Methods of evaluating the effectiveness of a peace intervention
Floyd Rudmin

Time/ Place: Wedn 9.15-13, C-1003, 14.15-16, Computer room (“PC-stua”), Weeks 4,5,6
Thursd 8.15-12, C-1006, Weeks 4,6.

This is a course proposal for the new MA in Peace Studies. This elective course will be 5 EU credits, based on 30 hours of classroom lectures. The course will be taught by a staff member of the Psychology Dept.

The purpose of the course is to teach the kinds of quantitative research common in treatment disciplines, like psychology, medicine, teaching, farming, and pharmacology. The presumption is that those people who conceive, promote, or deliver a treatment cannot trust themselves to judge whether or not the treatment has been effective. The biases inherent in treatment, by everyone involved, including the recipients of the treatment, are unreliable.

Therefore, evaluations of treatment effectiveness must follow protocol research that has evolved over the past decades.

The following is an initial concept of 15 two-hour lectures on this topic:
History of longstanding, popular, highly reputed treatments that were ineffective: eg, magical behaviour, blood letting, lobotomy, etc., including the common problems of social desirability, acquiescence, placebo effects, spontaneous remissions, etc.
Bayes’ Theorem of conditional probabilities and signal detection theory of error is decisions.
Review of mathematics: decimals, squares, square roots, logs, simple linear algebra, types of measurement units,
Descriptive statistics
T-test
Simple ANOVA
Within-subjects designs
Correlation
Partial correlation and covariate control
Multifactoral designs, and MANOVA
Random sampling and random assignment, including theory and practice using random numbers tables
Control groups, dose effects
Graphing and interpreting results
Research ethics
Example studies

The pensum text for this would be a clinical statistics book, as well an internet resources. As a graduate course, students would be expected to
a) read the pensum
b) attend lectures
c) complete daily exercises using the computer and standard statistical packages (SPSS, STATISTICA, MINITAB, etc.), and
d) design a study that they themselves might use in a peace intervention project.

Prepared by Floyd Rudmin
Critiqued by Tim Brennen
Submitted for approval by the Psychology Dept. arbeidsutvalg.