Hum Dev/Psych 498 - Independent Study

Course Objectives:

This course is designed to help students conduct their own research. The instructor will aid students in running robust scientific research, enhance critical thinking skills. This course requires motivated, conscientious students who are capable of working independently. Students will conceptualize a problem from everyday life, formalize research questions, conduct literature reviews on the topic of choice, and then design and execute a research study to test their ideas.

Given the time needed to complete a study, students are urged to begin thinking about and designing their projects in the semester before signing up for an independent study, and/or planning on two semesters of work on their chosen project. Training and mentorship is designed to make the student a competitive candidate for graduate school or a wide variety of professional positions.

Eligibility:

Junior standing or higher, completion of Introductory Psychology, GPA of 3.00 or higher. You should have a good idea of the project you want to conduct.

Before you apply:

Write down all the topics that you would be interested in finding more about. What interests you? What questions do you have? These could come from your everyday life (E.g., "Why do I not exercise as much as I want to?"), from classes you have taken, or from material you have read, seen, or heard outside of class. [Research Help] Do not limit yourself by whether or not answers are available to your questions or whether or not it would be feasible to get answers. Get a feel for what excites you. It will provide a benchmark and starting point for you to think as a researcher. Once you work on research activities for this Research Asst., you will be examining questions that I have set up. Before you do that, I would like you to have a good sense of what you would like to find out more about. Use a word processor/computer and list questions, ideas, thoughts you have. Take a day or two away from it and then come back and add to your list by expanding on some ideas and being more specific (narrow down general ideas). This first assignment will help you to narrow down a world of possible ideas to a focused research agenda.

Once you have a general topic of investigation, search the literature for articles that are related to it. It is very important to know what has been done on that topic before so the research does not repeat what is done before. As you skim and collect abstracts maintain a list of the key things that have been found in each study with a full citation (in APA style). The main questions that should guide your reading and searching of the literature are:

  • What are the key theories that explain the phenomenon I am interested in?
  • What are the specific variables that have been studied in this area?
  • What are the research designs used?
  • What are the unanswered questions?
  • Why is this important?

Approximate Plan for a Independent Study for a Semester:

  • Discuss possible ideas with me a semester before the independent study.
  • Write out your main research question in a few sentences. This is due at the end of the second week.
  • Review research methods at this Knowledge Base.
  • Outline your introduction based on the readings. [Read: Sternberg, 1993, pages 17-35]
  • Write rough drafts of introduction and submit it to me by the end of week 3.
  • Revise and resubmit 2 weeks later. [Read: Ellyson & Halberstadt (1990). On reading the research literature.]
  • Collect questionnaires needed to test ideas.
  • Format questionnaires.
  • Go to the Human Research Training site, take the training, and print the certificate for your portfolio.
  • Administer questionnaires to students.
  • Revise and resubmit introduction.
  • Learn about how to enter data and do it.
  • Learn about basic statistics and do it.
  • Revise draft. [Read: Sternberg, pp. 56-end of packet]
  • Write Method section.
  • Write Results section.
  • Write discussion section.
  • Revise, revise, revise.