Research Practical
Full course description
This research practical will span a period of 12 weeks during which students will go through various stages of the empirical cycle in small groups, supervised by a researcher. The research practical will conclude with a symposium in which research is presented in the form of a lecture or poster.
The approximate course structure is as follows:
Weeks 1-4: Studying literature, formulating the research question and hypothesis, establishing the research design and statistical analysis. The research protocol will be written and submitted to the Ethical Research Committee Psychology and Neuroscience (ERCPN) for approval. After obtaining ERCPN approval, test participants will be recruited. Students will start writing the research report (introduction and method);
Weeks 5-8: Data collection and continuing to write the research report;
Week 7-8: Data analysis, discussion and evaluation of the research question and interpretation of the data;
Week 9-10: Writing the research report in English (consisting of: introduction, method, results and discussion in line with the APA format for an academic article);
Week 11: Students will review each other's research reports
Week 12: Processing of the feedback and finishing the final draft of the research report. Presentation of findings at the concluding symposium in the form of a poster or a lecture.
During lectures, attention will be paid to relevant themes, such as the different designs and research methods, research ethics and how articles can be read, written and discussed. Literature on these themes will also be available.
Furthermore, attention will be paid to popularizing scientific results by means of writing a research blog. Students will also receive mini-workshops about how to present, how to write reviews, and statistics.
The corresponding practical for this course is: Student Psychology Symposium
The final assessment for this course is a numerical grade between 0,0 and 10,0.
Course objectives
Students are able:
- to indicate the difference between science and common sense;
- to understand the ethical directives governing psychological research;
- to distinguish and compare various research designs;
- to explain and apply the empirical cycle of research;
- to theorize on a particular topic and draw up a research question on the basis of previously acquired theoretical knowledge;
- to translate a research question into hypotheses;
- to draw up an appropriate design in order to test a specific hypothesis (i.e. operationalisation of hypotheses);
- to design quantitative research for testing a research hypothesis correctly;
- to collect and analyse research data adequately;
- to interpret and discuss the results of a piece of research, referring them back to theory and hypothesis;
- to translate research into a scientific article in writing in English and in accordance with the APA norms that apply;
- to present research clearly, in the form of a presentation or poster (See IPN2106);
- to evaluate what went all wrong during the research, and why.
Prerequisites
‘Statistics I’ and ‘Methods and Techniques of Research’
- S.T.L. Houben