Research Practical

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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 Psychology Ethics Committee (ECP) for approval. After obtaining ECP 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: Writing the research report in English (consisting of: introduction, method, results and discussion in line with the APA format for an academic article); Week 10-11: Assessment of research reports by the tutor. The students will also act as each other’s reviewers; Week 12: Feedback on the research reports by fellow students. 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 impressive experiments within psychology, 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 two blogs per group. Students will also receive mini-workshops about how to present, how to write reviews, and statistics.