Final Project: Research Proposal

For the final project, you will write an individual research proposal for a study you are planning to run. This assignment is intended to assess your ability to design a rigorous empirical study by applying concepts covered throughout the course, including (but not limited to) research design (experimental or non-experimental if need be), sampling and sample size planning, measurement and stimulus design (or research materials selection), statistical analysis, and considerations of validity and reliability.

Your proposal should describe a hypothetical novel but realistic study. We encourage you to use this as an opportunity to apply the content learned in the course to a project that you are planning to run, or are in the early stages of planning. With that said, we ultimately place emphasis not on whether the study would “work” perfectly, but rather if study design decisions are well motivated, logically coherent, and methodologically defensible.

The proposal should be written as a standalone document and should be at least 4, but no longer than 6, single-spaced pages (12-point font, 1-inch margins), excluding references, figures, and tables. APA style should be used for citations and references.

Your proposal should include the following components:

1. The Introduction should motivate the research question and briefly situate it within the relevant literature. You should clearly articulate your hypotheses, explain why they are theoretically or practically important, and briefly describe how your proposed study builds on prior work. A comprehensive literature review is not required, but your framing should demonstrate familiarity with relevant research. We recommend a .5 – 1 page for this section.

2. The Methods section should describe the proposed study in sufficient detail that another researcher could implement with minimal guesswork. Roughly about half of what you have learned in the course should be reflected in this section. This section should include a description of the study design (e.g., experimental, longitudinal, etc.), the key variables of interest, sampling strategy and sample size planning, experimental manipulations and accompanying rationale, and justification of study measures. With respect to sampling and sample size, you should describe your participant population, recruitment strategy, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and provide a clear justification for your planned sample size (e.g., power considerations, precision goals, or practical constraints). With respect to study measures, you should describe and justify all measures and stimuli with respect to construct validity, anticipated reliability, and appropriateness for the research question. A brief consideration of any pertinent ethical issues may also be warranted.

3. The Analysis Plan should outline how you would test your hypotheses. You should specify the primary statistical model(s), the dependent and independent variables, and how conclusions would be drawn from the results. Evidentiary criteria will also be required (e.g., p < .05, BF > 10). You do not need to provide code, but the analysis plan should be clear, principled, and appropriate for the design. You are welcome to use branching logic if needed (e.g., if data are distributed normally, we will run XXX test; otherwise, we will run YYY), and we would like to see you justify your analytic choices as much as possible.

4. A section addressing validity and limitations ought to be included. Herein, you should discuss potential threats to internal, external, and construct validity, explain how your design attempts to mitigate these threats, and acknowledge remaining limitations or plausible alternative designs.

5. Throughout the proposal, we would like to see you to incorporate other aspects of the class. For instance, if you are going to quantify qualitative data, you should specify the method you will use to do so and briefly acknowledge the strengths and limitations of doing so. As another example, if you are trying to glean information about causal processes via propensity score matching, explain how you’re completing the scores.

6. A brief (.5 pages) Expected Results section may be included if helpful for clarifying hypotheses and interpretation, but a full Discussion section is not needed.

The written proposal is due before the final class meeting. During the final class, we will conduct NIH-style peer review sessions, in which students will read, evaluate, and critique one another’s proposals using a structured rubric. These reviews are intended to be constructive and to mirror how scientific proposals are evaluated in real funding and review contexts.