Final assignment

For your final assignment, you will conduct original research using “found” or secondary data on a topic that relates to justice and/or social policy. The purpose of this assignment is to apply what you’ve learned about the links between psychology and justice, as well as what you’ve learned about data science and working with secondary datasets.

You may complete this project alone or with a partner.

The final assignment has three components:

  • Project outline (5 points), due November 12th by the end of the day
  • Policy presentation (10 points)
    • PDF of slides due before class on December 3rd
    • Presentation in class on December 3rd and December 8th
  • Research paper (15 points), due by the end of the day on December 15th

Project outline

The purpose of the project outline is so that I can make sure you are on the right track, before you fully dive into conducting your research. Your outline should be approximately one page long, and should contain the following:

  • Theory or topic: Explain the topic you are interested in researching, and any relevant theories.
  • Research question: Think about a research question that is both feasible and interesting. Feasible means that it is possible to investigate this question using secondary data and in the timeframe of this course. Interesting means that the question is somewhat novel and has links to psychological theory, public policy, and justice.
  • Hypothesis: What do you think you’re going to find?
  • Data plan: What type of data are you going to use to conduct this research? Where will you find it? How will you access it?
    • A non-exhaustive list of potential data sources can be found here and on Canvas under Files, in a PDF called DATA_SOURCES.pdf.
  • Analysis plan: How do you want to analyze your data? What relationships between variables are you looking for?
  • Conclusions: What are the potential policy implications of your findings? What might a policy based on your findings look like?

If you are working with a partner, you will submit one project outline, together.

Rubric

The points breakdown for the outline is as follows:

  • Theory: 1 point
  • Research question: 0.5 points
  • Hypothesis: 0.5 points
  • Data plan: 1 point
  • Analysis plan: 1 point
  • Conclusions: 1 point

Policy presentation

The purpose of the policy presentation is to think about how you can translate the findings from a research study into real social policy, and how you can best communicate your findings to a non-scientific audience. Your presentation should be 12-15 minutes long and should include the following:

  • Background: What is the context in which you are conducting your study? This includes societal context (i.e. what is the societal problem that your research seeks to understand? Where does your data come from?) as well as psychological context (i.e. what theories motivate your project? What do we already know about this topic?)
  • Research question and hypothesis: What are you investigating, and what do you expect to find?
  • Methods: Break your study design down for us. What datasets are you using? Where does that data come from and how was it collected? What are your IVs and DVs? How are you operationalizing them in your data?
  • Results: What analyses did you conduct? What did you find? Be sure to show statistics and at least two graphs.
  • Conclusions: What do your results mean for psychological theory? What do your results mean for public policy? Propose a policy that is informed by your findings, and how it might be implemented.

If you are working with a partner, you will give one presentation, together.

New: Please come to your presentation with at least one discussion question related to the topic of your presentation in mind. After each presentation, there will be time for questions and discussion.

Rubric

Your final presentation will be graded holistically, out of ten points. Some examples of what presentations that receive different grades might look like:

  • 10 points: You include all of the required elements in your presentation. Your presentation flows well and tells a clear and compelling story. Your question is firmly rooted in psychological theory, and you make the case that this is a pressing question to investigate. Your findings and graphs are clear. The findings are directly linked to policy implications, and your policy ideas are thought-out and creative.
  • 7 points: You are missing 1-2 of the required elements. Your presentation tells a story but is a bit disjointed at times. The psychological and societal context of your research question is unclear, and your findings are not adequately explained. You don’t have a policy proposal or it isn’t clearly linked to your findings.
  • 4 points: Your presentation is missing several key elements to help us understand the complete story of the problem you are investigating. Your analyses are conducted or presented incorrectly. You have very little discussion of real-world implications of your findings.

Research paper

The purpose of the research paper is to formally write up your findings, in the same way that a psychology researcher would. This document is intended for an academic audience, and should contain all of the elements of a traditional research paper:

  • Introduction: Provide proper literature review and background to your question, including relevant theories. Be sure to clearly state your research question and hypothesis (and, ideally, alternative hypotheses).
  • Methods: Clearly explain the data you are working with, the context in which it was collected, and how you acquired it. Even though you yourself did not collect the data, it’s important to provide as much detail as possible on where it’s from, and what it consists of. Make sure it’s clear how this data speaks to your research question. Describe your planned analyses.
  • Results: Report your statistics in APA format. Include at least two graphs. Explain in plain language what your results mean. Don’t forget to include some descriptive statistics as well so we can understand the general nature of your data.
  • Discussion: This is where you zoom back out and tell us what your results mean in the context of prior literature, and what the implications are for society and for public policy. Provide explanations for what you found, and link those findings to the real world. Note any limitations or future directions in your research, and go beyond simply remarking on the characteristics of the sample (homogeneous, too small, etc.).

Some other general guidelines for the paper:

  • 10-15 pages, double spaced, standard fonts/margins. Page count includes tables and figures, but not references.
  • You must include at least 5 references to academic articles. These can be cited in the Introduction, where you’re setting up your question, or in the Discussion, to help you make sense of your findings. You should have in-text citations and a separate bibliography section in APA format.
  • If you are working with a partner, you will each submit your own paper.

Rubric

Your final papers will be graded holistically, out of 15 points. Some examples of what papers that receive different grades might look like:

  • 15 points: Your paper reads like a real research paper. You have a compelling introduction that includes relevant background literature, a clear characterization of your dataset, accurately-reported results and graphs, and a broad discussion that links your findings to larger theoretical ideas in psychology and has some implications or future directions for justice and/or public policy. You include citations in APA format.
  • 11 points: Your introduction includes background literature but it is not adequately connected to your research question. Aspects of your data are clear, but the context or where it comes from is missing. You don’t report all relevant results, or you explain them improperly. Your discussion is limited in scope, and does not adequately explain what your findings mean in light of previous research.
  • 7 points: You do not have an adequate number of citations and you don’t explain why they are relevant. There is not a clear story or arc to your paper. You don’t provide information on your dataset and their contents. You report results improperly and don’t have two separate graphs. Your discussion is unclear or not compelling, and you do not speak about the implications of your findings.

Examples of final papers can be found in the Final_Examples folder on Canvas. Please note that these papers were completed for a slightly different course that was less focused on psychology.