Psychology Literature Review Paper - DUE in 20 hours

The purpose of this literature review is to describe, summarize, and evaluate existing research on your chosen topic in a comprehensive and concise way. Your topic discussion should start broad and become more focused as you develop the review (like an upside-down pyramid). The point of the pyramid should highlight why you’re interested in a specific topic. The literature review needs to cover many aspects relating to the topic:

1. Introduction: Introduce the broad topic of interest based on faculty research (e.g. autism and skill acquisition), define all technical terms and variables.

a. Introduce the main concept (autism). Define the term by referring to sources such as the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV or research reviews (CITE THEM!).

b. If you are interested in a disorder, consider discussing the symptoms associated with the diagnosis. For example, describe how often the disorder occurs in the population, discuss prevalence in gender or racial groups, etc. The first few paragraphs should characterize what autism (or your main topic) is, and how it manifests in our own society.

c. Describe your precise interests in variables that affect your main topic. For example, you could describe which facet of autism you are particularly interested in (skill acquisition, diagnosis, school accommodations etc.).

2. Main Body: Describe each research or review article you are using as a reference, including:

a. Experimental question or proposed association

b. Subject population

c. Independent and dependent variables, or the two variables proposed to be associated

d. Study design

e. How the data was measured?

f. Accurate and thorough representation of their findings (ALL the findings)

g. Your interpretation the relevance of their findings (“this study was flawed in that…”; The value of this study is that ….”)

(The description of each experimental reference should be at least one page, likely more.)

3. Conclusion: Write several paragraphs integrating the findings from the separate articles into a conclusion and a possible future research question.

a. Tie articles together in a coherent way.

b. Point out consistencies or inconsistencies in the findings of the separate studies (e.g. which studies were strongest, which less convincing).

c. Draw a conclusion about the state of the field of research and describe where future research would be useful. What avenues would you explore in this area to further the field?

4. You must provide an APA formatted references section.

REQUIREMENTS:

· The paper should conform to APA format, 6th edition

· Saved in Microsoft Word Format

· Title page formatted in APA format

· Include an abstract (Optional)

· Must include 4 references: at least 3 research articles (experimental or correlational studies) and one other type of article (a review article, the DSM, additional research articles, etc.). 10 points will be deducted for each appropriate “missing reference”. That is, you will lose 10 pts for using only 3 appropriate references, 20 pts for using only 2 appropriate references, etc.

· Must include a reference page in APA format

RESOURCES:

· Primary source: APA manual, 6th edition

· Book Appendix – Research Methods in Psychology, 3rd edition