Research Methods in Psychology

Research Prospectus

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By clicking the link below you will see an example of a research prospectus. The example is from an article published by Wang, Newlin and Tucker (2001) in the journal Teaching of Psychology. The purpose of this example prospectus is to give you an idea how to translate your research idea into a written proposal that follows APA style requirements. At this point you aren't expected to know the more technical details of this paper sach as the statistical analyses described in this example paper. Instead, what you need to keep in mind is that a research prospectus is the starting point for a research project. While not a formal part of an APA manuscript, lab groups always develop a propsectus as the first step or "concept" paper of a research project. In a sense, you want every member of your research team to "be on the same page." Makes sure that all of your group members are listed as co-authors on the title page (APA style). You should submit your prosepctus by describing each of the seven items in the following list (each item is worth 5 points):

Hypothesis of interest (H_a)

Independent Variable Construct

Indpendent Variable (operationally defined)

Dependent Variable Construct

Dependent Variable (operationally defined)

Sample

Population of Interest

Remember-this is NOT a class in creative writing. When in doubt about a style requirement, check the APA Style Manual (5th ed.) or visit the resource links page found on our course homepage. In order to maintain the style integrity of your manuscript, you should fax completed lab reports to (321)433-7912. However, if e-mailed as an attachment, the prospectus should be formatted either in Word Perfect or Microsoft Word (definitely not ASCII because APA style will not be preserved). The Title page should list all student members of your lab group who contributed to the project. You need submit only one prospectus for each lab group. Be good citizens of cyberspace and help one another out!

In order to dowload the example prospectus, you will need a software program called Acrobat Reader. This program is bundled with Win98, but if you don't have it--not to worry. Acrobat Reader is a free and fast download (really!).

Click the Adobe Acrobat Logo to reach the download site.
Acrobat Reader is a zipped (compressed) file so you will need a software program that can unzip compressed files. If you do not have a program that can unzip a file we have another free download for you. Click on the WinZip icon to the right and then follow the instructions to determine which version of unzip you will need.
Once Acrobat Reader is installed (and unzipped), you can view the example prospectus by clicking the image of the pad and pencil.

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This Page Maintained by: Dr. Jay Brophy
This page was last revised on August 21, 2005.