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803 RESEARCH III: Laboratory
General
1.
Are all references in text also cited in reference section
using complete APA style, including as appropriate for electronic sources?
2.
Are all sources appropriate for inclusion—empirical or
theoretical papers from scholarly journals or texts?
3.
Is text arranged in APA style, including title page, running
heads, and use of headings?
Introduction
1.
Do you use no more than one direct quote? (Remember: Use your own words!)
2.
Are assertions backed up with research and citations rather
than broad sweeping generalizations or opinions?
3.
When you cite previous studies, do you say enough about what
they found and how so that your reader can make a judgment about how it fits in
with your work (not just their conclusions, but what evidence—data—the
conclusions were based)? Explain. Provide operational definitions.
4.
Do you have minimally
3-5 citations that provide a rationale for the experiment you are setting up?
5.
Do you tie your introduction together with the results of
research that you are citing, rather than just listing study after study after
study?
6.
Does the previous research you cite lead to the research
question posed by the current study (that is, the experiment you are proposing)?
7.
Do you end with a clear statement of the hypothesis or
hypotheses for the current study?
Methods
Participants
1.
Do you describe who your participants will be with respect
to the demographic characteristics that matter
for your experiment?
2.
Do you say that volunteer participants will be students
recruited from General Psychology courses at the University of Massachusetts
Lowell using standard sign-up procedures in the Department of Psychology, and
that students may earn course credit for participation.
3.
Do you provide a target N and clearly identify your sampling
units if they are other than individuals (teams that you may set up, for
example)?
4.
Do you use real university data for relevant information
(e.g., if race is a factor to be considered in your study and you know you will
have small numbers of minorities, you should refer to the fact you are drawing
from a pool of 16% minority students on campus (UML Office for Institutional
Research, 1999)).
Materials or Apparatus
1.
Do you give complete citations for tests or questionnaires
that you are using from the O’Leary test bank or from journal articles?
2.
Do you describe what the test or questionnaire is designed
to do and how it does it (e.g., Likert scales, adjective checklists, etc.)?
3.
Do you indicate how report psychometric data on tests or
measures you might use (test-retest reliability coefficients, for example)?
4.
If you are choosing stimuli for tests of word learning, do
you indicate what constraints you are putting on the words so that extraneous
factors (e.g., frequency of usage or type of word) are held constant across
conditions?
5.
If you are developing videotapes or other kinds of stimuli
(e.g., written scenarios) for your experiment, do you say how you know they
will present what you intend them to present and how extraneous variables will
be (a) held constant or (b) counterbalanced?
6.
Do you know exactly what kind of score each measure will
provide for each participant?
Procedure
1.
Do you indicate that informed consent will be obtained prior
to participation?
2.
Is it clear whether this is a between or within subjects
design? If there are two factors, one
between and one within, is it clear which is which?
3.
If you have two groups, is it clear what aspects of the
procedures vary between groups and which are the same for everyone (e.g., “All
participants will be asked to …. Half
of the participants will then… and half will …
Finally all participants will be asked to….”)?
4.
If you have tasks such as memorizing words, have you
specified how long the exposure and retrieval period will be, how many words
participants are exposed to at once, how many total trials (e.g., 10 trials of
10 words each for a total of 100 words) how they are responding (free recall as
in “Write down as many words as you remember” vs. recognition as in “Circle the
words below that you saw earlier.”)
5.
Do you specify counterbalancing (e.g., for order of
presentation, assignment of gender to main character across stories, etc.)?
6.
Is the relevance of all the procedures you describe clear
from the introduction (i.e., are there no surprises)?
7.
Is it clear exactly what the data will be, i.e., what
score(s) each participant will have at the conclusion of the study?
8.
Do you describe debriefing?
9.
Could someone else take over for you in administering your
experiment based on what you have written (and will someone else be able to
replicate)?
If you need to rewrite your proposal, please do
so within one week. Continue to
re-submit with all earlier versions until it is returned to you clearly marked,
“OK.” Refining your methods proposal
will facilitate efficient preparation of your IRB proposal.
Worksheet
When you
have completed your methods proposal, you should be able to find the answers to
each of these questions clearly indicated in the text. Go through and answer these questions,
indicating the page number on which the answer may be found in your
proposal. Submit this page with your
proposal.
1 a. What
psychological construct are you
interested in trying to effect or influence?
1 b. What
is your dependent variable and
exactly how will it be measured (i.e., what score or behavior; give the
operational definition)?
2 a. What
psychological construct(s) are you
interested in trying to manipulate?
2 b. What
is (are) your independent variable(s)
operationally defined?
3. Are there any antecedent variables you are interested in as well? (Identify the
constructs and operationally defined variables.)
4. What is your null hypothesis? (Express
here as an equation.)
5. What is your experimental or alternative
hypothesis? (Express here as an equation.)