Year
2019
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
PSYC7002A and PSYC7002B must be completed in the same calendar year.
Topic description
PSYC7002A (9 units) and PSYC7002B (9 units) together comprise the Psychology Honours Thesis. Students design and carry out an independent empirical investigation and formally report their findings in a thesis of 9,000 - 10,000 words in length. Guidance is provided by each student's supervisor and proposal committee.
Educational aims
The educational aims of PSYC7002A and PSYC7002B 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
In the course of conducting a study and formally reporting it, students should develop and show the ability to:
  • Identify and justify a research question or questions
  • Develop and justify hypotheses (or minimally, study aims) based on prior research and/or theory and/or logical argument
  • Design a study to appropriately test the hypotheses (or to address the research aims)
  • Apply for, and gain, formal ethics approval for the study
  • Collect data and perform appropriate data analyses
  • Interpret the findings, provide substantial conceptual conclusions in light of the hypotheses (aims); suggest further relevant research
  • Where relevant, acknowledge any study limitations and their implications for answering the research question