Psychology 329
Research Methods in Psychology
I. Purpose - The purpose of the project is to provide you with the opportunity to plan, carry out, and report on a quarter-length research project. In doing so, you will become familiar with the research and research methodology used in an area of psychology related to your own interests.
II. Assignment - You will be writing an original, empirical research report on a topic in an area of psychology that interests you. If you have interests outside of psychology you might choose to examine a psychological aspect of your interest (e.g., college studentsŐ perceptions of sexism in a work of literature, imaging vs. practice in athletics, etc.). The actual planning and writing of your research paper will take place in chunks that you will turn in as your three homework assignments.
Once you have chosen a topic, you will need to gather outside research articles which are related to your topic. You will need a sufficient amount of background research in order to easily understand and comment on the subject in which you are interested. (Recommended minimum: 6 references, although more are typically required for a senior project or other research work). These resources should be either journal articles (including reviews), articles from edited books, or entire books; web resources are also acceptable. At least 3 of your articles must contain some report of original research and must be from refereed journals. You will use the research articles and any other sources (e.g., the dictionary, books, review articles, web resources) to set up and discuss your topic in the introduction section of your research report. In addition, you will pose a research question, choose a methodology to test it, and collect and analyze data. Your methodology and results will be described in your research report which will conclude with a discussion section.
III. Write-up - Your report should be presented in APA format with 1) complete introduction, method, results, and discussion sections, 2) proper APA-style citations, and 3) a title page, abstract, and references. Your final product, due on Monday, March 18, should be approximately 8-12, double-spaced, typewritten pages in length not including references. This will require some editing in order to clarify and concisely present the ideas. Please take the time to do this!
IV. First Drafts - First drafts of various sections will be due as part of your homework assignments. In brief, the first assignment will require you to choose a topic, find potential sources, and develop a hypothesis; the second assignment will require you to combine your sources into a literature review that will motivate your own study; finally, the third assignment will require you to test your participants, report the data, and compare your findings with those described in your introduction. Information on each assignment will follow at later dates.
V. Grading criteria - Grades for the project will be based on several criteria. Chief among these are: clarity and conciseness, cohesiveness, level of thought, thoroughness, synthesis with previous research, and adherence to APA style (see below).
II. Abstract (3 points)
III. Introduction (20 points)
Last modified on January 4, 2002.