Reference no: EM133557318

A step-by-step guide to completing your Research Proposal paper

Across the two courses of the Research Methods sequence you will construct a research proposal on a topic of interest. When complete, the proposal will include four main sections: 1) the introduction/literature review that includes a research question/problem and an associated, testable hypothesis; 2) a method section (participants, materials, and procedure); 3) proposed analyses, and; 4) a discussion of what these results might mean and how this research will contribute to the field. A title page, reference page, and abstract must also be included. The paper must be written in APA format and the proposed study must be feasible (i.e., it could be used in the PSY 405 course, or serve as the basis for a directed study course).

We'll do this work in stages to provide opportunities for feedback. Those stages are:

1. Topic selection: you'll need to decide on a topic for your proposal. Resources will be provided in the class content area regarding possible topics. You want to find a topic that has some prior research and that is not too broad. You might start with a broad topic if that's where your interests are-e.g., aggression in children-and then use conversations with fellow students, consultation with the instructor, or concept mapping to narrow it down. A good way to think about topics is that most concern either: a) causes of variable of interest; b) effects of a variable of interest; or c) correlates of a variable of interest. You will need to do an initial review of the literature and arrive at a topic.

2. Initial article summary: Your proposal will be based upon a review of the research literature. You will need to review and describe a series of papers, and we will begin by having you answer questions about an empirical, peer-reviewed journal article on the topic you've chosen. Here you'll show that you can identify the hypothesis and the independent and dependent variables and explain the results. In this initial summary (written in formal APA style) you'll use the following structure:
1) first paragraph: general background-What do we know about the topic? What does this study add to what we know (what's new here)? What is the hypothesis or research question?
2) second paragraph: describe their methodology-who are the participants and what did they do in the study? NOTE: if the article you selected does not have a Method section, then you're summarizing the wrong kind of article.
3) third paragraph: what did the authors find? Describe this in general terms - there's no need to report their means, F-ratios, and so forth, but be sure to address all the key findings.
4) fourth paragraph: What do these results mean? Do they support the hypothesis? If so, how? If not, why? What are the shortcomings of the present study? Do their findings suggest possibilities for future research?

3. Additional article summaries: once you've mastered the summary technique, you'll need to submit an additional summary in Modules 4 and 5. This should leave you with 3 summaries total. You'll also want to be compiling a list of possible instruments that you could use for your own project proposal to be written in PSY 305.

4. Submit draft paper/complete peer review: In Module 6 of PSY 205 you'll submit your draft paper. These drafts will be the basis for the peer review assignment, in which you will provide feedback to others about their drafts and receive feedback in turn. You are not graded on the quality of your draft for this, but rather on the quality of the peer review you provide.

5. Revise and submit final paper: Utilizing the feedback you received from your peers, you'll submit a final version of your introduction, literature review, and research hypothesis. You will take the summaries you've written so far, organize them in a way that is coherent (i.e., you don't need to describe them study-by-study, but you can organize them according to the similarity of their findings), provide transitions between the various summaries, add an introductory paragraph that orients the reader to the topic and purpose of your paper, and conclude with a summary paragraph that contains your research question and associated hypothesis. The hypothesis must be grounded in the established research and theory you've reviewed. Include a title page and references section. This should be no more than 6-8 pages (excluding title/reference pages). This is due in Module 7 of PSY 205.

6. Method section: Beginning in PSY 305 you'll need to have a clear understanding of how you'd go about studying the hypothesis you've proposed. This will involve addressing, at minimum, three key elements of methodology: the participants you plan to recruit, the measures you plan to use to study the variables of interest, and the procedure by which you will collect your data. If you are proposing to carry out a survey, you will need to select measures that are both reliable and valid and attach them as an appendix to your final proposal. If you are proposing to run an experiment you will need to include a detailed protocol. Thinking about your design will inform your analyses as you go. Because this is a proposal, you should be writing all of this in the future tense. Consult with your peers and your instructor for input. This section is due at the end of Module 3.

6. Results and Discussion: Propose a way (or ways) of analyzing the data you wish to collect to test your hypothesis. This should be a relatively brief section and should be followed by a Discussion section that addresses possible outcomes, their meanings, and how they would inform our understanding of the topic. These sections are due at the end of Module 5.

7. Draft paper and peer review: Using the feedback, you have been given to date, combine all elements of your paper into a single document and upload by the end of Module 6. During Module 7 you will read a selection each other's' papers and provide one another with feedback. A peer-review form will be made available for your use in this task.

8. Final proposal: The final paper will include all sections of the paper including the title page, abstract, literature review with hypothesis, method section, project results, discussion, references, and any measures that you plan to include (as appendices). The final proposal should include application of the Saint Leo Core Value of Respect. The final proposal is due at the end of Module 7.