Contemporary debates and methods in psychology

ASSESSMENT TASK

Please choose one of the following topics:

Brief 1: Testing and evaluating a new web-based digitalised Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) intervention to increase efficacy to improve Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children’s social communication skill.

A team of researchers and developers at University of South Wales have digitalised PECS, one intervention program on ASD children. This program derived from PECS, one evidence-based intervention. The research team has converted it into a web-based program and aimed at building motivation and confidence in ASDchildren to communicate with the others by sharing pictures online.The ASD children are invited to use the digital intervention at home before they attend their first assessment session with a therapist. The team now need to test how effective it is at improving child's motivation to change and their engagement with the others. They also want to understand the impact this intervention has on patients' views about the others' feeling and emotion as well as how the parent evaluate the intervention program. The team have asked for your help to draw up a research plan to help answer these questions.

Brief 2: Testing and evaluating a new eye-tracking app for the promotion of online wine shopping.

Eye tracking is a sensor technology that enables a device to know exactly where your eyes are focused. It determines your presence, attention, focus, drowsiness, consciousness or other mental states. This information can be used to gain deep insights into consumer behaviour or to design revolutionary new user interfaces across various devices. A research team at University of South Wales are enlisting your help to design a research plan that will enable them to understand customer behaviour when they decide to buy wine online and to explore the best way of presenting the wine category in the smartphone and PC interfaces in order to increase the sale by presenting the wine category in smartphone and PC interfaces.

Brief 3: Evaluating the role of motivation in interventions aiming to help people stop smoking.

Tobacco dependence is a global epidemic. It has been estimated that cigarette smoking will claim the lives of 500 million people alive today and as many as one billion people in the 21st century (World Health Organization, 2008). Although clinical interventions for smoking cessation are promising, long-term abstinence rates remain low (Brandon, Vidrine, & Litvin, 2007). Hence, it is essential that researcher continues to explore possible clinical and other treatments for tobacco dependence. Motivational interviewing (MI), for instance, is an innovative therapeutic approach for promoting behavioural change that is being increasingly applied to smoking cessation. Helping smokers to quit involves 2 processes--motivating smokers to attempt to quit and helping them to stop once they try. At any given time, only about 10% of smokers are planning to quit in the next month, 30% are contemplating to quit in the next 6 months, 30% plan to quit at some unknown time, and 30% have no plans to quit; thus, the large majority of clinician interventions involve motivating smokers to try to stop.

Assignment Guidelines:

Note

The use of empirical psychological research evidence to support arguments made, and key discussion points, is an important requirement for this essay. Such evidence should come from primary sources (i.e.: peer reviewed journal articles) and referenced accurately using the APA system of referencing.

1. Title (no more than 20 words)

The title should be a very brief summary of the study/review you propose to undertake.

2. Literature Review/Introduction

Be clear and concise as this sets the scene for the report. At the beginning of this section you should give a high level overview/rationale of what you intend to investigate (the research question) and why you think it is important and novel (i.e. rationale of the study) and state the aims and hypotheses of the study. You will then present a review of the literature that is most in scope to the topic you wish to investigate. You are not expected to review all of the literature that would be expected for the dissertation, but you should include a good sample of the most relevant references. A very good literature review needs to contain evidence of critical reviewing. The introduction should also clearly explain and define relevant terms and set the scene for the main points for discussion. This section should end with a brief summary of how the literature reviewed relates to your rationale.

3. Research Methodology and Method

Explain how you intend on undertaking the research project. Position your research by discussing the methodology that informs your design. Clough and Nutbrown (2013) offer the following definition: “A methodology shows how research questions are articulated with questions asked in the field. Its effect is a claim about significance.” (p. 25).

You may wish to use subheadings in this section (e.g. Design, Participants, Materials, Procedures, Ethics, Analysis). This section must describe the following:

· The design of the study

· The selection, sampling and recruitment of appropriate participants for the study

· The methods used to collect quantitative and qualitative research data and why these have been chosen over other methods

· Any ethical considerations arising from the research

· General descriptions of how data would be analysed. Note that this assignment is not testing you on your statistical knowledge but we do need to see that you have thought through the whole research process. Furthermore, this section will also allow you to demonstrate understanding of the key processes involved in research.

For each aspect of the research plan, you will need to justify the decisions you make and refer to methodological literature to demonstrate your knowledge.

Note: This assignment will not be assessing you on your specific knowledge and understanding of ASD, PECS, or eye-tracking. However, these are common clinical or neuropsychological disorders and research tools today. You are expected to do some basic research into these which will help you to plan an appropriate study.

4. Ethical Considerations

You must address research ethics. For projects involving human or animal participants you must demonstrate an informed awareness of ethical issues relevant to your project. Proposals which do not address research ethics adequately, or which have serious ethical problems, will not be awarded a pass mark. Please include examples of how others have considered ethical issues within existing published research in your chosen area.

5. Analysing and reporting your key findings/results

This section should be used to discuss how you intend on presenting your main findings (including how they will be ordered in terms of priority and use of figures/charts/tables), as well as the statistical technique or techniques you intend on employing to analyse your data. Look to previous (and similar) research to identify how you might do this, and wherever possible, defend why one method or statistical technique may be better than another to support those that you eventually propose to adopt.

6. Presentation and Referencing

· Correct use of grammar, punctuation and spelling

· The writing style should be in the third person and past tense unless indicated as a

‘Personal Reflection’

· Consistent referencing throughout (APA referencing system should be used

· Appropriate use of appendices where relevant.

· Your assignment should be word processed (handwritten assignments are not accepted), double spaced, with numbered pages and your student number printed as a footer on every page. It should be submitted – without staples – in one poly pocket. The font should be Arial in font size 12. Please note that student names should not appear anywhere on the assignment.

Appendices: You may include appendices. There is no prescribed limit, but ideally only a few pages.

Presentation and Referencing

There must be consistent and correct use of grammar, punctuation and spelling throughout this academic essay. Furthermore the writing style should be in the third person. You should use the APA reference style for in text citations, use a dedicated “References” section at the end, and be consistent throughout the work (see earlier link to university referencing guidance). Please note that Wikipedia will NOT be accepted as an appropriate reference for this piece of work and marks will be deducted if it is used. If relevant, Appendices may be used to direct the reader to supporting material BUT these should only be used as such support to complement the main essay and not as a substitute for the main essay and its content. As previously mentioned, this assignment should be word processed double spaced, with numbered pages and the student’s name and identification number printed as a footer on every page.

The Assessment Marking Criteria on the second attachment shows the percentage grading system used to mark and grade this assignment.

General guidance for Essay:

Essays should be presented in Arial or Comic Sans font and 1.5 line spacing. Subsections should not be used within an academic essay.

WORD COUNT:

The word limit is 6000 WORDS +/- 10% (EXCLUDING REFERENCES AND APPENDICES). This means that the whole proposal should not be shorter than 5400 words or longer than 6600 words (excluding References and Appendices).