PSY530 Week 8 Assignment
Final introduction research paper
This final should be an expansion of your work across this semester. Build from your initial first paragraph/thesis/source work and incorporate your research from the other two critiques. This paper should be a minimum of 5 pages and maximum of 8. This does not include a properly formatted title page and references (an abstract is not needed at this stage in paper development). Make sure to include your own original, testable research hypothesis that derives from the work you’ve reviewed.
Proper citation is key. Make sure you are citing in-text each idea that comes from an outside source using APA style (Author Last Name, Year) – do not include full author names, names of articles, or names of journal titles.
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, meet with your faculty advisor for feedback, and arrive at a topic. You will need to begin thinking about your research topic during Module 2 and find an empirical article to review on that topic. This initial article critique will require that you answer questions about an empirical, peer-reviewed journal article. Here you’ll show that you can identify the hypothesis and the independent and dependent variables and explain the results. In this initial summary you’ll write (in formal APA style) using the structure provided in the assignment document. This initial article critique is due in Module 2.
2. Hypothesis establishment: for the Module 3 discussion forum you’ll be asked to share your research topic and your initial thoughts on a research hypothesis. You’ll need to incorporate the feedback you receive there to create a viable, testable, feasible research hypothesis. Use this feedback to inform the additional articles you review.
3. Additional article critiques: you’ll need to submit two additional critiques. The first is due in Module 5 and the second is due in Module 6. Follow the same structure that was provided for the first article summary. As you’re reading these articles you’ll want to be compiling a list of possible instruments that you could use for your own project proposal in PSY 535.
4. Write your introduction/literature review: In Module 8 of PSY 530 you’ll submit your finished introduction and literature review. 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.