PSY 520 Final Project Guidelines and Rubric
Overview
Contemporary psychology is built on rigorous research. Theories are constantly proposed, tested, supported, and invalidated through research studies that are communicated to the field via peer-reviewed research papers. Individuals in the psychology field therefore must be informed consumers and educated producers of psychological research.
This course is the second in the sequence of two research methods courses. In the first course, you created a research proposal centered on a testable research question. In this course, you will conduct research around your research question, using your proposal as a guide and other students as research participants. You must use Southern New Hampshire University students as research participants. You are strictly prohibited from using individuals outside of Southern New Hampshire University as research participants. Also, research proposals that ask questions about diagnosable mental health disorders, suicide, or abuse of any kind are not allowed. Once you conduct your research, you will analyze the data using the statistical software SPSS to inform your conclusions. The final product you submit will include new content and the content from Research Methods in Psychology I; you will combine the work from both courses to create one complete research manuscript. You will only be graded on the new content from Research Methods in Psychology II.
This project is divided into five milestones that you will submit at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. You will submit these milestones in Modules One, Two, Four, Six, and Eight. Milestones One through Three are steps you need to complete before you can write your research manuscript. Milestones Four and Five are opportunities to write drafts of final project sections. Your instructor will provide feedback you can incorporate into your final submission.
This assessment addresses the following course outcomes:
Use sound strategic methods to address testable research questions
Select inferential statistical tests to address research questions in psychology
Use appropriate statistical techniques to analyze data using statistical software
Interpret statistical analyses to inform conclusions and identify research limitations
Communicate psychological research results that follow the American Psychological Association’s principles and standards
Prompt
You will create a research manuscript for this assessment, guided by your research proposal from Research Methods in Psychology I and the study you conducted earlier in the course. Please speak with your instructor if you did not take Research Methods I.
Specifically, be sure to address the following critical elements:
Methods
Outline the study participants. How many participants were there, and how did you recruit them?
Describe the materials (surveys, etc.) you created for the study and how they address the research question. Also, consider how the materials consider the participants.
Describe the methodological procedures used to collect the data. How did the study use the materials to collect the data?
Results
Describe how the study reduced your raw data for statistical analysis, and clearly detail each step.
Create a table outlining the descriptive statistics for your key variables.
Describe the statistical test you selected, and explain why this test is the most suitable for analyzing your data compared to other tests (including why other tests were inappropriate for analyzing the data).
Communicate your research findings in a professional way, as outlined by the American Psychological Association’s study standards.
Discussion
What were the results of the data analysis, and how do these results relate to the research hypothesis?
How do your obtained results complement or contradict the previous literature on the topic? Justify your assertions with data.
Outline the strengths and limitations of your research, supporting these assertions with your data analysis.
Identify other tests you could have used, and explain why these tests were less appropriate for analyzing the data.
Identify areas related to your topic that still need future research using results from your data analysis.
Discuss the extent to which your study follows the American Psychological Association’s standards.
Milestones
Milestone One: Edited PSY 510 Final Paper (Research Proposal)
In Module One, you will submit an edited version of the research proposal you submitted for the final project in PSY 510. Editing and incorporating feedback are two key skills researchers must master to produce high-quality writing. All peer-reviewed articles have been written and rewritten many times; they are never completed in only one draft!
Rather than submitting the same version of the assignment that you submitted in PSY 510, you must edit and improve the paper using feedback from your PSY 510 instructor. Besides the feedback your PSY 510 instructor provided, please also refer to the Milestone One Guidelines document.
You may make changes to your research question, hypothesis, or research methods, but please get instructor approval for any substantial changes, such as completely changing the problem statement. This change will be submitted for feedback only.
Milestone Two: Draft of Research Materials (Surveys)
In Module Two, you will submit a draft of the survey instrument you propose to submit in the Student Lounge for data collection. Submit clear questions and response choices in the order you plan to collect data for your research questions. Be sure to include the survey’s introduction and instructions. Be sure your survey content is sound; address essential questions without redundancy. You may use a questionnaire that you design or use an existing survey with evidence of reliability and validity. Add demographic characteristics to the survey. Items such as gender, age, employment, marital status, and others are key to the analysis. Your instructor will provide feedback so you can improve these materials before data collection. This milestone will be graded with the Milestone Two Rubric.
Milestone Three: Qualtrics Input and Participant Notification
In Module Four, you will use Qualtrics to program the research materials (i.e., surveys) that you will give to participants. Be sure to program your survey items with appropriate Qualtrics question types, exactly how you want students to see them in your survey, and to provide sufficient participant notification. Remember to follow the directions in SNHU’s How to Get Started with Qualtrics 2021 guide before you begin work on this milestone. Be sure to incorporate the feedback on your materials your instructor gave you on Milestone Two. Please make sure to check the option to Anonymize Responses under the Survey Options when creating your survey. Refer to the Qualtrics website and the instructional video in Module Four for help.
You will also compose an introductory message to your study participants. You will use it in the Collect Data From Participants task in Module Four.
This milestone will be graded with the Milestone Three Rubric.
Milestone Four: Initial Draft of Methods and Results
In Module Six, you will submit an initial draft of your Methods and Results sections. Now that you have completed your data collection, be sure to revise your methods section so it accurately reflects the participants, materials, and methodological procedures your study uses.
In your Results section, you should first describe how you reduced your raw data for analysis (e.g., how your questionnaires were summed or averaged to get a composite score to analyze). Be sure to include a table of the relevant descriptive statistics and an explanation of the descriptive statistics. Then describe the statistical test you ran and explain the findings for the test. You must follow APA manuscript standards when writing this section. Please refer to Chapters 2, 3, 5, and 7 of your APA manual for further instructions on how to write a Methods and a Results section. This milestone will be graded with the Milestone Four Rubric.
Milestone Five: Initial Draft of Discussion Section
In Module Eight, you will submit an initial draft of your Discussion section. This section should recap your findings (including how they relate to your hypothesis), discuss how the findings fit in with previous literature on the topic, discuss strengths and limitations related to your research, and discuss areas for future research. Be sure that you follow APA style when writing this section and demonstrate that your work has met expected study standards. This milestone will be graded with the Milestone Five Rubric.
Final Submission: Research Paper
In Module Ten, you will submit your final project. It should be a complete, polished artifact containing all the critical elements of the final product. It should reflect the feedback your instructor has given you throughout the course. This submission will be graded with the Final Product Rubric.
What to Submit
Your research manuscript should contain content from both PSY 510 and 520, and it should be 12 to 16 pages total at a minimum. At least 4 to 6 of the total pages should be dedicated to new content created in PSY 520. Often, manuscripts will be longer. The page counts listed here are the minimum length expectations. Be sure to address all critical elements from the rubric.
Your manuscript must also follow standard formatting (Times New Roman, 12-point font, one-inch margins), using the most recent version of the APA style manual. Standard formatting includes elements such as a title page, font, margins, headings, subheadings, in-text citations, tables, images, references section, and so on. Refer to the APA manual for formatting guidance and examples.
PLEASE READ BELOW
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Module 1: 1-3 Final Project Milestone One
Module 2: Survey Draft 520 2-2
Module 4: Quinton G Qualtrics question survey
Module 6: QG 520 Methods and Results WK6
Module 8: PSY520 Initial Draft Discussion WK8
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Be sure to include:
Title page
Problem(s) statement
Literature review
Research question and hypothesis
Methods (rewritten/new from PSY 520)
Participants
Materials
Methodological procedures
Results
Raw data
Descriptive statistics
Statistical test
Findings
Manuscript standards
Discussion
Hypothesis
Previous literature
Strengths and limitations
Study standards
Future research
Be sure the references section includes any added references you used this term.
