Chevron Left
Back to Positive Psychology: Character, Grit and Research Methods

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Positive Psychology: Character, Grit and Research Methods by University of Pennsylvania

4.4
stars
1,165 ratings

About the Course

Learners discover how apply to research methods to their study of Positive Psychology. In this course, we study with Dr. Angela Duckworth and Dr. Claire Robertson-Kraft. Through an exploration their work "True Grit" and interviews with researchers and practitioners, you develop a research hypothesis and learn how to understand the difference between internal and external validity. You also begin to understand and apply the strengths and weaknesses associated with different types of measurements and evaluation designs. You then interpret the results in an empirical study. Suggested prerequisites: Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science and Positive Psychology: Applications and Interventions....

Top reviews

SM

Oct 21, 2022

An extremely well developed course about not such a simple topic ir research methods. The instructors broke the topics down into easy to learn bytes such that an interested learner can complete easily

RW

Dec 27, 2019

Though i have nightmares of research design from my undergraduate career, this puts a neat spin on it and reminds the sheer importance of it. Thanks for the reminder of what is important UPENN!

Filter by:

226 - 250 of 337 Reviews for Positive Psychology: Character, Grit and Research Methods

By Deleted A

Jul 2, 2017

This is the best course so far, thanks to interplay between Angela Duckworth (with her "applied" Grit stuff) and the other woman lecturer, whose content and presentation were crisp and clear.

Thank you for not forcing us to endure further Seligman Worship during this course. Dr Seligman praises himself enough to last a lifetime, and I have been getting discouraged by these UPenn courses which suck up to him even further.

By Eric L B

Mar 18, 2019

A good introduction to research methods. I would like to see even more of Dr. Duckworth's lectures --- she seems fantastic. I found the structure very good. The other students have a broad range of motivations for being here and self-grading is difficult for something so specific to research methods. I would like to here from an professional (event grad student) and not just a peer on these assignments especially.

By Ursula W

Sep 23, 2020

I really liked the course on research and the quizzes in this course were much better then in previous course (which sometime give you really silly answers to choose from). We had to come up with an own hypothesis and continously work through out the course on it. I would have rather practices to read research properly - closed tasks. The feedback from participants is not always pushing you forward.

By Dana O

Apr 14, 2021

The presentations are well done but a research course seems like it shouldn’t be in a foundations sequence. As someone taking the sequence for fun or personal growth, I would have preferred a course just on the concept of grit and character strength. Clearly some participants want to build research proposals but think they should have their own sequence for that purpose.

By Deleted A

Feb 18, 2019

I really enjoyed Angela's in class videos, they made me feel a part of Penn State. I would also like to compliment Claire's way of explaining the course, she did so in a clear and enthusiastic manner. However, I did not give five stars because I felt there was a lot of massive texts to read. Personally, I found it hard to concentrate while reading a lot of information.

By Maria C H

Jun 7, 2020

I think the course is a very good one and the teachers are great.

However, I DID NOT WANT or NEEDED to take it. I only took it because its a must to complete the Positive Psychology Specialization.

I really think that students should have a choice to complete or not this course.

It was a real challenge for me to complete it. I must say that it was a GRIT CHALLENGE!

By Jianhua H

Sep 30, 2017

This is a good course. However, it is a bit mixed by several different contents which sometime makes the major contents not very obvious and not sufficient for me. Also I managed to complete it eventually by reading, watching the video many times.

Probably it can be divided into two courses.

By Renee B

Aug 2, 2017

Very, very informative. It was a tough module for me to get through as this is not my area of particular interest that had me sign up for the course. However, I appreciate the effort that was made to keep it engaging and informative. I learned a lot of valuable insights from this module.

By Leow W

Nov 20, 2022

The trainers, researchers and practitioners are passionate and enthusiastic in sharing their knowledge with us. I like working on the quizzes and assessments for these test my knowledge and skills about what I do not yet know. Overall, it has been a fruitful learning journey for me!

By Natalia T

Jul 1, 2020

I LOVED Angela Duckworth classes, she is a really good professor. Overall, I felt this course wasn't very useful to me because I already studied psychology and I now about research methods, but I can understand how other people might benefit from this.

By Linda E

Dec 21, 2017

Really hard and kind of boring material presented in a really thorough way, as simple and relevant as possible for the lay researcher/research consumer. I learned alot even though I was not looking forward to this class in the 5-course specialization!

By Ankita O

Feb 2, 2018

Since research is not my major area of interest, I was sort of not inclined for it. But, the content and understanding of this course is very basic and easy to understand. If you are interested in such a field, this is a good course for you.

By Karolina K

Aug 21, 2019

This course focuses much more on research methods and is in fact a series of cuts from longer videos created for outside purposes. Having said this, it's still very good if you want to learn how to do your own research. Still recommended!

By Karen B

Jul 24, 2017

This is one of the hardest courses I've taken through this program, but have to say I walked away with a solid understanding of research methods. I also enjoyed learning more about the concept of Grit and the research that informed it.

By Kathy P

Dec 7, 2019

This was a much more academic course than the others in this series. It was challenging and enjoyable. The others have felt more like "self-help," but in this course, I had to stretch myself and learned a lot.

By Katherina C

Sep 9, 2017

El curso es bueno, tiene buen material, pero a veces se hace un poco pesado porque incluye muchos textos que no son relevantes podrían ponerlos para posterior revision, se hace dificil seguir con el curso.

By Morgan M

May 3, 2019

This was a challenging course- there was not a lot of attendance when I went through so I had to wait and reestablish my deadlines twice to get the opportunity to review my peers and be graded by peers.

By Raja P

May 8, 2022

i felt empowered when i understood inferential statistics and could read the table filled with numbers. I believe i require one more revision to get more clarity on validity and a methods pros and cons

By Sue B

Aug 4, 2017

I took this course to understand how to apply Positive Psychology. This course focuses heavily on creating research, which was not my goal. I did appreciate the module on how to UNDERSTAND research.

By Karin

Nov 9, 2022

Angela Duckworth is an amazing lecturer, will be watching for her in future. It is a good idea to include practitioners experience as well in the videos so will hope to see more of that.

By Laya A

Jun 18, 2020

Went in expecting for the course to be heavier on the character/grit material so I was surprised how much more focused it was on research methods, but I am satisfied nonetheless!

By Печенкина А А

May 22, 2020

Overview of research methods was ease, but clear. Grit research was interesting. But it was a bit messed up because themes of psychology and research methods were mixed.

By Francesc B

Oct 25, 2024

I really enjoyed and the content is very good, but I'm already familiar with research methods (done a PhD) so some videos were already known.

By Marlene S

Feb 5, 2018

There were quite a few mistakes (even in titles) in the written content, such as spelling, grammar, etc. which makes learning less enjoyable.

By Louis A K H T

Dec 24, 2018

I have learnt a lot everyday attending the courses. However, there are really parts which I find them a bit difficult to understand.