This assignment requires you to develop and carry out all aspects of an empirical research project. The project will have several milestones: proposal, data collection, data analysis, class presentation, and APA style report. The course Schedule has due dates for these milestones. The project will be conducted by groups of 4. The paper must be written completely by individuals, sharing the data collected by the group.

Students who hope to enter a graduate program should view this project as an opportunity to perform research that will enhance their applications by completing a high quality study that can be presented at a regional conference (e.g., the Psi Chi session of the Southeastern Psychological Association).

Because this is partly a laboratory course, much of the work on your project will be performed outside of class. Please make appointments to consult with me or the teaching assistant outside of class for help and advice.

Research Ideas

Choose a topic in which you are interested. Talk to me about it, talk to other faculty for whom this area is their major expertise, go to the library and read some papers. Look at what other people have done in the area and think about how you could do a similar study. I will present some ideas to the class.

Standard for Literature Review Your Introduction section must contain a literature review that includes at least 10 primary or secondary sources that you have obtained and read. Primary sources are journal articles, monographs, theses, dissertations, and technical reports. A monograph is a book that presents one theory, study, or body of knowledge that is intended to advance knowledge in a field. A secondary source (as I am using the term here) is a chapter in an edited book. Textbooks, web sites, and encyclopedic sources are excluded from this standard; however, you may also use them as additional sources.

Develop a research design based on the resources you have available. If you're not sure what's possible, please talk to me. There are several constraints: time, money, lab equipment, subject availability, etc. There should be no problem in constructing a good study within these constraints.

You need to develop hypotheses as you work on the design. The hypotheses should be formulated before the design, but in reality they will be developed together.

Standard for Research Design My standard for this study is that it must have high internal validity. External validity is desirable. The study need not break new ground or be of publishable quality. However, it must not be a direct copy or replication of an existing study; there must be at least a little original thinking.

I will require each group to write a proposal before it begins the research. I will use the proposal to determine if the research topic, design, and hypotheses are valid and reasonable. The proposal will include the information normally found in the Introduction and Method sections of a paper, but need not be an APA format document since it will be used primarily to flush out the ideas and develop the methods for the project. See the course schedule for the due date.

Standard for Sampling Your sample must be large enough to adequately test your hypothesis. How big? It depends on your design. Please consult the instructor or TA.

Data analysis is not a small task!, so I have set a deadline for completion of data collection and for completion of its analysis. You will need to work with me or the teaching assistant on the data analysis. The data should be coded and entered in Excel or SPSS by the data collection due date. Please don't enter the data without first consulting with me.

As in previous projects, each person should write an APA style report, including all the major sections. See the course schedule for the due date.

The report should include:

• All the standard sections of an APA manuscript
• At least one Table
• At least one Figure, drawn in a graphing program such as Excel
• An Author Note
• At least one footnote

Each project will be presented to the class using PowerPoint.