Research Proposals

Step 1. Choose a study

Step 2. Think about itwhat's wrong with it?

Critical tools

-operational definitions

-mundane realism

-experimental realism

-demand characteristics

-correlation vs. causation

-sample

-contradictory research

-confounding variables

Step 3. DraftsAPA style

a. Title page

b. Abstract

c. Introduction

introduce your topic area in a clever way

summary of your study--its hypothesis, how it was tested, its results

-- criticize

Can the results they got be explained by a reason other than how they explain it? How?

Eg., "highly identified sports fans explained victory by focusing on their talents, but explained failure by focusing on bad luck."

Ask yourself what else could this be due to (other than their IV=identification)

what's the confound? Gender

how could it have confounded the results? Could gender explain why highly identified sports fans were using this self-serving bias
e.g., men more likely to use self-serving bias given socialization

a partial concluding statement about how the IV may be related to the DV because of the confound "therefore, high identifiers may have showed more self-serving bias because they were men"

statement on how your alteration would yield different scores on the DV "If we were to redesign the study to include women, we might see that female high identifiers would show less self-serving bias given their socialization.

what's the confound? Sample

how could it have confounded the results?

a partial concluding statement about how the IV may be related to the DV because of the confound

statement on how your alteration would yield different scores on the DV

end with hypothesis for your study

d. Methodology (APA format)

Participants

Procedure

Materials

Five paragraph papers

Paragraph 1= Introduction

Paragraphs 2, 3, 4= Proof

Paragraph 5 =Conclusion

Within each paragraph

point

-use one of the themes to analyze an ad

-identify which theme

proof

-describe what elements of the ad suggest this theme

comment

-concluding statement

Tips on Editing

read aloud

organization

look at each level: paragraph, sentence, word

what's the confound?	Gender
how could it have confounded the results?	Could gender explain why highly identified sports fans were using this self-serving bias e.g., men more likely to use self-serving bias given socialization
a partial concluding statement about how the IV may be related to the DV because of the confound	"therefore, high identifiers may have showed more self-serving bias because they were men"
statement on how your alteration would yield different scores on the DV	"If we were to redesign the study to include women, we might see that female high identifiers would show less self-serving bias given their socialization.

what's the confound?	Sample
how could it have confounded the results?
a partial concluding statement about how the IV may be related to the DV because of the confound
statement on how your alteration would yield different scores on the DV