CQUniversity Unit Profile.

This assessment is your opportunity to share your thoughts and analysis about what you have read and experienced about a classical experiment in psychology. This piece of writing is meant to illustrate your understanding of the experiment’s contribution to psychology and the ethical implications of why and how it was done. You also need to reflect on personal experiences and how your understanding of the ethical implications of the experiment may possibly affect your ideas or professional practice in the future.

Specifically, this assessment requires you to (a) select and research ONE of the 10 listed psychological experiments, and (b) provide ONE 450-550 word personal reflection on the experiment, according to the marking criteria (see below).

Please select one of the following psychological experiments to base your reflection on:

• The Little Albert experiment
• Asch Conformity experiment
• The Bystander Effect
• The Milgram experiment
• Harlow's Monkey experiment
• Learned Helplessness
• Robber's Cave experiment
• The Monster Study
• Blue Eyed Versus Brown Eyed Students
• The Stanford Prison experiment

Please note that you are not expected to include any references in this assessment. The content is meant to reflect your thoughts, feelings and reflections. You can of course include a reference if absolutely necessary. The word count includes all words excluding the title and reference list entries (and would include in-text citations if you had them).

This assessment does not require a cover page. Please COPY-and-PASTE your response from your word document into the relevant text box during submission. Do not attempt to upload a word file.

Level of GenAI use allowed:
Level 3: You may use Al to assist with specific tasks such as drafting text, refining and evaluating your work. You must critically evaluate and modify any Al-generated content you use.

The 72-hour grace period applies to this task. Submissions later than 72-hours must obtain an approved extension via documentation such as a medical certificate or statutory declaration or be subject to a 5% per day penalty over the grace period. 

Further information can be found on Moodle, including information about the experiments, GenAI permissions and the marking rubric.

This assessment will be graded out of 20 marks. Marks will be allocated according to each of the following criteria:

1. A brief overview of the experiment’s contribution to psychology [5 marks]
2. An understanding of the ethical issues of the experiment is demonstrated [5 marks]
3. Reflection of personal experiences and how understanding of the experiment may affect ideas or professional practice in the future [5 marks]
4. The response is of sufficient length (i.e., adheres to the word limit), and is written with good spelling and grammar [5 marks]

The full marking rubric is available on Moodle.

This assessment consists of two components: A group work component (24 marks) and an individual component (6 marks). In total, you can receive up to 30 marks for this assessment. This assessment is worth 30% of your final mark for this unit.

Group component

Evaluating the value of diverse sources of information is an important research skill. Key differences exist in the way we evaluate qualitative and quantitative research and criticisms for one approach are not necessarily applicable to the other. For this assessment, you will be required to work in a group to:

1. determine whether common criticisms of research are applicable for qualitative research and/or quantitative research.
2. provide a justification for each of your decisions and comment on how each issue could impact research findings. [approx. 50 words per item]

Level of GenAI use allowed (group component): Level 1: You must not use Al at any point during this aspect of the assessment. You must demonstrate your core skills and knowledge.

The 72-hour grace period applies to the group component of the task. However, no submissions (even with a 5% per day late penalty) can be accepted after this period. Please ensure the group submits in a timely manner. Extensions can only be approved in exceptional circumstances and would need a) the support of the majority of group members and b) supply approved documentation. 

Individual component

You will also need to complete an individual reflection. Please reflect on the processes, procedures, conflicts, and times your group worked well together during this assessment. What have you learned that could be implemented or improved in research teams that you might be involved with in the future? [250-word limit] 

Level of GenAI use allowed (individual reflection): Level 3: You may use Al to assist with specific tasks such as drafting text, refining and evaluating your work. You must critically evaluate and modify any Al-generated content you use.

The 72-hour grace period applies to the individual reflection component of the task. Submissions later than 72-hours must obtain an approved extension via documentation such as a medical certificate or statutory declaration or be subject to a 5% per day penalty over the grace period. 

Group component [24 marks]

For this assessment, you will be required to work in a group to assess 12 common criticisms of qualitative research and/or quantitative research. For each common criticism, you can receive 1 mark for each correctly identified paradigm and 1 mark for correctly justifying your decision and identifying how each criticism could impact research findings. The marking criteria are as follows: 

1. determine whether common criticisms of research are applicable for qualitative research and/or quantitative research. [1 mark x 12 critiques = 12 marks in total]

2. provide a justification for each of your decisions and comment on how each issue could impact research findings. [1 mark x 12 critiques = 12 marks in total; approx. 50 words per item]

Individual component [6 marks]  

Reflect on the processes, procedures, conflicts, and times the group worked well together during this assessment. Comment on what you have learned that could be implemented or improved in research teams that you might be involved with in the future. [6 marks; 250-word limit]  

The marking rubric for the individual component is available on Moodle.

In total, you can receive up to 30 marks for this assessment. This assessment is worth 30% of your final mark for this unit.

The aim of this assessment is to enable you to develop your research writing skills and to practice preparing a research report. This assessment is worth 50% of your final mark for this unit.

Research reports are used to communicate study details and research outcomes, and are structured in the order that research is conducted in. Typically, a researcher becomes interested in a puzzling psychological phenomenon, designs a study to investigate it, collects and analyses data, then interprets the results. However, this assessment is designed to just give you a 'taste' of the process of a research report.

You will be required to demonstrate that you can critically evaluate the literature on a given topic, communicate a research aim, construct a hypothesis, and discuss research findings. Because this is an introductory unit, you will not be required to calculate any statistics or results for yourselves, but rather, you will be given the results for the study and then follow some basic steps in order to write up the results correctly. 

You will be required to write a 1500-2000-word research report. You need to write the report as if you are the researcher (rather than a participant in a class study or study conducted by the unit coordinator). You will be assessed on your ability to put together a scientific report, based on collected data (note you will also be a participant), in American Psychological Association (APA) format with the following sections

• Abstract  
• Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Discussion
• References

Five references will be provided to you, but at least five more must be found, and referred to, in your report (so, your reference list should have a minimum of 10 journal articles in it. Non journal articles such as books, government websites etc do not count towards the 10 but can be cited if necessary). You will need to do some independent searching and reading of the literature.

Please refer to the APA publication manual (2020) and utilise the APA template provided for further information on how to appropriately format your report.

Level of GenAI use allowed: Level 3: You may use Al to assist with specific tasks such as drafting text, refining and evaluating your work. You must critically evaluate and modify any Al-generated content you use.

The 72-hour grace period applies to this task. Submissions later than 72-hours must obtain an approved extension via documentation such as a medical certificate or statutory declaration or be subject to a 5% per day penalty over the grace period. 

Further information can be found on Moodle, including information about the research topic, formatting requirements, requirements for each section of the report, GenAI permissions and the marking rubric.

This assessment will be graded out of 50 marks. Marks will be allocated according to each of the following criteria:

1. Title [total: 2 marks]

• Report is appropriately titled (e.g., adequately describes the contents, main ideas or purpose), and presented on title page as well as the beginning of the introduction [2 marks]

2. Abstract [total: 5 marks]

• Summary of key points or details relating to the background, aims, method, findings, and implications of the study [5 marks]

3. Introduction [total: 10 marks]

• Discussion of the research problem, including justification for the research, and definitions of theories and concepts covered (where relevant) [2 marks]
• Coverage of previous literature that is relevant to the study [4 marks]
• Clearly stated research hypothesis. Must be justified by the literature reviewed and arguments posed [2 marks]
• Statement of research aims and question [2 marks]

4. Methods [total: 8 marks]

• Description of participant details [3 marks]
• Explanation of materials used. References included where needed (e.g., for psychometric scales used) [3 marks]
• Description of procedure [2 marks]

5. Results [total: 4 marks]

• Correct write up of statistical findings relevant to the research question and hypothesis [2 marks]
• Figures and tables presented correctly [2 marks]

6. Discussion [total: 10 marks]

• Summary of major findings/fate of research hypothesis [4 marks]
• Discussion of implications of results with reference back to the literature [2 marks]
• Discussion of limitations of study and potential impacts on research findings [2 marks]
• Suggestions for future research [2 marks]

7. Referencing and formatting requirements [6 marks]

• A minimum of 10 journal articles referred to in text (including the 5 articles provided) [2 marks]
• Adheres to APA 7 style (presentation/formatting, in-text citations, and reference list) [4 marks]

8. Writing conventions [5 marks]

• Overall report structure, logical flow, clear and concise writing style, grammar and spelling [4 marks]
• Adherence to work count (1500-2000 words) [1 mark]