FALL 2009 - RESEARCH COMPETITION INFORMATION
PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH AREA & PSI CHI
RESEARCH COMPETITION (FALL 2009)
RESEARCH COMPETITION INFORMATION PACKET
Department of Psychology
California State University, Northridge
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
i
Table of Contents
ii
What is the Research Competition
1
Reasons for the Research Competition
2
Important Dates
3
Competition Participants & Awards
Awards
4
Rules & Requirements
General Rules & Requirements
Application Deadlines
Eligibility
Submission Limits
Sponsors
Judging Criteria
Posters Presented must have a researcher present all day
Poster Guidelines
Facilities
Timing
5
Judging
Breakdown of the Judging of Presentations
Form
8
6
7
10
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WHAT IS THE RESEARCH COMPETITION
The CSUN Psychology Department Research Competition is a friendly contest for undergraduate
students enrolled in Psychology courses conducting empirical research. The undergraduate
students will present the findings of their research at the Psychology Department's Poster
Presentation Sessions. At the end of the poster presentations, three to four faculty judges will
award one 1st and 2nd place award.
The competition is held to assist students who intend to present posters at larger psychology
conferences like APA. This is a great chance to display your hard work to faculty and students in
the Psychology Department, as well as gain useful experience that may help in your future
careers.
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REASONS FOR THE RESEARCH COMPETITION
Even before they have completed a written draft of their experiments, psychologists often report
their results at professional meetings.
Conventions are a good means to:

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
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Report preliminary findings in a new area of research
Receive feedback: from others about their findings, probable interpretations of the data,
and future avenues to pursue
Gain exposure in the field
Learn about others' findings.
Conventions accept three modes of presentation. A researcher can submit their results for
presentation as a Poster, as a Verbal Presentation, or within a Symposium. The researcher who
wants to present results via a poster submits an abstract to the convention sponsors. Once
accepted, the presentation will be assigned a time and place for display. Poster presentations
require the researcher to prepare a brief, neat, easily understandable presentation of their
theory (or purpose), methods, results, and possible interpretations on a large poster or a
collection of small poster boards. During the assigned time (usually 2 to 3 hours), the researcher
stands next to the poster and often has a short manuscript to hand out. Interested viewers
attending the convention look at the posters being presented and have the opportunity to
discuss topics of interest with the researcher. When the specified time for presentation has
elapsed, each researcher removes their poster.
For the CSUN Psychology Department's Research Competition, ONLY Posters will be presented.
For the Department's competition there will be two poster sessions, held on the same day. Each
project will be presented at only one session. For further details about the rules and regulations,
please see the section titled, “Rules and Requirements.”
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IMPORTANT DATES
Fall 2009
The Research Competition will be held on Monday December 7th from 8:00am to 1:00pm. The
competition will be held in the Whitsett room.
All submissions for entry into the Research Competition should be received by the Research
Coordinator’s Office by 4:30pm on Monday, November 16th. Any experiment that has not yet
completed research by this deadline should submit the preliminary findings or a statement of
what your study will support. (It is highly recommended that your study be finished with data
collection by the entry deadline.)
No late submissions will be accepted.
The faculty judges will be making a preliminary finding and a final decision in order to select the
winner. The preliminary decisions for acceptance into the competition will be announced on
Wednesday, November 25th. The announcement will be made via email and posted on the
Research Area bulletin board. As soon as the decisions are made, Psi Chi will call the
participants to reserve dates for each experimenter’s participation in the competition.
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COMPETITION PARTICIPANTS & AWARDS
The CSUN Psychology Department Research Competition is meant only for undergraduate
research. The Competition is a friendly contest for undergraduate students enrolled in Psychology
courses conducting empirical research. The majority of research was collected during students
experiments run for the PSY 321 course. The undergraduate students will present the findings of
their research at the Research Competition. At the end of the poster presentations the winners
will be announced.
Awards:
1ST PLACE:
One first place award will be granted. The first place experiment will be listed on the Psi Chi
Research Competition plaque. The winning study will also be submitted the “Psi Chi Journal of
Undergraduate Research” by our own Psi Chi organization in hopes of getting the study
published.
Psi Chi has also decided to give the first author full Psi Chi regalia if the winner is a member.
Any other awards are still under consideration.
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RULES & REQUIREMENTS
General Rules & Requirements
The CSUN Psychology Research Competition is a volunteer competition. Presenting your study
at the competition is not mandatory for PSY 321 students; however, if you are hoping to
present a research project at the annual WPA convention, or another convention, we
recommend you get some real life experience here at CSUN before you go.
Each semester the competition will be presided over by faculty judges, Psi Chi, and the
Research Coordinator’s Office. The judging will be left solely to the faculty judges.
In order to be eligible for the competition, each experiment must comply with ALL rules and
requirements including strictly adhering to the application deadlines.
Application deadlines
All applications must be received by 4:30pm on Monday November 16th.
No applications will be accepted without a faculty sponsor's signature.
Nominated students should bring their signed and completed applications and abstracts to the
Psychology Department's Research Coordinator's Office, SH333-G, by the deadline. If necessary,
the Research Coordinator will contact you by email about your submitted information. Partners
working on a research project together should be nominated on the same application form.
Any experiment that has not yet completed research by this deadline should submit the
preliminary findings or a statement of what your study will support. (It is highly recommended
that your study be finished with data collection by the entry deadline.)
Eligibility
To be eligible, students must be enrolled as an undergraduate and must have made a significant
contribution to the research project they propose to present.
Participants in the Research Competition must have a faculty sponsor who is also their professor.
Each faculty member, who teaches a lab that conducts empirical research, may sponsor two to
four applicants.
Students must have done ORIGINAL research or creative projects and must NOT have
participated in the Research Competition with this project in the past. A project is eligible as long
as the student is an undergraduate and has not used this specific study in the Research
Competition. Students with PSY 499 projects can be nominated as well. The 499 students will be
judged separately and have separate awards than the rest of the participants.
Faculty acting as judges cannot nominate students for the competition within that semester;
however another consenting faculty member could make any nominations in their place.
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Submission Limits
Regardless of how many submissions we receive, only thirty (30) student entries will be able to
participate in the Research Competition due to spacing issues. All of these entries must be
complete, have turned in their application, be verified, and turned into the Research
Coordinator’s Office to be official.
This preliminary round will be decided by the faculty judges based on the Abstracts and
submission paperwork. The finalists will be announced on Monday, November 30nd and then
will be contacted by Psi Chi.
Sponsors
Faculty should nominate students whose projects seem promising and/or students who show a
great interest in participating in the competition. Faculty can nominate a maximum of four
students from each of their lab sections of any undergraduate course where empirical research is
conducted. The faculty sponsor should not be included in any of the student’s posters. Students
who did original research or creative projects from past undergraduate courses can be
nominated and sponsored for the competition, (provided they are still undergraduates). Faculty
supervising 499 projects can nominate one or two students.
Judging Criteria
A sample copy of the judging form is located under the section titled “Judging” of the Research
Competition Packet.
Posters presented must have a research member present all day
Only posters will be presented at the CSUN Research Competition.
Poster group times will be decided based on contact from the Research Area or Psi Chi. The
timeslots will be on a first offered, first response (first come, first serve) basis.
If a selected group cannot present in one of the timeslots available, that group will forfeit the
chance to participate in this Research Competition but will still be allowed to resubmit this data
in another semester’s competition as long as all other conditions listed are met.
The Research Competition Organizers (Psi Chi and the Research Coordinator’s Office) are not
required to have the full allotment of posters present at the competition. If an experiment
group cannot attend the organizers are not necessarily required to add one of the groups from
the preliminary judging
Poster Guidelines
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The poster has to meet APA standards. For more information and guidelines visit
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm
You may provide copies of your presentation to inquiring viewers if you wish.
Facilities
Please do all preparatory work on your posters before you arrive.
The Psychology Department will NOT be providing scissors, glue, a paper-cutter, glitter, copies,
or anything else your poster group would like to use on the posters.
The presenters of each poster will be allowed twenty (20) minutes to set up before the Research
Competition begins. Each session will have this twenty minute allotment.
Timing
All students selected for our department's Research Competition should be strongly encouraged
to also send in an application for the Western Psychological Association's (WPA) Convention, for
either the Regular or Psi Chi Poster Sessions.
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JUDGING
General Guidelines
(15 Total Points)
1) IDEA
Creativity (5)
a.
Authors are able to look at the research question in an original and innovate way.
Resourcefulness of Approach to Research Question (5)
a.
Authors are creative in terms of research design and function.
External Validity (5)
2) POSTER CONTENT
(50 total points)
Introduction (10)
a.
The project includes a brief overall review of past literature.
b.
Literature review helps to establish conceptual validity.
c.
References key theories relevant to the current study. (if applicable)
d.
Is clear, organized and easy to understand.
Methodology (10)
a.
Purpose is clearly stated in line with the overall objective of the current study.
b.
Hypotheses are logical, specific, testable, and make predictions about the findings
c.
The materials and procedure used are parsimonious, deterministic, and empirical.
d.
Construct validity of IV and DV.
a.
Use appropriate statistical analysis (significant findings are not necessary)
b.
Able to clearly explain their results.
Results (15)
Discussion (15)
a.
There is a logical and clear take-home message.
b.
Presenters are able to explain how the current findings fit within the current body of
literature on the given topic.
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c.
There is a reference back to literature on the topic.
d.
Authors refer to the limitations of the study.
e.
Authors provide ideas for future research.
3) COMMUNICATION (35 Total Points)
Aesthetics (5)
a.
Creativity in terms of overall appearance
a.
Overall the poster is easy to read and understand.
b.
Charts/Graphs/ Data Displays and Statistics are easy to understand and
Readability (5)
Organization (5)
a.
The poster should have a natural and obvious organization that flows easily
Presenter Communication (20)
a.
Ability to explain studies purpose.
b.
Able to communicate and explain the findings of the study.
c.
Ability to receive and answer questions.
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JUDGING FORM
Below is the judging formed that will be used for the competition
RESEARCH COMPETITION JUDGING FORM
IDEA (15 total points)
Info
Creativity
5 points
Resourcefulness of Approach
to Research Question
5 points
External Validity
5 points
POSTER CONTENT (50 total
Info
Points Awarded (comments)
Points Awarded (comments)
points)
Introduction
10 points
Methodology
10 points
Results
15 points
Discussion
15 points
COMMUNICATION (35 total
Info
Points Awarded (comments)
points)
Aesthetics
5 points
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Readability
5 points
Organization
5 points
Presenter Communication
20 points
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