PSYC7002A Psychology Honours Thesis (9/18 units)

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

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.

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.

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