Research Proposal- Psy313
This research proposal will be worth 35% of your grade (30% for the final paper to be
submitted on August 8th and 5% for the outline to be submitted on July 18th).
Objectives
Writing a research paper will help you achieve four important objectives:
(1) To expand your knowledge of aging by focusing on an area that is of particular
interest to you.
(2) To further develop your skills as a critical reader of psychological research.
(3) To reflect on methodological techniques used in aging research.
(4) To develop your scientific writing skills.
General Requirements
In the research paper, you will need to review a specific area of aging research. Choose
from the general topics of perception, attention, memory, executive functioning, social
cognition, personality, bereavement, mental illness, and family relationships. For
example, you could decide that memory is of interest to you, and focus more particularly
on source memory. You should design an experiment that could help answer a question
that is currently being debated or has yet to be explored. Your textbook and class
discussion can be a source of guidance in terms of specific topics.
Requirements for the Outline (To be submitted on July 18th)
 The outline should be approximately one page using 12-point font.
 You should describe the specific topic you have picked, and what question you
wish to explore.
 You should give me a general idea of the design you will employ.
 Although I expect to have an outline containing full sentences, you can use bullet
points to outline your various ideas.
 You can use a title page, but it is not required as long as your name and student
number are clearly indicated on the page.
 The outline will allow me to make sure you are on the right path. I will return it to
you with my comments on July 25th.
Requirements for the Proposal (To be submitted on August 8th)
 The research proposal should be 5 or 6 double-spaced pages in length (not
including title page, abstract, and references). Page lengths for each section are
suggested below. Be concise. One point per page will be deducted for any
paper of 7 pages or more.
 Use 12-point font.
 You must have a minimum of 3 primary sources (journal articles) in your
reference section. The references should be mainly from the 1990s and 2000s.
 Use the future tense for your paper, because you are writing about a proposal for
a study that you want to do.
Required Sections in the Proposal
Your proposal must contain the following sections. Use the section labels below to
organize your paper.
Abstract. One paragraph, approximately 150 words in length, that briefly describes the
area of investigation, the problem you will address, the nature of the experiment, the
participants involved, and the statistical analyses you would use. Put the abstract on a
separate page immediately following the title page.
Introduction. This section should describe the research area and findings from previous
studies. The literature review should also discuss an issue or question that needs to be
addressed in that area and provide a rationale for the experiment you wish to conduct.
(Suggested length: 1 1/2 to 2 pages).
Method. This section is the heart of your paper, where you should describe the research
design that you wish to employ. It should include a description of the groups of
participants, and a brief description of any equipment or stimulus you wish to use. You
should also outline the various steps of your experiment. You must make sure that the
independent and dependent variables are clearly described. (Suggested length: 2 to 2
1/2 pages).
Results & Discussion. In this section, you should describe briefly what kind of statistical
tests you will use to analyse your data, and discuss the possible outcomes of your
experiment. For example, explain what it might mean if your control group obtains better
scores than your experimental group on a certain measure, but what it might mean if you
get the opposite effect. You should also try to highlight the significance / contribution of
your study. (Suggested length: 1 to 1 1/2 pages).
References. You must have at least 3 primary sources (journal articles). The
references should be mainly from the 1990s and 2000s. You must format your
references using the guidelines developed by the American Psychological Association’s
(APA) Publication Manual (5th edition).
Use APA Format
Writing a scientific paper is also an opportunity to master APA style, a skill essential for
any student of psychology. Please refer to the APA handout and other links provided on
the class website.