As part of this unit, you are required to either participate in two studies, run by either staff or students in the Psychology department at CQUniversity, or to take an alternative form of participation, described later in this section. The studies take a wide variety of forms, from 'live' experiments to online surveys etc. To find out what's on offer, go to the CQUniversity Psychology web site and look under the section 'Research Projects'. At the end of the survey or experiment, you will be given some information about the study and a link to the CQU Current Trends 1st year participation registration form. Here you must enter your student number, name, unique project identifier (which will be given to you by the experimenter) and e-mail address (used to send an automatic receipt to you that you can keep as proof of participation). Please note that in the interests of anonymity, these personal details are not sent to the researcher and this form is separate from any information gathered in the study. Remember that you have only 3 weeks from the start of term to participate, though you may begin participation before the start of Term 2 if studies are available.

Participation is an important part of learning, giving an insight into the design and execution of psychology studies, however, you may choose not to participate in any studies in which case you may instead view two of the videos available on the Unit Moodle page. As with participation, you will receive a unique project identifier that you will need to enter into the CQU Current Trends 1st year participation registration form.

NB: In either case, it is important to take notes with regards your opinion about the purpose and nature of the study that you take part in or view on the video. While participating/watching, make some notes about what you are feeling and thinking, what you are asked to do and what you think might be the purpose (if this has not been made clear to you by the experimenter). How well do you think it has been implemented? Are there any clever or innovative methods used in the design? Are there any areas of the design you think might be improved? Consider also ethics, e.g. is there deception? Is there any misleading information? It may not be practical to do this at the time, so be sure to make as many notes as you can immediately after your participation/viewing. Remember, you will use these notes as the basis for your Assessments 3 and 4, so don't forget to take them.

You must REMEMBER TO TAKE NOTES. Although I do not need to see the notes, your understanding and engagement with this assessment will be the basis of your annotated bibliography in Assessment 3 and your reflection in Assessment 4.

This is a two part exercise involving review and peer review.

Part 1 (Review): Select at least one of the lectures given in this unit and write a 500+/-50 word critical commentary, summarising the topic highlighting the extent to which research findings were well founded; there were flaws in the research (if any); there were advantages/disadvantages with the career described (if any);the extent to which the research/area of practice was limited/biased to specific group/cohort, etc.

Part 2 (Peer Review): Choose a review from a fellow student and comment on the following criteria (100 words+/-50):

• Adherence to the word limit
• Succinctness of description and arguments
• Clarity of arguments
• Level of critical analysis

Each part of the assignment is worth 10% of the total marks for the unit and will be awarded in an all or nothing fashion. Marks will only be awarded to what are considered by the unit coordinator to be 'serious attempts'. The following criteria would constitute non-serious attempts:

• Nonsensical, abusive or irrelevant (non topic related) comments
• Deviance from specified word limits

This is a two part exercise in which you will post an annotated bibliography and peer review of a fellow student's annotated bibliography. The purpose of the annotated bibliography is to provide the foundation for the descriptive/reflective essay in Assessment 4.

Part 1 (Annotated bibliography): Select one of the studies/videos from your participation/viewing in Assessment 1 and write a 150+/-50 word annotated-bibliography on the topic that can be used as the basis for your reflective essay (Assessment 4). You need to find a minimum of 4 citations (references) for papers/journal articles or book chapters that are relevant to the topic of the study you participated in/video you observed and provide a very brief summary of the contents of each article and how it will be relevant useful for your reflective essay.

Part 2 (Peer Review): Choose a review from a fellow student and comment on the following criteria (150 words+/-50):

• Adherence to the word limit
• Relevance of the citations chosen
• Sufficiency of detail of the evaluations
• Succinctness of the evaluations

In order to maximise the peer review feedback, there should be no more than one review per submission. If a review already exists for one participant, please review another wherever possible!

Each part of the assignment is worth 10% of the total marks for the unit and will be awarded in an all or nothing fashion. Marks will only be awarded to what are considered by the unit coordinator to be 'serious attempts'

The following criteria would constitute non-serious attempts:

• Annotated bibliography that does not contain at least 4 references
• Annotated bibliography that does not contain either description or evaluation of the article reviewed
• Nonsensical, abusive or irrelevant (non topic related) comments
• Deviance from specified word limits or either annotated bibliography or peer review

By the end of week 3, you should have taken part in at least two studies (or watched at least 2 videos) and for this assignment you must write a 1500 word descriptive/reflective account of one of those studies/videos.When writing this assignment, please keep referring back to the learning outcomes in this Unit Profile, because these are what you’ll be assessed on. If you find yourself getting lost, just keep coming back to the mantra: "learning outcomes 2, 3, 4 and 7".

Your essay should involve both description (what took place, what was the sequence of events, what were the materials, etc.) and reflection (how did you interpret your experience as a participant/observer, how did you interpret the aims of the study? Did you feel the study accurately assessed its stated aims?). This may appear somewhat different to other written assignments but a great deal of academic writing combines elements of description and reflection. We pose a question, investigate that question, describe what we did and how we did it, then reflect on the meaning of what we found. In this assignment, you’re not posing a research question, though a question was posed by the researcher. Depending on the extent of the information provided by the experimenter/video, you may or may not be fully aware of what that question was (and that’s one thing you can write about) but I’m not so much interested knowing the answer to their research question, rather I’m interested in a description of your personal and subjective experience as a participant, your reflections on that process and anything you may have learnt from the process. Parts of this reflection should be supported by your own research, finding studies that support either the topic in general, or the specific hypothesis that you believe was being tested. NB For the purposes of this assessment, you do not need to know the outcome of the study. In the case of participation, this may not be available until long after the assessment deadline.

I want you to describe not only the experience as you perceived it, but also your thoughts and feelings at the time, and any subsequent thoughts. Your experience needs to be set in context since it is still based on someone else’s investigation of a research question. For this reason, I do want you to describe something about that research question. If you were supplied with adequate information (and you should have been given some), then you need to describe this in your own words. The experimenter/owner of the survey should have at least given enough information at the beginning in order to allow you to give your informed consent, but was there enough information? Can you give your ‘informed’ consent if you don’t fully know what the study will be about? If the researcher didn’t ‘inform’ you, then there is something to write about straight away (this could be an ethical problem and discussing this could be a demonstration of critical thinking, c.f. Learning Outcome 2). Then you can ask yourself ‘did they, at any point, let me know what they were looking for?’ If the answer is still no, then you can give your interpretation of what you thought they were looking for, based on the information available.

The following will help you structure your essay and refers explicitly to each of the Unit Learning Outcomes

Introduction

Give some historical background to the area, setting the scene, c.f. context. Research is not conducted in a theoretical vacuum and there must have been some theoretical and/or empirical basis for conducting the study. What was that theoretical basis? Was it made explicit or was it necessary for you to deduce it for yourself? If it was the latter, you can include information here that you believe is relevant. You may use here some or all of the 4 citations that you researched for Assessment 3. Often with a survey or an experiment, there is an attempt to disguise the purpose of the questions, but was the purpose obvious to you? Don’t worry if this doesn't match what the experimenter had intended, i'm interested in your views. I want to see you expressing your (critical) thinking and there are no extra marks for for correctly guessing the ‘true’ hypothesis being investigated by the researcher. Whether you’ve been told, or had to determine for yourself, what the study was about, this is an opportunity for you to do some research (c.f. Learning Outcome 7, literature research is one of those skills that forms that basis of lifelong learning and can be demonstrated here). I’m hoping that you will read at least some original journal articles, but book chapters are acceptable (c.f. Assessment 3). Where possible, try to link your thoughts about the study to theoretical aspects of psychology that you may have encountered elsewhere (i.e. synthesis, c.f. Learning Outcome 3). For example, after taking part in a study on self-esteem, is there anything you learnt about self esteem elsewhere in the unit or indeed from any other source? You could go further and ask if there is anything that you’ve learnt elsewhere that might have an effect on self esteem, but which wasn't questioned in the study (c.f. Learning Outcome 2, critical thinking). Whenever you state a ‘fact’ (e.g. "90% of adults experience acute anxiety at some point in their lives") remember to support it with a citation. Someone did this research and showed this to be the case and you need to acknowledge that source (c.f. Learning Outcome 4, APA formatting). I’ve set a minimum requirement of 4 with regards the number of citations in order to meet the criteria, but there won’t be more marks given for more citations per se. For additional citations, I would prefer to see journal articles or other primary sources, but secondary sources  are acceptable for this unit. All citations must be properly formatted and listed in an American Psychological Association (APA) formatted reference section (see the APA style manual and the resources on the unit Moodle page, c.f. Learning Outcome 4). Your personal opinion is different and doesn’t need to be supported in the same way, but you do still need to make it clear on what basis you formed this opinion or how you logically came to this opinion (this ability to construct a rational/logical argument is another example of a way in which Learning Outcome 7 will be assessed).

Main body

When you come to write about your experience of taking part in the study (or watching the video), I would like you to give a description of what you took part in (or saw), with as much procedural information as you can, including a description of experimental items or materials and an overview of the design, so far as you were aware of it. But I’m most interested in your interpretation of the study and your reaction to it. For example, how taking part in this study (or watching the video) informed your thinking or learning? How has your previous learning influenced your approach to this study? How might your previous views and beliefs have influenced your approach to this study? (Learning Outcome 2, critical thinking). Like other forms of academic writing, you should construct this essay logically and systematically. Use sub-headings if you feel they’re useful, though they’re not a requirement (a demonstration of Learning Outcome 7, lifelong learning). APA format must be used throughout. (c.f. Learning Outcome 4), but remember this is also about your subjective experience, so I would expect you to describe your thoughts, feelings and concerns. The latter (if you have any) may extend to ethical concerns or issues about the type of questions and the effect they may have on a person. For example, does the need for knowledge justify the questions asked/procedures performed?

Conclusions

Here is a chance to hone your critical thinking skills (c.f. Learning Outcome 2). In these final paragraphs, you can summarise the preceding section and speculate about how the research might be extended. What other questions might be explored, related to those in the study you took part in (video you watched)? What limitations were there to the study so far as you could see? Like other sections, the reference section Must be formatted according to APA format (Learning Outcome 4).

The essay must be formatted throughout using APA format, including a title page. Sub-headings may be used, but are not necessary. Citations must be used throughout to support all reported findings, theories or quotations, though direct quotations should be avoided where possible. The word count will include all words from and including the first word of the essay (including title page) to the last word of the conclusions, and includes any in-text citations or captions within the text, but does not include references or appendices. An assignment which does not fall within 10% above or below the specified word count will be subject to a word count penalty of 2% for every 50 words above or below, up to 10% of the total possible grade for the assignment. Words in assignments that exceed 10% of the word-count are not assessed/marked and this may also affect the marks given.

Your essay will be assessed according to the following marking scheme which will be used to assess the Unit Learning Outcomes. The total final mark is out of 60 which will be converted to a proportion of the 50% total assignment marks available for this unit. Marks will be awarded from 0 - 15 for each of the following criteria, with the exception of length which is negatively marked.

1. Length: A negative marking scheme will be used to deduct 2 marks for every 50 words over or under the allowable word length.

2. Evidence of critical thinking: Work displays evidence of critical thought by evaluating, analysing and examining the major assumptions surrounding the topic material. (e.g. using research to find contradictory evidence, highlighting confounds, self-reflection and questioning one’s own assumptions).

3. Evidence of Literature search and appropriate use of citations with evidence of synthesis of ideas and knowledge: Essay shows evidence of a literature review that utilises appropriate and relevant resources. The 4 references from Assessment 3 should be included in Assessment 4. Citations are included in-text, indicating to the reader the source of the ideas/material obtained. References are not simply ‘tacked-on’ in order to pad out the paper but rather they support, refute or bolster the main point/s of the paper.

4. Rational/logical development of arguments: Essay is set out according to a logical pattern. There is no single right way to do this, however what is important is that the argument/s must be presented in a fashion whereby the reader can easily follow their progression and development.

5. Effective communication style and structure: The essay must be presented in APA format, including the following elements…

· Title page: Showing author name, affiliation, etc. (see APA manual for details).

· Title: Must have a title that describes well the topic to be discussed.

· Introduction: Not more than one paragraph, giving the reader some historical background and setting the scene.

· Main Body: Develop the main themes of your chosen topic here using citations of research, personal reflection and critical thinking.

· Conclusions: One or two paragraphs summarising the preceding section and, most importantly, giving your assessment of the status and possible future directions of the area in terms of research development.

· Reference section: Must include full references for all citations used in the essay.