PSYC 203 Introduction to Psychological Research Research Proposal

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PSYC 203 Introduction to Psychological Research Research Proposal

PSYC 203 Introduction to Psychological Research

PSYC 203

Professor Valdespino-Hayden

Montclair State University

 

Research Proposal – Handout 3: Writing Your Proposal

 

The purpose of this handout is to provide guidance on writing the different sections of your research proposal and making sure that your paper is well written and formatted. As mentioned in the assignment overview, your paper should be 5-7 pages long, not including a cover page and list of references. In the research proposal, you will (a) introduce the topic and state your research question and hypothesis and the supporting evidence for it (b) provide a brief methodology of how you would test your question (i.e., hypothesis), and (c) write up a discussion as if you found significant findings. Below, I have listed some tips for each section, as well as for writing and formatting a research paper.

PSYC 203 Introduction to Psychological Research Research Proposal

(A) Introduction

An introduction for this type of assignment should tell the reader what your topic is and provide some rationale for why he or she should care about it. You might also want to provide some brief information about what is known about your general topic. Lastly, you should end this section with a statement about what is to come – for example, what the focus of your research is, and what hypotheses you have. The Introduction section should be approximately 2 pages long.

 

Tip: Start broad (i.e., what are you talking about?) and then become narrower as your approach your specific research question.

 

 

Questions to help you develop your Introduction:

• Are there any well-documented findings that might be a good way to introduce your topic? Again, you can incorporate citations from your reviewed articles, the textbook, other articles, or an Internet source.
• What is the topic of your paper? What are you goals in writing this paper? Can you give the reader a brief roadmap for the rest of your paper?

 

 

Your introduction is a section of the paper in which you can show your creativity, for example by using a case study, describing a scene from a movie, or discussing a recent news article.

PSYC 203 Introduction to Psychological Research Research Proposal

Tip: When summarizing conclusions there are certain elements of the article that should be included. Here are some tips on this issue:

 

• Elements of the article that you should consider including in a summary
  • Participant characteristics (e.g., age, grade, race/ethnicity, gender)
  • Sample size
  • What participants did as part of the study
  • Significant findings
  • Study conclusions
  • Limitations of the study, if any are listed
• Elements of the article to include ONLY if a noteworthy strength or limitation, or a unique aspect compared to other studies
  • What specific measures were administered (i.e., the names of the measures)
  • Sample items from each measure
  • Evidence of reliability or validity of measures
  • What statistical test was used
  • Parameter estimates (i.e., what the specific correlation or regression coefficient was)
  • Significance levels (i.e., what the specific p-values were)
  • The time frame of the study (i.e., the first and last dates of recruitment)
• Elements of the article that I do NOT recommend including in your summary
  • Title of the article

 

• Journal the article was published in
• The authors’ first names
• Information from the article introduction (e.g., how the authors introduced their topic, what other studies were reviewed)

There are several ways to be successful in summarizing the methods, key findings, and conclusions of 3-4 peer-reviewed articles. For example, you could organize your summary thematically, with sub- sections including articles that address different questions (e.g., What is the prevalence of disorder X? What are predictors of disorder X?), different methodologies (e.g., studies that included surveys; studies that used experiments). You could also do a study-by-study approach in which you summarize each of your articles one-by-one.

 

Either way, what I do NOT want you to do is to write about each study one-by-one without any attention to have they are connected to one another.

PSYC 203 Introduction to Psychological Research Research Proposal

(B) Methods

A method section should give the reader a detailed description of the methodology used and how it relates to your hypotheses. The methods section should address three key components: Design, Participants, Materials, and Procedures. The Methods section should be approximately 1 page long.

 

1. Study Design
   1. Describe the type of design used in the proposed experiment. Specify the variables as well as the levels of these variables
   2. Gender is a variable with two levels (i.e., male and female).
   3. Identify your independent variables, dependent variables, control variables, and any extraneous variables that might influence your results.
   4. Explain whether your experiment uses a within-groups or between-groups design.
      1. For example: “The experiment used a 3×2 within-subjects design. The independent variables were gender and understanding of social norms.” 

2. For Participants:
   1. Describe the participants in your proposed experiment including:
      1. Who
      2. How many? (N=?)

• How they were selected?

1. Include details about how your participants were chosen, who they were, and any unique features that may set them apart from the general population. Also, include any reasons that participants may have been excluded as well (e.g., missing data, lack of attention).

 

3. For Materials:
   1. Describe the materials, measures, equipment, or stimuli used in the experiment.
   2. This should include:
      1. Testing Instruments
      2. Technical Equipment

• Assessment Tools

1. Images

4. For Procedures:
   1. The procedure should include:
      1. What the participants did
      2. How you collected the data

• The order in which steps occurred (explain chronologically)

PSYC 203 Introduction to Psychological Research Research Proposal

(C) Discussion

This section of your paper should (1) provide a summary of the results of your proposed study as if you found significant findings, (2) discuss potential implications of your results, (3) discuss potential directions for future research, and (4) wrap up with a conclusion paragraph. The Discussion section should be approximately 2 pages long.

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