Basics of Experimental Design for Cognitive Psychology

By Prof. Ark Verma | IIT Kanpur

Learners enrolled: 1275 | Exam registration: 236

ABOUT THE COURSE:

The course is aimed at familiarizing students with issues in experimental design in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science. We will talk about various aspects of Experimental Design, Correlational Studies, Survey Studies etc. and will also discuss various nuances linked to designing an experiment, for e.g., stimulus selection, participant selection, choice of task, aspects of Hypothesis Testing etc.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Masters and PhD Students of Psychology, Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science.

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Core
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	8 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit Points :	2
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	16 Feb 2026
End Date :	10 Apr 2026
Enrollment Ends :	16 Feb 2026
Exam Registration Ends :	27 Feb 2026
Exam Date :	24 Apr 2026 IST
NCrF Level	4.5 — 8.0

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Basics of Measurement in Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

Week 2: Types of Research Designs:- Naturalistic, Survey Based, Case-Studies, Correlational and Experimental

Week 3: Nuances of Experimental Designs: Factorial Designs

Week 4: Building the Components of an Experiment: Stimuli, Participants & Tasks

Week 5: Aspects of Hypothesis Testing & Interpretation through Experiments

Week 6: Experimental Designs in Eye-Tracking

Week 7: Experimental Designs in EEG/ERP

Week 8: Experimental Designs in fMRI

Books and references

• Experimental Design: From User Studies to Psychophysics (2012). Douglas W. Cunningham & Christian Wallraven. CRC Press.

• Experimental Design and Analysis for Psychology (2009) Herve Abdi, Betty Edelman, Dominique Valentin and W. Jay Dowling. Oxford University Press.

• Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences (2011). Charles Stangor. Wadsworth CENGAGE Learning.

Instructor bio

Prof. Ark Verma

IIT Kanpur

Dr. Ark Verma is an Associate Professor of Psychology, with the Department of Cognitive Sciences at IIT Kanpur. He has passed his B.A. in Psychology and English Literature from University of Allahabad in 2007, and his M.A. in Cognitive Science from the Centre of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad in 2009. He went on to do his PhD in Psychology, from Universiteit Gent, Gent, Belgium at the Centre for Reading Research, UGent under the supervision of Prof. Marc Brysbaert in 2014. His research interests include, lateralisation of cognitive functions, visual word recognition, social cognition, social neuroscience and bilingualism.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: April 24, 2026 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 6 assignments out of the total 8 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kanpur .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team