APSY 221602: Research Methods and Analysis Library Resources

For this proposal you are to provide the following:

TITLE

• Provide a title that adequately describes what you are researching.

RESEARCH PROBLEM

• Provide a brief introduction (approx. 2 paragraphs) to the study that explains the research problem you are interested in, why you are interested in it, and why it is a problem that should be researched.
• Be sure to address the “so what, who cares” component.

LITERATURE

• Identify and cite at minimum three primary peer-reviewed articles (using APA format) relevant to your identified research problem. Describe how each reference fits your topic and how these articles informed your research purpose.
• Include the full APA reference for the articles in a references page at the end (at least 1 paragraph per article).

RESEARCH PURPOSE

• Provide a complete purpose statement (more than one sentence is acceptable, and spell out abbreviations (e.g. MCAS, METCO, DARE, etc.) the first time they are used.

RESEARCH QUESTION

• Explicitly identify your research question (only one) and demonstrate that it is empirical (i.e. testable), and fills a need based on the research problem you intend to address.

HYPOTHESIS

• Based on the research question you’ve identified above and support from the research literature, specify a null and alternative hypothesis (two statements). 
• Provide a justification for the directionality of your alternative hypothesis.

Example of a good description of the relation between the cited article and the topic:

[This is an example from one of the students. The student’s research question concerned the relation between the maternal history of eating disorders and the child’s likelihood of developing the same type of disorder. One of the cited articles was: Cooley, E., Toray, T., Wang, M.C., & Valdez, N.N. (2008). Maternal effects on daughters’ eating pathology and body image. Eating Behaviors, 9, 52-61.]

This is how the student described the relation between the article and her own research topic: “The article is related to my topic because I want to investigate the maternal influences on eating disorders, and the article discusses the influence that mothers and their opinions have on their daughters’ eating patterns. However, this study does not include mothers with eating disorders, which is what I would like to study. Instead, it just focuses on mothers in general and not on the specific influence that their disease may have on their offspring. Yet, this study is still helpful in providing the ways in which a mother’s actions and beliefs can influence her children.”