Lanier Technical College

PSYC 1010
Critical Thinking
Design Your Own Research Study
The Assignment
The assignment is to complete a research study testing the psychological concept of your choice.
You will conduct your research by surveying individuals that represent your designated
population. You will work out your study, and write your paper following APA format. Data
analysis must be completed and include graphs and inferential statistics.
Picking your toic
For this proect, you may choose to do an e!periment, a correlation study, or case study
e!periment answering any "uestion related to psychology. You must collect your data using
either a survey or naturalistic observation and your method must meet the ethical criteria set by
the #$% &me'.
!hat you will turn in
You will turn in a scienti(c paper describing your study. The paper should include the following)
Title &Person *'+ ,cienti(c titles are descriptive and may be long. #t doesn-t need to be clever or
catchy &but it can be'. #t must describe what you-ve studied.
A"stract &Person .' + The abstract is a brief overview of the entire paper. Although it is at the
beginning of your paper, you should write it last. #t should include */0 sentences on each of the
following) *' summary of background research &from the introduction', 0' statement of the topic of
your study &from #ntroduction', .' statement of hypothesis &from #ntroduction', 1' summary of results,
and 2' comment from discussion. #t is usually *23 words or less.
#ntroduction &Person *'+ The introduction contains *' detailed background information on your topic,
0' a statement of your topic with a compelling argument for why this topic is interesting or relevant,
.' a statement of your hypothesis, and 1'the predictions for the results along with a rationale of how
the predictions 4ow from the hypothesis. %ackground research should be cited with complete
bibliographical information in a reference list at the end of the paper.
$ethod &Person 0'+ This section details e!actly how the researcher conducted the study and who
served as participants. All the information necessary to repeat the study generally appears in this
section. The 5ethod section includes information about apparatus or instrumentation that was used
for both the independent and dependent variables. The complete procedure used to administer the
independent variable, control confounding variables, and measure the dependent variable is
described in this section. This is also where you will e!plain how you ful(lled ethical obligations, such
as informed consent, con(dentiality, and debrie(ng. A copy of your standardi6ed procedures should
be included either in the te!t of the methods section or as an appendi! referenced in the methods
section. #f you use a survey &or part of a survey' from another source, you must include an internal
citation and list the source in the reference section.
Results &Person 0'+ $esearchers report what they-ve found in this section. This includes data tables,
graphs, and statistical information in addition to a written summary of the results. Tables and graphs
should be labeled &7Table *8' and include a caption.
Discussion &Person .'+ The discussion section contains three main things) *' a conclusion statement
&was the hypothesis supported9', 0' a criti"ue of the study, and .' suggestions for further research or
relevance. The bulk of the discussion focuses on :0 &criti"ue'. #n your criti"ue, you should analy6e
the strength of your conclusion by identifying possible sources of error or bias in your e!periment and
e!plain how these may have a;ected your data. You may also include alternate e!planations for how
to interpret your results.
Re%erences &Person *'+ Parenthetical citations &author, date' must be used to cite sources internally.
,ources are listed alphabetically by last name of the (rst author with second line of each citation
indented. You may use a bibliography tool such as http)<<www.carmun.com<easy/bibliography/
formatting/APA/5=A.php to help you &select 7APA format8'.
Logistics + *0 point font, * inch margins, avoid passive voice, each section is separated and headed
&i.e., 7#ntroduction8', parenthetical notation, tables and graphs are labeled and captioned. ,ample
si6e should be at least 02 and you must submit all consent forms with your paper to receive credit.