Sections
1. Title / Abstract / Introduction & Literature Review / Hypothesis & Research Questions
- Abstract: a summary of your project proposal, including:
- the overall purpose of the study and research problem(s) you will investigate
- the basic design and methods of the study
- Introduction and Literature Review: a review of the literature that you used to build your research study hypothesis. Your Introduction should:
- Be more than a summary of the articles you read
- Bring together theories and results from a number of studies to provide background for your project and demonstrate how your research study hypothesis fits into this current research area
- Be a compelling narrative about how the articles you've read have built up to your research questions and study and make the case for why your research questions and study are important
- Hypothesis and Research Questions with explanation
2. Methods: provides detailed information about your research study design. Your Methods section should include:
- the study populations, including the number/sex of participants, and subject recruitment procedures
- Your independent and dependent variables
- the experimental design of your study, i.e. within or between groups design, and why it's appropriate for your research area
- the procedures your research design will follow
- refer to stimuli in appendices
3. Proposed Statistical Tests
- Explanations for what statistical tests you will use and why they're appropriate for your research area
4. IRB Section
- Costs to participants and costs to society
- Benefits to participants and benefits to society
- Overall cost-benefit analysis; refer to Consent and Briefing forms in Appendices
5. References List: a list of the sources you cited in APA Style (not your annotated bibliography)
6. Appendices:
- all research/presentation/testing materials to be presented to participants
- Consent and Debriefing forms
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