Year
2021
Units
9
Contact
1 x 2-hour workshop weekly
1 x 520-hour independent study per semester
Prerequisites
^ = may be enrolled concurrently
^ PSYC7002A - Psychology Honours Thesis (9/18 units)
Course context

This topic is taught and assessed as a continuum. Students must enrol in all topic components in the same academic year.

Topic description

Students design and carry out an independent empirical investigation and formally report their findings in a thesis. Guidance is provided by each student's supervisor and proposal committee.

Educational aims

The educational aims of this topic are to provide students with direct experience of designing and conducting research, under the guidance of an assigned supervisor. All of the standard aspects of research will be experienced, including writing a focused and purposeful literature review; justifying the research question and hypotheses; gaining ethics approval; writing a comprehensive Method section; describing data analyses and their outcomes, and linking both to the hypotheses; writing a focused Discussion that interprets the results and states their theoretical implications.

Expected learning outcomes
On completion of this topic you will be expected to be able to:

  1. Identify and justify a research question or questions
  2. Develop and justify hypotheses (or minimally, study aims) based on prior research and/or theory and/or logical argument
  3. Design a study to appropriately test the hypotheses (or to address the research aims)
  4. Apply for, and gain, formal ethics approval for the study
  5. Collect data and perform appropriate data analyses
  6. Interpret the findings, provide substantial conceptual conclusions in light of the hypotheses (aims); suggest further relevant research
  7. Where relevant, acknowledge any study limitations and their implications for answering the research question