Learning goals for Psych 416: Animal Communication

Joe Sisneros and others

By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  1. Integrate information from different areas of biology in order to explain the general principles and mechanisms that govern the evolution of animal communication systems (assessed by spoken presentation on a research article and participation in class discussions).
  2. Understand the general principles and mechanisms that govern the evolution of animal communication systems and the related processes of perception and social behavior (assessed by spoken presentation on a research article and participation in class discussions).
  3. Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of scientific articles in terms of whether they test a specific hypothesis, the methods and experimental designs are free from bias, the findings address the researcher’s hypotheses, and if there are alternative explanations for the findings (assessed by participation in class discussions).
  4. Integrate and identify how the findings from scientific articles build on previous research, advance our understanding of important concepts, and lead to new questions within the field of animal communication (assessed by spoken presentation on a research article and participation in class discussions).

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