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Advanced Psychology Research Guide

Advanced Research Processes and Sources in Psychology

Preparing your thesis proposal

For your Thesis Proposal, you will prepare a written document that includes an Introduction section and a Methods section. Read the Faculty and Student Graduate Thesis Guide to make sure you understand what the expectations for your thesis proposal are.

Introduction: includes the problem to be studied, theory that is guiding the research/review of current literature, relevance of the work, and specific study hypothesis. Your introduction should demonstrate the expertise you've developed in your research area, but also be more than just a summary of the articles you've read. Your introduction should be a compelling narrative about the research trails you followed, how they build up to your study hypothesis, and why your research study is original and important.

1. Follow the steps outlined under Identify Research Gaps to identify a research gap in the literature

2. Go to Start Finding SourcesSearch Databases, and Browse Journals to find journal articles for your research area.

3. Go to Use Your Sources to analyze and evaluate your sources and use them to build your hypothesis and arguments for your research study.

4.  Use your Map of the Literature (scroll down to Step 3 from the landing page) to help structure your introduction and avoid unconscious plagiarism

Step 1: Get started by considering your central research question of your proposed thesis study

Step 2: Identify the information that you want to use from your sources

  • What key information, issues, theories, approaches, evidence, and/or arguments will help you address and build your thesis study?

Step 3: Identify relationships, links, and common themes

  • What relationships and links do you see between the information you want to use from each of your sources?
  • What common themes and arguments can you build from the information and evidence in your sources?

Step 4: Arrange themes and arguments

  • How can you arrange your themes and arguments hierarchically and sequentially so that they logically build towards a compelling evidence-based about your proposed thesis study?

Research Methods: includes proposed subject recruitment, measures to be used, procedures to be follow, and proposed data analysis plan

1. Follow the steps under Identify/Justify Methods & Populations to identify appropriate methodologies and populations for your research area and then find articles that justify the use of those methodologies and populations for your research design.

2. Follow the steps under Identify/Justify/Find Tests to identify appropriate test and measures for your research area, find articles that justify the use of those tests and measures for your research design, and then find those tests and measures for data collection.

3. Go to Find Datasets if you are using datasets as part of your research design

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