For this Assignment, you will produce a formal research proposal per APA guidelines (10-15 pages). You will use revisions of the Unit 4 and Unit 7 Assignments as the Introduction and Methods sections, respectively.
The Abstract, which was discussed in the Unit 8 Seminar, will be all new writing for this assignment. It should be a summary of the research proposal that includes the problem statement, the subjects and how they will be sampled, and an overview of the method and procedure.
The abstract should be approximately 200 words in length, not much shorter nor much longer.
The abstract is NOT the introductory paragraph of the paper: the paper should be able to be read and fully understood without the presence of the abstract.
The Introduction and Method sections are revisions of the Unit 4 and Unit 7 assignments, respectively. You will get some credit for fixing the problems that your instructor explicitly pointed out in your original submission.
Your instructor will NOT have marked all the problems in the assignments: you will need to have reviewed all of each assignment and have made corrections to problems not explicitly marked by the instructor to earn full credit for the revisions.
The proposal should contain all of the following sections:
A formal title page (with a title that is descriptive of the proposed research)
Abstract: Make sure to include the following details here:
Problem statement
Subjects and sampling plan
Methods and procedures used
Introduction (a revision of the Unit 4 Assignment): Make sure to include the following components within this section of the paper:
An introduction paragraph with thesis statement
A review of the literature and how the proposed research fits with other research on this subject
A statement of the research problem and why it is important
A statement of the purpose of the research
Your hypothesis (you can have more than one here) and research design including the variables that you will use to assess your hypothesis and why you believe the hypothesis is true
A brief description of how the hypothesis and the research design relates to the problem statement
A summary paragraph tying the section together and restating the thesis statement
Method (a revision of the Unit 7 Assignment) including the following subsections:
Participants or subjects (include your sampling plan here)
Apparatus - any equipment that will be needed
Procedure - include sufficient details to ensure the possibility of replication and make sure to clearly label your research method here as well (for example: a quantitative between subjects matched groups design)
Measures - include at least one independent and dependent measure here and how you will assess the reliability and validity of your measures
Ethical considerations - make sure to state that your subjects were treated in accordance with APA ethical guidelines and briefly outline what steps you took to ensure this in your proposal (ABA students should also include any relevant information from the BACB guidelines for responsible conduct and disciplinary standards documents)
Reference section: Include all relevant citations from both sections (Intro and Method) using APA style guidelines
The Final Project should:
Follow Assignment directions (review grading rubric for best results).
Use correct APA formatting per the APA Publication Manual (6th ed.).
Demonstrate college-level communication through the composition of original materials in Standard American English.
Be written in Standard American English and be clear, specific, and error-free. If needed, be sure to use the Writing Center for help.