The following provides a brief description of the format for the research proposal. If you have any questions, just ask us! Your proposal should be approximately 5 pages. This should be similar in length to your previous two lab reports.
Title
What is the take-home message of your study – in 12 words or less?
Abstract
One of the differences between proposals and reports is that proposals lack abstracts!
Introduction (1-1 1/2 pages)
What research question are you investigating? Why is it an important question? Why should thinking and decision making researchers care? Remember to draw your reader in! What have other researchers found? Unlike the weather lab report, for this report you will need to examine the relevant literature. We will be requiring more sources for the final report than for the proposal. For the proposal, you need to use at least 2 sources. For the final report (group project), we will require 6 or more sources. To summarize, as with any research report, the introduction is where you make a case for why your hypothesis is important (to science), interesting (to the reader) and different (from what has been done). It is also where you develop your hypotheses and explain your reasoning for the hypotheses and the study. Remember to outline AND explain each hypothesis.
Method (1 – 1 1/2 pages)
How do you plan to run the study? Using an appropriate level of detail, explain how you expect the study will proceed.
Participants – How many do you need for your study? What sample population (e.g., approximately equal numbers of female and male college students) do you intend to use?
Materials/Procedure – Are you using any special equipment? Are you developing a survey? Describe the materials you will be using. Because you will be refining your ideas during the group stage of the project, at this point you can describe the types of questions you will ask, rather than reporting the exact wording (e.g., saying that “participants will respond to questions about their current mood” is probably sufficient at this point).
Expected Results and Proposed Data Analysis Plan (1/2 – 1 page)
What results do you expect? Which ones will be important to your hypotheses? What statistical analyses would you need to use? This part is important. You may discover that you don’t know how to analyze the data you propose to collect. If that is the case, you should probably review your methods so that you can carry out the analysis. Be sure to think about what questions do you want your statistical analysis to answer? You should include rough figures of what you hope your results will look like. What alternative results could you find? What would they mean for your hypothesis: Would they disconfirm? Would they be silent (neither confirm nor disconfirm)?
Conclusion (1 page)
What do you hope to be able to conclude? What would be the implications of and applications for your findings?
References
Cite all of your references using the correct APA style!
Appendix (optional)
This is where you would include detailed information about your materials (e.g., sample surveys). For this proposal, we are not requiring that you do this. You will work on this aspect of the research with your group. If you do have materials in mind for use and wish to include them you are welcome to do so. If your project is selected, just remember to be flexible when it comes time to work with your group to decide upon the final set of materials.
The following provides a brief description of the format for the research proposal. If you have any questions, just ask us! Your proposal should be approximately 5 pages. This should be similar in length to your previous two lab reports.
Info for IRB
Because we will not be submitting these proposals to the IRB, you will not have to complete the IRB application process. In lieu of a full IRB, please include a brief statement explaining why your research is not a risk to the participants in the study. The statement should appear on a separate page after your References (and Appendix, if you have one), and only be a few sentences. It should include a sentence or two about the nature of the materials you will be using and their potential impact on subjects. It should also include a statement about how participants will be identified (i.e., anonymity) and the voluntary nature of participation (i.e., participants can leave at any time).
Tables and Graphs
Make sure to include graphs of your expected results. Obviously, you will not have exact numbers, but try to show the expected direction and strength of your results. For a correlation, this would mean showing a scatter plot indicating the approximate correlation coefficient expected. You can use the following guidelines – weak correlation = 0 to .3, moderate correlation = .3 – .5, strong correlation = .5 – .9. The correlation you indicate and graph should fall within the range you expect to find. For a means comparison, you should show a bar graph indicating the approximate direction and magnitude of the expected difference in means. Think about what kind of differences you expect. Do you expect one mean to be 2x higher? 3x lower?. Please include a graph of the expected results for tests of each hypothesis. All graphs should be clearly and correctly labeled. You can use R or Excel to make your graphs (or any other program you are comfortable with).
Last Completed Projects
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