Instructions for Research Proposal
Each student will be asked to design a study. (The study should not be carried out.) The paper
describing the study should be written in APA style and should contain the following:
1) a Title page;
2) an Abstract;
3) an Introduction (a minimum of three pages, with at least five references);
4) a Method section (in which the design is explained);
5) a Results section, in which mention is made of which statistic would be used to analyze the
data if data were collected (but do not make up data);
6) a Brief Discussion section; and
7) a References section.
***Please do NOT “make up” fake results. This is a proposal of what study you would do if you
were allowed, not what you have done. Thus, the abstract, methods, results, and discussion
sections should be written in the future tense.
1. Title Page: I expect the following format:
a. Your Title should be midway up the page, with your name (First name, middle
initial if wanted, then Last) and your institution’s (NSU) name beneath the title.
b. You must have a header and page numbers on each page. The header should be a
short title no more than 50 characters long.
i. The header goes at the top of the paper and is left justified.
ii. See my “Title” page above as an example.
c. This Title Page section will be on page one (1)
2. Abstract
a. It starts on its own page (page 2); The word “Abstract” is centered – it is NOT in
bold.
b. Make sure your header and page number are still on this abstract page.
c. The abstract should be between 150 and 250 words and include all the following
elements.
i. Identify your general problem or research question.
ii. Note your participants.
iii. Note your experimental method.
iv. Note your prediction for the study.
d. Please include keywords for your study (at least five keywords or phrases)
3. Literature Review Section: I expect the following format:
a. APA formatting for the first page of your literature review
i. The first page of your literature review starts on its own page (page 3)
ii. You must have a proper APA style header (this is the same title as
your running head from the title page)
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iii. You will retype the title of your paper on the first line of the
literature review page, centered, in bold.
iv. The beginning text for your paper follows on the next line
b. APA formatted citations for the literature review
i. Your paper must reference a minimum of five (5) empirical research
articles that are based on studies conducted in psychology. That is, each of
the five citations you use should have a literature review, a methods section,
a results section, a conclusion/discussion, and references.
1. You CAN NOT use secondary resources (internet sites, newspapers,
magazines, etc.). I am not setting a maximum on the number of
citations you can use, but you need at minimum six of them!
2. Proper citations must be made in the paper – give credit where credit
is due, and don’t make claims that cannot be validated! If it sounds
like a fact, then you must provide a citation to support that fact.
3. DO NOT plagiarize. You will turn this in on Canvas, and we can
check for plagiarism via turn-it-in. Paraphrasing is okay, but you
must still cite the original author even if you don’t use his or her
words verbatim. If you rewrite what they say, it is still them that had
the original idea, and they deserve credit for it.
4. DO NOT have any direct quotes!
c. Content-based requirements for the information in your literature review
i. Your literature review should use prior research studies as a jumping-off
point, starting with a broad theme and then narrowing it down – think about
the hourglass example your instructors have given you.
ii. Think about your literature review this way: You have to tell a story.
It has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
1. At the beginning of a story, your audience does not know very much
about the characters and scenes to come, so you have to introduce
that information. You can start chronologically (the first
experimenter to happen upon the idea you are interested in or
Seligman in this case), or you can start with an established theory.
2. Once you have established the characters (the researchers) and talked
a little about the general plot (the research they did), you move into
the middle of the story, where you start to draw connections between
the various story elements (the studies of different researchers). All
of the cited studies should connect in some way, leading toward the
end of your story.
3. At the end of the story, you start to lead the reader to the big
cliffhanger (your hypothesis). By now, you have introduced the
characters as well as the plot, but then you want to build some
anticipation in your reader – you want them to wonder what comes
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next and how the literature you have reviewed moves forward. The
last part of the literature review brings the reader to your study
hypothesis or that potential twist ending to your story. That is,
“Given what we saw in the literature, what happens if we do XYZ?”
Thus you build your study to your hypotheses and end the first
chapter on that cliffhanger. The next chapter focuses on the study
that you actually did! In other words, at the end of your literature
review, you should:
a. give a general overview of your research question
b. state your specific predictions/hypotheses given the studies
you talked about in the literature review
4. Methods Section: I expect the following format:
a. The methods section starts immediately after the literature review (not on its own
page).
b. Write Method in bold, and center it.
c. The Participants section comes next. The word Participants is bolded and left
justified. In this section:
i. Tell me who your participants will be. Your general population of interest,
your method of sampling, and why.
ii. State whether there are certain participant characteristics related to
your research question that you will control for
d. Materials and Procedure
i. The words Materials and Procedure are flush left. In this section:
1. Provide information about your materials and your procedure.
a. Start with your research design, explaining the independent
and dependent variables and the levels of your independent
variable, and the materials you will be using the manipulate
your independent variable and measure your dependent
variable.
b. Tell your reader what your participants will do in the order
participants will do them. Be specific here. I have the
following recommendations:
i. First, talk about the informed consent procedure.
ii. Provide enough detail explaining how you are
assigning participants to your conditions, the step-by-
step procedure for each of your conditions, and a
detailed explanation of how your conditions differ.
iii. Third, talk about your dependent variable(s).
Specify the type of measure that you are using, the
questions you will ask, how you will ask them, and
exactly how you will be measuring the responses.
Once again, provide enough detail, so I know exactly
what questions you will ask. Tell me how the
responses will be recorded (yes/no, true/false, a scale
of 1 to 9, etc.). If you use a scale, note the endpoints.
That is, does a 1 mean it is high, or is it low?
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“Participants will be asked, ‘How frustrating was this
task?’, and they can respond on a scale from 1 (very
frustrating) to 9 (not at all frustrating).’” Make sure
anchor points are in APA format.
iv. If you plan on using a repeated measures
design, explain how you will control for order,
practice, fatigue, and carryover effects.
v. Finally, mention debriefing.
vi. You do not have to list every single question
on the questionnaire. You do have to list the ones that
you would be running your statistical analyses on and
give an overview of the rest of the information you
would be gathering from your participants (such as
demographics or other questions on a questionnaire
that are not the main focus of your analysis).
e. There is no set minimum or maximum on the length of the methods section, but I
would expect at least a page or two. Missing important aspects of your IVs and DVs
or presenting them in a confused manner will lower your score in this section.
f. Remember, make sure that another researcher can replicate your study based on
your methods section. If they can’t, then you may not have enough detail!
5. Results Section: I expect the following format:
a. Write Results at the top of this section, center it, and use boldface. This section
comes directly at the end of the methods section, so the results section DOES NOT
start on its own page.
b. For this paper, you must propose running at least one analysis that is appropriate
given the design of your study.
c. Start with restating the design of your study (your independent and dependent
variables and the levels of your independent variable) and then follow with the
appropriate statistical analysis and explain why you are choosing that analysis.
d. End with your prediction of the results that are based on the literature reviewed.
e. There is no page minimum or maximum for the results section, though I would
expect it to be at least a paragraph for each dependent variable.
6. Brief Discussion
a. Write Discussion at the top of this section, center it, and use boldface. This section
comes immediately after the Results section and DOES NOT start on its own page.
The focus of the discussion should be on the study’s implications and limitations.
b. Implications: The purpose of this section is to argue how and in what ways you
believe your research will refine, revise, or extend existing knowledge in the subject
area under investigation. Depending on the aims and objectives of your study,
describe how the anticipated results of your study will impact future scholarly
research, theory, practice, forms of interventions, or policy. Note that such
discussions may have either substantive [a potential new policy], theoretical [a
potential new understanding], or methodological [a potential new way of analyzing]
significance.
c. When thinking about the potential implications of your study, ask the following
questions:
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i. Start with stating why this research would be important. What do I want to
study, and why?
ii. How is it significant within the subject area?
iii. What problems will it help solve?
iv. How does it build upon [and hopefully go beyond] research already
conducted on my topic?
v. What might the results mean in regard to the theoretical framework
that frames the study?
vi. What suggestions for subsequent research could arise from the
potential outcomes of the study?
vii. What will the results mean to practitioners in the “real world”?
viii. Will the results influence programs, methods, and/or forms of
intervention?
ix. How might the results contribute to the solution of social, economic,
or other types of problems?
x. Will the results influence policy decisions?
xi. What will be improved or changed as a result of the proposed
research?
xii. How will the results of the study be implemented, and what
innovations will come about?
d. Limitations: In a proposal, limitations are the constraints of the study, that is,
aspects of the study not covered for various reasons. These could pertain to
subjects, geography, data, and so on. For instance, one limitation could be that the
study will only look at people of a certain age group or income level. Describing the
limitations helps the evaluator determine whether or not you have thought of the
various aspects of the study, especially the challenges, and explain how they affect
the conclusions that can be drawn from the research.
i. Some common limitations include issues with the research sample and
selection, lack of previous research on the topic,
methods/instruments/techniques used to collect the data, time constraints,
and researcher/participant biases.
e. There is no length requirement for this section, but I recommend at least one page.
7. References: I expect the following format:
a. The References section starts on its own page, with the word References centered.
Use proper APA format in this section, or you will lose points.
b. All three references that you cited in the literature review must be in this section
(there should be more references here if you cited more than ten articles). However,
ALL must come from empirical articles (no secondary sources)
c. For references, make sure you:
i. use alphabetical ordering (start with the last name of the first author)
ii. use the authors’ last names but only the initials of their first/middle
name
iii. give the date in parentheses – e.g. (2007).
iv. italicize the name of the journal article
v. give the volume number, also in italics
vi. give the page numbers (not italicized) for articles
vii. provide the doi (digital object identifier) if present (not italicized)
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8. Appendices (not required)
i. Tables and Graphs are not required. You can include them, but they will not
be graded.
9. Overall writing quality
a. Make sure you check your paper for proper spelling and grammar. The NSU
writing center is available if you want someone to look over your paper (an extra
eye is always good!) and give you advice. I highly recommend them, as writing
quality will become even more important in future papers.
Other Guidelines for Research Proposal Paper
Page size is 8 1/2 X 11” with all 4 margins set at 1”. You must use a 12-point font.
When summarizing articles for your lit review and doing so in your own words, make sure
you still cite the original source. Always use proper referencing procedures, which means
that:
PLEASE use a spell checker to avoid unnecessary errors. Proofread everything you write. I
actually recommend reading some sentences aloud to see if they flow well or getting family
or friends to read your work.
NO DIRECT QUOTES
