psychology discussion

Assignment Details

For this component, you will need to choose one of the research topics from the list below. Your task is to develop an hypothesis based on your chosen research topic and to design a true experiment to test your hypothesis. You will then ‘write up’ your experiment in the form of an APA style methods section containing the following sections: design statement, participants, materials, procedures, and use of variables. this assignment must be submitted via Turnitin.

Research Topics 1. The relationship between the alcohol and risk taking behaviour. 2. The relationship between social media use and self-esteem. 3. The relationship between video games and aggressive behaviour. 4. The relationship between sleep and mood. 5. The relationship between physical activity and cognitive capacity.

What are the assessment criteria?

The following criteria will be assessed: design statement, participants, materials, procedure, and use of variables.

Helpful Advice For Component 2

• The best way to approach this component is to imagine that you have designed a study, collected the data and you writing it up as a methods section for an APA journal.

• The purpose of the methods section is to tell the reader what you did and how you did it. It should always be written in the past tense.

• When thinking about the amount of detail that you need to include, a good guide is that another researcher should be able to replicate your experiment based on what you have written.

• A good place to start is to look at methods sections of other papers that have used a similar design or materials to what you have used.

• Each section has a similar weighting (2 – 6 marks out 20), so your word count should be spread relatively evenly across each section (i.e.., 80 – 100 words per section).

Assignment Title: Portfolio – Component 2: Experimental Design Due Date: 23:55 January 22nd

Document Format:

Formatted according to APA guidelines (size 12 Times New Roman Font, justified, double-spaced lines). Your name and word count must be included in the header. (Please include Simple Title Page).

File Format: Microsoft Word File – the file name must contain your surname and the assessment number, for e.g., Smith-Component2.docx

Word count range: 500 – 600 words (maximum of 600 words, penalties apply)

Weighting: The Portfolio contributes 60% to the final grade for this course. Component 2 contributes 40% to the final grade for this course (i.e. 40/60 of the Portfolio mark).

Reference list required: A separate reference list is not required. If you need to cite a reference, include the Author(s) and year in the text.

• Design Statement The section should give a logical outline of the experiment. It should describe:

• The hypothesis; • The type of design; • The independent variable; • The dependent variable.

Suggestion: Do not include too much information about the procedure – the design statement should be a clear, concise description of the experiment. Participants This section should describe the type of participants that took part in the study. It should describe:

• The number of participants and their major demographics (e.g., age, gender, etc.). • The inclusion/exclusion criteria that might be relevant to your experiment. • A description of how the participants came to do the study – did they volunteer, where

they paid, etc? Suggestion: Avoid including too much information about the participants - only describe the demographics and inclusion/exclusion criteria that are critical to your study. Materials This section should describe all of the materials and stimuli used in the experiment. A good materials section is written in full English sentences. It should describe:

• The name(s) of all of the materials used (e.g., scales, questionnaires, equipment); • How the equipment works and what it measures; • The number of items on scales/questionnaires that are used and the how scores are

calculated. Suggestion: This section should only describe the materials/methods you used (i.e., what they are called and what they measure). It should not include any information about how/when they were used – this information should only be described in the procedures section (see below).

Procedure This section is the narrative of the experiment. A good procedures section will provide sufficient detail so that someone else is able to repeat your experiment exactly as you did it. It should describe:

• How the participants were allocated to groups; • Where the experiment took place; • When/how the participants were exposed to the independent variable; • When the dependent variable was collected;

Suggestion: Many people write this section as if it were the instructions that were given to participants. This is not correct. The procedures section should be a clear description of what happened during the experiment and it should be written from the viewpoint of the experimenter.

Use of Data This section should include a description of how you would use the data collected during the experiment to test your hypothesis. You can describe how you would use the data in lay terms – you do NOT need to describe formal statistical analyses.