Honours thesis in psychology/Marking criteria guidelines

Marking criteria guidelines
Examiners are asked to award a mark for each section, taking into account the dot points below.

Presentation /10  Appropriate title APA format Expression, spelling, punctuation &amp; grammar References in text in APA format Reference list in APA format Appropriate Appendices (e.g., questionnaire, detailed instructions to subjects) Overall impression  Abstract /4 <ul> <li>Concise summary of: problem, participants, method, results, conclusions</li> </ul> Introduction - Set up of problem /22 <ul> <li>Importance, relevance &amp; context of issue established</li> <li>Theoretical or conceptual framework established</li> <li>Breadth of literature review</li> <li>Appropriateness of citations (current, major, original)</li> <li>Consideration of alternative perspectives</li> <li>Logic and clarity of argument leading up to hypotheses</li> <li>Appropriate formulation and clear presentation of hypotheses or statement of aim (for qualitative research)</li> </ul> Method /18 <ul> <li>Participants: appropriate and adequate sample on which to undertake research/test hypotheses; recruitment procedure and sample characteristics adequately described</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Materials/Measures: appropriate operationalisation of constructs; adequately described (format, measurement scale, reliability, etc)</li> <li>Procedure: appropriateness of method to address research question/test hypotheses, procedure fully described</li> <li>Design (optional): You may need to include a description of the overall design – this can be especially useful in experimental or complex studies)</li> </ul> Results - appropriate analysis approach and explanation /22 This section needs to be appropriate to research question/type of hypotheses, but is likely to include: <ul> <li>Justification of approach (if necessary) and appropriate analysis for research question/hypotheses and participant group</li>  <li>Depth of analysis adequate to fully test hypotheses / address research question</li>  <li>Understanding of assumptions demonstrated</li>  <li>Descriptive/preliminary statistics: full written description and appropriate graphs and tables in APA format</li>  <li>Predictive or explanatory relationships: full written description and appropriate graphs and tables in APA format</li> </ul> Discussion - argumentation of results /24 <ul> <li>Summary of results</li> <li>Related back to research question/support for hypotheses</li> <li>Related back to theory</li> <li>Implications of findings</li> <li>Discussion of possible alternative interpretations of results</li> <li>Discussion of issues arising (explanation of unusual findings)</li> <li>Problems with current study</li> <li>Generalisation of results</li> <li>Implications for future research</li> <li>Logic, clarity, focus and expression</li> </ul>