Honours thesis in psychology

Finding and working with a supervisor
Different institutions adopt different approaches to allocating students to research project supervisors. Usually your preferences will be taken into account but without any guarantee that you'll get your first preference. You can follow the processes of the institution and see what you end up with and/or be more proactive and approach supervisors whose work or style is of particular interest.

Some supervisors will offer more pre-defined projects within their specific areas of expertise and interest; others be more open to negotiation. There are pros and cons to each approach. Don't get too hung up and getting exactly the supervisor or project you want. There is plenty to learn about how to do research from any project and supervisor.

Have an initial discussion with your supervisor about how you will work together, including what you expect of each other, when and how you are going to meet, what collaborative tools will be used, and swap contact details. Some student-staff partnerships may wish to go so far as to discuss and co-sign an agreement about mutual expectations. Regardless, the process of the student-staff supervisory relationship itself should be part of ongoing discussions in addition to necessarily focusing on the details of the specific project.

Developing a topic
In the initial stages, don't be in too much of a hurry to nail down a specific topic. Ideas, options, pros, and cons need to be explored before refining the focus. But then, it becomes imperative to be very specific about exactly what this aims, research questions, and hypotheses are for the project.

Following something like these steps, with supervisor guidance, will increase the likelihood of developing a mature, well-considered research focus:
 * 1) Generate (brainstorm) possible topics - use blue sky thinking; focus on "why" and "what", don't worry about "how".
 * 2) Phrase the topics as research questions.
 * 3) Consider pros and cons of each question, including conceptual and methodological issues.
 * 4) Narrow the selection of topics (e.g., by merging or grouping some questions, dropping questions, or writing new, improved questions) to no more than three.
 * 5) Do some background reading (e.g., identify a few key articles).
 * 6) Decide on final topic - express it as a clear research question(s)
 * 7) Identify independent and dependent variables.
 * 8) Draft hypotheses.

Preparing a research proposal
Developing a research proposal and having it academically reviewed before implementation is strongly recommended for scientific research projects, especially for student research projects. It is much better to find out about potential research design flaws early on, while they can still be addressed, than to find out later (e.g., from examiners).

Format
A research proposal can take different forms depending on the course. For example it might be an oral or poster presentation at a meeting of academic staff and/or fellow students.

Expect to speak about the proposal with some audiovisual material (such as visual slides or a poster). You should also be expected to answer questions about your proposal. It can also be helpful to prepare some questions for the reviewers ahead of time, to seek their advice about areas of concern.

Here's are some ways of presenting research proposals and gathering feedback:
 * 1) Presentation share about the key points in the proposal verbally and visually with reviewers and fellow students at a live in-person or virtual gathering, or pre-record the presentation
 * 2) Discussion share proposal electronically with peers and create a discussion thread with questions
 * 3) Hard-copy poster. Provide easy-to-read, key details about about the proposed study to help reviewers understand the study and provide critique. Keep it simple (no need for glossy printing or lamination) e.g., 9 x A4 sheets (in a 3 x 3 layout) using large font (min. 18 pt) bullet-points could be very effective
 * 4) Include copies of relevant additional information (e.g., draft survey)

Reviewers will ask questions, discuss your proposal with you, and provide some written comments for further discussion with your supervisor. You should obtain at least two reviews from academic staff. Fellow students may provide additional feedback. If appropriate, make adjustments to the study's focus and design.

Sections
These sections are recommended for research proposals (check with your supervisor for further advice):
 * 1) Title page
 * 2) Working title
 * 3) Student name
 * 4) Supervisor name
 * 5) Date
 * 6) Introduction: A brief review of the literature and justification for why the topic is important.
 * 7) Aims & Hypotheses: Concise statement of research question(s) (aims) and briefly how these aims fit into the literature area (justification of your aims). Clearly state the study’s hypotheses (Note: Hypotheses need to be testable – see also Analyses).
 * 8) Method:
 * 9) Design: Describe the research design (e.g., experimental, quasi-experimental, or non-experimental, between-subjects or within-subjects, etc.). Consider potential confounds and how they will be dealt with (internal validity).
 * 10) Participants: Consider the target population, sampling frame, sampling technique, anticipated return rate, sample size and power (demonstrate how the sample size is adequate for your design). Note whether you or your supervisor have a dependent relationship with this target population. Describe how participants will be recruited.
 * 11) Materials/Measures: Describe how the independent and dependent measures are to be operationalised and the psychometric properties of proposed measures.
 * 12) Procedure: How will the study be carried out? How will the data be collected? What steps will be followed with participants? What will be done with the data?
 * 13) Ethical issues: Summarise potential ethical issues and explain how they will be dealt with. Consider whether approval is required from the University’s Committee for Ethics in Human Research or any other organisation.
 * 14) Costs: Provide details of any project costs, such as equipment, and how these will be paid. Where possible, students are encouraged to use free materials.
 * 15) Analyses: Summarise the planned data analytical techniques for addressing the hypotheses.
 * 16) Timeline: Outline key project milestones and their due dates, including ethical clearances. See timeline for more information.
 * 17) References
 * 18) Appendices: e.g., a copy of the instrumentation to be used, participant information and informed consent statement

Ethical approval
Before doing any research, permission is needed from an appropriate human or animal research ethics authority in the local jurisdiction. Universities have special committees to consider whether research is ethically sound. When the research is on humans, such committees are called a "Human Research Ethics Committee" (HREC) or "Institutional Review Board" (IRB). For animal research, the committee is called something like the "Animal Research Ethics Committee" (AREC). These committees typically have their own application forms for describing the proposed research.

The research supervisor(s) should help in the preparation of the ethics application. There may also be classes which provide general guidance about ethical principles for research.

For more information, see:
 * Australian code for the responsible conduct of research
 * Human ethics (University of Canberra)
 * Some general advice on how to respond to ethics committee requests for changes

What is a literature review?
A literature review identifies a particular research question, establishes its importance, and summarises, reviews, and critiques key theory and research. Finally, the literature review weighs the strengths and limitations of the existing literature and recommends future directions.

Present an APA style manuscript which presents a review of key theoretical and research literature about the topic/problem and which is ready for submission to a journal for publication.

Drafting process
Here is a suggested stage-by-stage drafting process:

Topic development

 * 1) Specify and clarify the final topic in conjunction with the project supervisor.
 * 2) Brainstorm (cast the net widely initially).
 * 3) Sort through, merge, discard, and prioritise these ideas.
 * 4) Whittle down
 * 5) Express the topic as a:
 * 6) research question
 * 7) draft title
 * 8) The topic should be unique. The review should:
 * 9) identify a gap/problem
 * 10) contribute a useful review to the existing literature

Guided reading

 * 1) Reading can go on for ever, so it is important to become systematic.
 * 2) Develop a bibliography of key references about the topic.
 * 3) Identify, say, the most important 20 references. These citations should probably include:
 * 4) Major literature reviews (especially recent systematic and meta-analytic reviews).
 * 5) Highly cited, peer reviewed, published articles relevant psychological theory and specific research studies.
 * 6) Access these references.
 * 7) Read the references, making notes about key points relevant to the topic.

Plan
Develop a 2 to 3 page outline of the chapter and discuss with the thesis supervisor:
 * Example plan
 * 1) Develop a 2 to 3 page plan for the literature review, structured in a logical, unfolding sequence. The structure should include:
 * 2) Title
 * 3) Abstract
 * 4) Major headings (and possibly sub-headings)
 * 5) Aim for approximately 3 to 6 major headings (each with 2 to 5 sub-headings (if used)) including:
 * 6) General introduction (heading not used in APA style)
 * 7) ~2-3 pages or 300-500 words
 * 8) Introduce and describe the topic/problem, establish its importance, familiarise the reader with key terminology/concepts, show familiarity with the key literature, establish the research question, and orient the reader to the direction of the review.
 * 9) Include major citations
 * 10) By the end of this section a reader should be clear about the purpose, need for, and focus of the review.
 * 11) Major content headings which will provide a critical review of key theory and research
 * 12) Conclusion
 * 13) Word-count: Allocate an estimated word count for each of the major sections and overall
 * 14) This will help to ensure a balanced plan which will fit into the overall word count
 * 15) It also helps with "chunking" the drafting process into smaller sections.
 * 16) The literature review is worth 40% of the 10,000 to 12,000 word thesis; on a proportional basis then the literature review could be 4,000 to 4,800 words, but often it is longer, up to perhaps ~7,000 words.
 * 17) References
 * 18) Indicate any questions about aspects of the plan which you'd like to flag for discussion.
 * 19) It can be helpful to model the literature review on a favourite article (or thesis) - have a close look at the heading structure.
 * 20) Consider using the '' in which the review starts broadly and gradually narrows down to focus on a specific problem.
 * 21) Seek feedback about the plan for the thesis supervisor, discuss, and revise the plan.

1st draft

 * 1) Turn the plan into a first draft by fleshing out the dot points into paragraphs.
 * 2) Aim for a "Pass" standard.
 * 3) May include specific comments or questions students want to address to supervisor.
 * 4) Seek supervisor feedback.

2nd draft

 * 1) Turn the 1st draft into a 2nd draft by rewriting, addressing supervisor feedback.
 * 2) Aim for a "Credit" standard.
 * 3) Seek supervisor feedback via electronic Comments and Tracked Changes.

3rd draft

 * 1) Turn the 2nd draft into a 3rd draft by rewriting, addressing supervisor feedback.
 * 2) Aim for a "Distinction" standard.
 * 3) Seek peer/other feedback via electronic Comments and Tracked Changes.

4th draft

 * 1) Turn the 3rd draft into a 4th draft by rewriting, addressing peer/other feedback.
 * 2) Aim for a "High Distinction" standard.

Tables and figures

 * 1) Use of tables and figures to illustrate theories or conceptual ideas can be an effective, powerful way to communicate (e.g., Example conceptual path diagram)

Marking criteria

 * 1) Consider the draft against the marking criteria:
 * 2) Presentation 10%
 * 3) Quality of written expression, spelling, punctuation, and grammar
 * 4) APA style
 * 5) Overall impression
 * 6) Title/Abstract 5%
 * 7) Appropriate title
 * 8) Concise summary of problem, relevant literature, and conclusions
 * 9) Critical review of relevant theory 40%
 * 10) Importance, relevance, and context of issue established
 * 11) Theoretical or conceptual framework established
 * 12) Appropriate scope (depth and breadth)
 * 13) Appropriate quality and quantity of citations
 * 14) Consideration of alternative perspectives
 * 15) Critical review of relevant research 40%
 * 16) Appropriate emphasis on the most important and relevant research
 * 17) Appropriate scope (depth and breadth)
 * 18) Appropriate quality and quantity of citations
 * 19) Critical interpretation of the research and its implication
 * 20) Summary/conclusion 5%
 * 21) Summary of literature
 * 22) Implications and recommendations
 * 23) Make revisions to more clearly address the marking criteria.

File management

 * 1) Smart word-processing techniques from the outset will pay off down the track.
 * 2) Folder structure: Use a systematic folder structure for each step/part of the thesis; e.g.,
 * 3) *00 Proposal
 * 4) *01 Ethics
 * 5) *10 Literature review
 * 6) *11 Research article
 * 7) *20 Appendices
 * 8) *30 Final version
 * 9) Versioning
 * 10) Prepare the thesis sections as separate documents, with major drafts saved as different files using a systematic numbering system e.g.,
 * 11) Literature review 1.docx, Literature review 2.docx etc. or
 * 12) Literature review_2016_04_21, Literature review_2016_05_04 etc.
 * 13) Backup, backup, backup
 * 14) Make sure there are external copies around in case something goes pear-shaped.
 * 15) e.g., use automated cloud-based backup storage or manually email your latest versions to peers and/or supervisor

Word processing

 * 1) Use word processor style settings from the outset - spend time researching and reading about this and trying it out - it will pay off in the long-run; mainly this will involve
 * 2) Using Heading 1, 2, 3 etc. styles for headings (this will facilitate consistent styling and generation of Tables of Contents)
 * 3) Similarly, style-based captions for Tables and Figures could be used.
 * 4) Consider using a downloadable APA style template e.g., Paul Rose

Citation management

 * 1) Source citations and reference list generation can be done manually or use citation management software; regardless, be organised and systematic from the outset in collecting, using, citing, and referencing key sources.

Relationship to the research article

 * 1) The focus of the literature review may well be similar to, but its purpose should differ from, the research study.
 * 2) The literature review and research article have different purposes and functions.
 * 3) The literature review provides a critical review of theory and research about a specific topic and makes recommendations about future directions.
 * 4) The research article identifies a gap in the literature and reports about an original study designed to address this gap.
 * 5) There may be some overlap between the literature review and the introduction to the research article. However, there should be several important differences including:
 * 6) The literature review will be longer than the introduction to the research article.
 * 7) The literature review may be broader in scope than the introduction to the research article.
 * 8) The introduction to the research article should state specific research question(s) and/or hypotheses to guide the study.
 * 9) Avoid presenting duplicate sentences in the literature review and introduction to the research article (self-plagiarism).

Accessing past theses
To access past theses, options include:
 * 1) Ask your supervisor, or other supervisors, who may be able to share electronic copies of past theses