductory biology does not have many mathematical “laws” and “rules” and does not require much math.  Instead, you will learn a great number of new terms and concepts that will help you describe life at the smallest level.  Over the course of this semester, you will recognize the ways in which the tiniest of molecules…

In BIO101 [1], you were introduced to biology on a microscopic scale when you learned about the functions of molecules, genes, and cells.  In this course, you will learn about biological changes that happen on a very large scale, across entire populations of organisms and over the course of millions of years, in the form of evolution and ecology.  Evolution, the process by which different species of organisms have developed and diversified from earlier forms, has been a central theme in the field of biology ever since Darwin first published his theories about it.  Mounting evidence from many different branches of science all point to the fact that species have experienced a gradual but definite physical change.  In this course, we will learn about evolution and theories that stem from evolution. We will also learn about ecology, the study of the interactions between different types of organisms and their surroundings.  Changes in surroundings will force organisms to adapt and changeoften in terms of th…