Research Proposal Task Sheet Assessment name: Research Proposal Task descripti

Research Proposal Task Sheet
Assessment name: Research Proposal
Task description: You’ll take on the role of a researcher and after consulting the relevant literature, you’ll design an experiment that would test the following research question: Do podcasts help people recover from ostracism? Your proposal will include a detailed introduction, method, ethical considerations, and discussion sections. This is similar to the kinds of research proposals that researchers produce prior to conducting a study in order to have the project approved by a panel, ethics committee, or funding body. It requires that you situate the research in the context of the relevant literature, emphasise why it is important to do this study, generate specific hypotheses, make appropriate methodological choices to test the hypotheses in a way that upholds national ethical standards for human research, describe the expected findings and discuss what we will learn from them.
What you need to do: Your task for this assignment is to design an experiment that tests the following research question: Do podcasts help people recover from ostracism? You will need to read the starter references for additional information about the relevant theory and possible methods. Locate other relevant articles to better understand how the research question builds on existing research and how you could test it.
The experimental method requires that you manipulate the causal variables of interest (the independent variables) – in this case 1) ostracism and 2) podcast exposure. There are a variety of established ostracism manipulations to choose from (e.g., Cyberball, ostracism online, autobiographical recall). You’ll want to have two levels – e.g., ostracised or included. For the podcast exposure manipulation, you can come up with a novel manipulation or look to other studies using other types of media to see what they’ve done. You’ll want to have two levels
– e.g., podcast activity or control activity. For the dependent variable(s), let the ostracism literature guide you. Think about need restoration and affect.
When designing your experiment, make sure you follow the National Statement of Ethical Conduct in Human Research (https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/national-statement- ethical-conduct-human-research-2007-updated-2018).
When writing your proposal, use the introduction to review relevant research and build a compelling rationale for conducting your experiment. State the general aim of your experiment and what you expect to find. Describe how you will conduct the experiment. Describe how you have considered the themes of risk/benefit and consent as they apply to your study and upheld the values. Please note that
published articles do not typically have a separate ethics section, but for educational purposes, you should include one in your proposal.
Discuss the expected findings and how they relate to the literature. Consider limitations and implications.
Resources-
• Starter References
• Instructional resources on searching the literature, writing & referencing
Length: 2,000 words
The word limit includes all text in the body of an assignment, including in-text references, and the abstract but excluding appropriately structured tables, figures, reference list, and appendices.
Style and Formatting: Follow APA style, 7th edition. See https://apastyle.apa.org/style- grammar-guidelines for instructions on paper format, in-text citations, and references.
Starter References
(organised in recommended reading order)
Hales, A. H., & Williams, K. D. (2021). Social ostracism: Theoretical foundations and basic principles. In P. A. M. v. Lange, E. T. Higgins, & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (Third edition. ed., pp. 337-349). The Guilford Press.
Wesselmann, E. D., Bradley, E., Taggart, R. S., & Williams, K. D. (2022). Exploring social exclusion: Where we are and where we’re going. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12714
Lutz, S., Schneider, F. M., & Reich, S. (2022). Media as powerful coping tools to recover from social exclusion experiences? A systematic review on need restoration and emotion regulation through using media. Media Psychology, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2022.2147085
Derrick, J. L., Gabriel, S., & Hugenberg, K. (2009). Social surrogacy: How favored television programs provide the experience of belonging. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(2), 352- 362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2008.12.003
Tobin, S. J., & Guadagno, R. E. (2022). Why people listen: Motivations and outcomes of podcast listening. PLoS One, 17(4), e0265806. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265806
Williams, K. D. (2009). Ostracism: A temporal need‐threat model. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 41, pp. 275-314). Academic Press.
Godwin, A., MacNevin, G., Zadro, L., Iannuzzelli, R., Weston, S., Gonsalkorale, K., & Devine, P. (2014). Are all ostracism experiences equal? A comparison of the autobiographical recall, Cyberball, and O-Cam paradigms. Behavior Research Methods, 46(3), 660-667. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-013-0408-0
Wolf, W., Levordashka, A., Ruff, J. R., Kraaijeveld, S., Lueckmann, J. M., & Williams, K. D. (2015). Ostracism online: A social media ostracism paradigm. Behavior Research Methods, 47(2), 361-373. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0475-x
*be sure to check for reference detail updates for your reference section
Reporting Guidelines
General
• Follow APA style, 7th edition. See https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines for instructions on paper format, in-text citations, and references.
• Include the following sections: title page, abstract, introduction, method, ethics, discussion, and references.
• The following resources can also be used as a guide to APA style:
• Shakespeare-Finch, J. (2020). A Guide to Formatting in Psychology (3rd ed.). Pearson Education.
• American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Use double spacing throughout the paper with no extra spaces between paragraphs, sections, or references. Everything should be written out in full sentences. There are no page breaks between the Introduction, Method, Ethics, and Discussion sections.
• Refrain from claims that are sexist, ageist, or otherwise discriminatory. If in doubt, check the APA manual for acceptable use of language.
• Please note that in your assignment, everything needs to be described in your own words. Do not copy anything word-for-word from this document or any other sources (e.g., articles, lecture/tutorial slides, or the National Statement). You need to demonstrate your own understanding and effective communication skills. This means you will need to develop your own arguments and insights, and paraphrase relevant details rather than copying from other sources. When describing the literature, aim to summarise and synthesise (in your own words), and cite the relevant sources.
• Use future tense when talking about your study. Imagine that this is a study will you run in the future. However, please do not attempt to conduct this study, as you do not have ethics approval for it.
• You can use “I” when referring to yourself as the researcher.
Title Page
• Create a title that summarises the main idea of the paper, including the topic of research, the key variables, and the relationship between them. It should be focused and succinct. Follow the APA student title page guidelines (https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar- guidelines/paper-format/sample-papers).
• Please do not use a cover page template that includes colour, large font, or other design elements that are not part of APA style.
• Include the word count (counting everything except the title page, reference list, and appendix; in-text citations count!).
Abstract
• This is a short summary of the project. For a proposal, it should include information about your objectives (problem under investigation, hypotheses), participants (number, pertinent characteristics), and method (design, IVs/SVs, DV, procedure). Also briefly summarise the ethics and discussion components of your proposal.
• Adopt the perspective of someone searching the literature and looking at abstracts to see whether an article is relevant to their needs. They want to know what you were looking at in your research, how you did your study, what you found, and what we can conclude from it.
Introduction
• Repeat the title of the paper for the heading in this section rather than using “Introduction”.
• Establish the importance of the topic and give the context (e.g., key issue, concepts)
• Review the relevant literature, describing relevant theories and findings. Focus on the key aspects that set the stage for your study. Highlight any issues and knowledge gaps that are relevant to building a rationale for conducting the current investigation.
• State the general aims of your study and how you will address them (briefly).
• State your specific hypotheses. It should be clear what you expect to find and why. You should generate your hypotheses based on a careful review of the literature.
• You can find examples of how to structure your introduction in the starter references. See how they set up the rationale for doing their study (or studies) and think about what works well. Think about the best way to set up the rationale for doing your study. Be sure the ideas flow clearly from one paragraph to the next and create a smooth transition from past research to the current investigation. Explain how your study will build upon past research and contribute something new.
Method
• This section should provide enough detail about the participants, measures, design, manipulations, and procedure that another researcher could run an equivalent study elsewhere.
• Participants: How many participants will be recruited? From where? What are their relevant characteristics? What is your rationale for focusing on this these kinds of participants? Will they be offered any incentives for participating?
• Measures: Describe how you will measure the dependent variable, giving as much detail as possible. For self-report measures, describe the item(s) and specify the number of items, response scale, and what higher scores indicate. Provide any relevant citations and details that establish them as a reliable and valid measures.
• Design: Specify the IVs and how participants will be placed into conditions/groups (e.g., random assignment to experimental conditions). Specify the type of research design
• Between-subjects (each participant is assigned to one condition) or within- subjects (each participant is in every condition) design? In ostracism research, between-subjects designs are typically used.
• Since you will have more than one IV, write out the levels for each IV with an x in between. E.g., a 2 x 2 design has two IVs, each with 2 levels.
• Experimental Manipulations: Describe the content of the manipulations. For written manipulations, you can present them verbatim in the text (if short) or Appendix (if long). If using an Appendix, still summarise the essential details in the text. Describe how the manipulations were administered.
• Procedure: Describe the details of how the study was carried out from beginning to end: where the study takes place, instructions (including cover story, if used), order of tasks, any other relevant details of the study that have not yet been mentioned.
• You can use sub-headings in the method section. You’ll see there is variability in published papers in terms of the exact subheadings used, but some common ones are: Participants, Materials, Design, Procedure.
• Try not to repeat the same details in different sections. For example, if you’ve given the full details of a questionnaire in the measures section, you don’t need to repeat everything in the procedure section, just mention when participants complete the questionnaire in the context of the full study.
Ethics
• Published articles do not typically have a separate ethics section, but for educational purposes, you should include one in your proposal.
• Prior to conducting any new research involving human participants, a careful analysis of ethical issues needs to take place. As discussed in tutorial, the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research provides guidelines for researchers:
https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/national-statement-ethical-conduct- human-research-2007-updated-2018.
• Describe how you have considered the themes of risk/benefit and consent specific to your study, and how you will uphold the values. You can include details about consent and debriefing in this section rather than in the method section to keep all ethical considerations in one place.
Discussion
• This section should begin with a summary of expected findings relevant to each hypothesis.
• Now return to the broader context of the prior literature to interpret your findings. How do your findings add to what we already knew?
• Consider the limitations of your study in terms of how it was conducted. Were there any issues with the way you manipulated the IVs or measured the DVs that need to be kept in mind when interpreting the results? Are there aspects of the study or participants that might limit the extent to which these findings to generalise to other people or contexts? How might future studies address the limitations of your study?
• What are the implications of these findings for the relevant theories? What are the practical implications in terms of daily life? Does your study raise any interesting questions that future research could address?
References
• There is no set number of references, but you should certainly aim to read broadly and incorporate additional references beyond the starter references. Use previous research and theories to justify the argument you are building in your proposal for conducting your study. If you are making points about theories or findings without references, try to find them. You will probably read more papers than you cite. Only cite papers if they are relevant.
• Please do not use the textbook or lecture notes as a reference. The materials covered in these should be sourced from primary sources (e.g., journal articles, chapters from edited books). Look up the references they refer to.
• Don’t trust pre-formatted references, they are often wrong! Check the APA guidelines when formatting your references:
• https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/reference
• quick reference guides
• https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-guide.pdf
• https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-examples.pdf
Additional Resources
Kaufmann, L. & Findlay, B. (2020). How to write psychology research reports and essays. 9th edition. Pearson.
O’Shea, R. P., & McKenzie, W. (2021). Writing for psychology. 7th edition. Cengage.
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