Research Presentation

Research Question and Citations The Research Presentation begins with a research question and a bibliographic search. You should identify 2 to 4 studies that address the same research question. Please send your References to me with citations written in APA style --see APA Manual of Style, 6th ed. -- no later than the date listed in the Calendar. I will use your Research Question to peruse the titles to make sure they look like original reports of empirical studies that are all on the same research question, and I will do an APA check on one of your citations. No grade will be taken; however, part of your presentation grade depends on using appropriate articles and writing your References page in APA style. If you are in doubt about whether a study is an "original report of an empirical study," feel free to attach it to the Citations and RQ email. Please start early on this assignment and plan to spend several hours searching for the right kind of articles that are all on the same research question. If you need assistance with APA style, please consult the Kail and Cavanaugh text References for many examples of APA-style reference citations.  A sampling of possible topics is listed here, but please feel free to examine other topics of interest. It helps to define your topic in terms of the “effects of X on Y in Z population.” For example:

NB: Please make sure that the items you choose for each "variable" in your research question work together sensibly.

Examples of relevant journals at the ISU Cunningham Memorial Library include: Developmental Psychology, Human Development, Infancy, Adolescence, Child Development, Social Development, Childhood and Adolescence, Family and Community Health, Family Relations and Child Development, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Child Language. There are many other journals that also publish empirical reports of studies on human development. Increasingly, reputable journals are available online. If you have a question about a given source, please ask. The best on-line sources for locating topic-specific articles in this field are PsycArticles, PsycInfo, Google Scholar, Inspire, and Proquest Direct. Once you find a good article on your topic, the reference section for that article may provide you with other related articles. (Hint: In identifying a research study report, look for headings labeled Methods, Results, Discussion, and References in the article.  If these titled sections are missing, you most likely do not have a suitable research report.) Please note that you must use the original report of the empirical research study from a peer-reviewed journal. You may not use someone else’s summary of the study for the Research Presentation assignment. RQ and Citation assignments that include your name, your research question and 2 to 4 article citations (with no two citations with the same authors) in APA style are due no later than the date listed in the Calendar. PLEASE SEND BY EMAIL. The Actual Research Presentation The Research Presentation should be focused on a comparative analysis of the designs, methods, and results of the two most closely related studies from your bibliography. One of the purposes of this assignment is to develop your research awareness as a consumer. How do we know when to believe a research report? In order to take full advantage of the wealth of research that is published on given topics, it helps to consider the theoretical and methodological orientations of the authors.

The first task in this assignment is to summarize accurately the studies (since your readers will not have access to the articles themselves.) You should summarize the PURPOSE (include the research hypotheses, if these are mentioned); the METHOD (including the design, the participants, the materials, the data collection procedures, and the data analysis procedures); the RESULTS; and the DISCUSSION.

With regard to the design of the study (first item under method), please explain why the design is experimental, quasi-experimental, correlational, or qualitative. Experiments must contain more than one group of participants, all of whom are randomly assigned to their group by the researcher, and there should be references to the control group versus treatment group(s). A subset of experiments is quasi-experimental studies that begin with the selection of different groups, but there is no random assignment by the researcher to the groups (e.g., alcoholics vs. non-alcoholics). However, quasi-experimental studies treat the non-random groups in an experimental fashion--with control and treatment groups. Correlational designs begin with a single sample (which may include two or three groups, e.g., students older than grade level, students right age for grade level, and students younger than grade level), and look for correlations among variables measured in common (e.g., self-esteem and peer relations quality). A final design is qualitative, ethnographic, or grounded theory. Qualitative designs typically do not begin with hypotheses and depend on interviews or extended observations. The goal is usually to explore why people act as they do or to uncover different ways that people approach an issue (in bereavement, for example).

Another dimension in studies that examine the effect of development is the quality of the developmental design. There are three broad categories: cross-sectional, longitudinal, and sequential. Decide if your studies are utilizing a developmental design and then explain why it is cross-sectional, longitudinal, or sequential. Please note that many studies that are interesting to us and that do meet the requirements of this assignment do not have a specifically developmental focus. A developmental focus requires focus on differences based on age.

If we apply scientific criteria, there are ideals. A scientific study’s procedures should be a) objective, b) reliable, c) valid, d) capable of being replicated, and e) have a sample that is representative. One of your tasks in this assignment is to figure out how close these studies’ methods come to the ideals and explain why. Convince me that you understand what each criterion consists of and why this study meets the criterion or not.

Another important task in the assignment is to label and defend the authors' perspective on development. I am specifically looking for you to argue that a given study has been approached from one of the following perspectives: a) organismic, b) cognitive-developmental, c) behavioral/learning, d) contextual, e) psychodynamic, or f) humanistic. Please include a thorough defense of why you think the theory or perspective applies.  Think about what the author argues makes development happen in each study. Consider the research question, the methods used, and the interpretation of the findings in particular. Use these sections (purpose, methods, and discussion) to defend the label you've selected for the study's developmental perspective. This analysis is worth 15% of the Research Presentation grade, and it should be substantive. A label with one example is not sufficient. What works well is to describe each study and then insert an explanation about theoretical perspective on a slide where you defend your decision based on the study's purpose/hypotheses, on the the study's methods/measures, and on the study's interpretations (usually framed out of the Discussion section).

Finally, having read these two studies, what is the take-home message? Summarizing across both studies, what information is still needed? Which questions are left unresolved? How might these aggregated research findings be applied to help real people? Make sure you address three issues in your comparative take-home message analysis: a) conclusions that can be drawn from reading both of these studies, b) limitations of the research, and c) future research. My evaluation of the Research presentation will be based on accuracy and coherence of summaries (including your design [both basic and developmental], methodological and theoretical perspective analyses), communicative effectiveness, and analysis of the comparative take-home message (focused on conclusions, limitations, and future research). A rubric for the evaluation of presentations is located under Course Documents.  I take the rubric very seriously and use it to evaluate every presentation. Please post the presentation under the appropriate forum on the Discussion Board (the one labeled Research Presentations). 

Posting Your Research Presentation

Research presentations should be prepared in Power Point or in Word. I recommend that you use Power Point for the following reason: the presentation style (with bullets and phrases) is helpful in moving you away from wholesale borrowing from the research article you’re summarizing. Wholesale borrowing is actually plagiarism without faithful page number citation, so I’m urging you to move away from the narrative-like sentences and paragraphs of the article write-ups. Please post research presentations as attachments under the appropriate Discussion Board Forum (use Start a New Thread, fill in the Title with the topic and Message with the persons who worked on the presentation, then scroll down to Attach--if you click on Browse you should be able to locate your presentation file on your computer).  

The Research Presentation will be graded on a 100-pt scale, is worth 23% of your course grade, and is due no later than midnight on the date listed in the Calendar.

You may post your Research Presentation early (no later than 4/2/14) for a 6% bonus added to your Research Presentation grade. This bonus is referred to as an Early Bird Bonus (EBB) as is well worth the effort to meet the 4/2 deadline. It often makes the difference for students between one course grade and a higher course grade.