psychology writing assignment.

PSY2012 S19 Writing Assignment 1 / p. 1

PSY2012: Introduction to Psychological Science Spring 2019 Dr. Schneider

Writing Assignment #1 (100 points; 10% of course grade)

Due date: Friday, March 1, by 11:59 PM, via Turn-It-In on Canvas (NOTE: It is your responsibility to assure that your writing assignment is uploaded successfully, in the correct format (Word .doc or .docx), and is accessible to us. Do not wait until the last minute to submit it. Late papers lose 5 points per day.)

OVERVIEW: Psychological studies are commonly discussed in the media. Often, the general public hears about these studies through popular press articles. It is our responsibility to critically evaluate whether the conclusions being drawn by these popular press articles are consistent with the data from the original research. The goal of this paper is to practice critical thinking and summarizing research articles.

For this assignment, you will use two articles. The first is from a peer-reviewed research journal and the second is a popular press summary of the research:

Peer-reviewed article: Jackson, L. A., Witt, E. A., Games, A. I., Fitzgerald, H. E., von Eye, A., & Zhao, Y. (2011). Information technology use and creativity: Findings from the Children and Technology Project. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 370-376. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.006.

Popular press article: Snider, M. (2011, November 2). Research: Video games help with creativity in boys and girls. USA Today. Retrieved from http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2011/11/research-video-games-help- with-creativity/1#.XFdKmlVKjIU

These articles have been posted on and can be downloaded from Canvas.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS:

Read the peer-reviewed article, paying close attention to their research design and findings. Here are the different sections you will generally find in these types of research reports:

• The Abstract provides a summary of the research; what was done and why, and what happened. • The Introduction provides background information on the topic and previous related research,

ending with a summary of the study to be done, its purpose, and the hypothesis (or hypotheses). • The Method provides specific and technical details about how the study was conducted including

the Design of the study which outlines whether it is an experiment (with random assignment), what the different variables are and how they were measured. It also describes the participants and how they were recruited, the specifics of the stimuli shown to participants (if these were created), and the step-by-step procedure participants went through when completing the study.

• The Results provides specific and statistical information about the analysis of the findings. Graphs of the data are usually found here. This section can provide technical details that are sometimes hard to follow, but it should also have some text that explains what the statistics suggest about the answer to the research question or hypothesis.

• The Discussion starts with a summary of what was found in the study and whether the hypotheses were confirmed or disconfirmed. Then, what happened in the study is compared to what was known from previous studies to try to put it all together.

PSY2012 S19 Writing Assignment 1 / p. 2

After reading the peer-reviewed article, read the popular press article, paying close attention to how the findings of the peer-reviewed article are interpreted and described in the popular press article. Review what you learned from lecture regarding research methods to remind yourself about study characteristics that determine when you can and cannot draw causal conclusions.

Use the following outline to write your paper:

1. Summarize the peer-reviewed article. o Identify the research hypothesis, the variables, the design of the study, and the outcome. o Explain whether and how the outcome of the study supports the research hypothesis. o Did the design of the study support causal conclusions? Why or why not?

2. Summarize the popular press article. o State what the popular press article says about what the research can tell us. o The popular press article may or may not use causal language. Note any statements, phrases, or

conclusions that imply one thing causes another. 3. Evaluate whether the popular press article provided an accurate report of the original research.

o Compare the original peer-reviewed article about the research and the popular press article in terms of whether they implied a causal relationship between the variables that were studied.

o Describe whether, and in what way(s), the conclusions in the popular press article may go beyond what the research study can really tell us.

o Suggest and explain a possible third variable that might account for the finding that videogame playing is associated with creativity.

Formatting and guidelines:

• The final paper must be: o 2-3 double-spaced pages long (at least 2 but not more than 3 pages, excluding your name, title,

other identifying information and references), o Size 12 Times New Roman font with 1” margins top, bottom, and on the sides of each page

• Use your own words – paraphrase carefully (i.e., state in your own words) the authors’ ideas. o Copying others words without referencing them is plagiarism, and is unacceptable. When you

talk about something that another person wrote (even if you say it in your own words), you need to cite them using their last name and the year of publication in parentheses (saying et al. if there are >3 authors). For example: Jackson et al. (2011) hypothesized that…

o Your lab instructor can help you if you have questions about plagiarism or citing authors. o You are allowed no more than 2 quotes in the entire paper. Any quote must indicate the source

(or who said the quote). A quote should not be longer than 1 sentence. • Make sure your main argument is clearly identified. Give concrete examples.

o Make sure each paragraph makes a clear point. Often it is a good idea to start with a sentence that says what you are trying to conclude, and then use the rest of the paragraph to provide your evidence or reasoning for why you are drawing that conclusion.

o Make sure the ordering of points from paragraph to paragraph is logical, and that it all connects in a way that would make sense to someone else who did not know what the assignment was, and had not read the two articles.

• Proper spelling, grammar, style, and writing quality are all very important. o Be sure to read through your paper from beginning to end after you write it to check the

spelling and grammar as well as the writing style. o Then, be sure you have followed APA (American Psychological Association) style for how to

write a paper. Information on APA style can be found at Purdue Owl. You do not need a

PSY2012 S19 Writing Assignment 1 / p. 3

separate title page or abstract for this paper, but you do need an additional page for citing your references. Your name, paper title, and any other identifying information, as well as the references at the end, do not count toward the 2-3 page required assignment length.

Grading Rubric: To help guide you, here is a summary of how your paper will be graded.

Article summary Points

Coherent summary of research article; identification of research question, variables, and results

20 points

Coherent summary of popular press article 15 points

Evaluation of the articles

Evaluation of whether the popular press article provided an accurate report of the research study’s findings

20 points

Understanding experimental versus correlational studies and how they relate to causal conclusions.

15 points

Alternative (third variable) potential explanation of results 10 points

Overall writing

General formatting, APA style, grammar, spelling, and typos 20 points

Total 100 points

Plagiarism and Evaluating Turn-it-in Similarity Scores

You can turn in your paper as often as you like prior to the March 1, 11:59 pm deadline. When you turn it in, be sure to look at the flag and accompanying Similarity Score that Turn-it-in provides.

• A green flag means that less than 25% of the words in your paper appear somewhere else in something written by someone else. This is the ideal level; you should aim for this.

• A yellow flag means that 25-49% of the words in your paper appear somewhere else in something written by someone else. This level of similarity is of concern and will be reviewed by lab instructors to see if there is evidence of copying. You could lose points if there is.

• An orange or red flag means that 50% or more of the words appear somewhere else in something written by someone else. This level of similarity is unacceptable, and you will definitely receive a zero for the assignment, and may even receive an FF for the course.