The goal is to generate ideas for your research proposal and discuss the pros and cons of each idea. The pros and cons should include the novelty of the proposed study. Consider typing the hypothesis into Google Scholar or psychological information to verify what has been done before), if so. an important and interesting study (i.e. what it would mean if your hypothesis was correct) and the feasibility of testing the given question (you won't do the study, but it should be a feasible study to do).

 

Find and read AT LEAST 4 research articles that are relevant to the given topic. You will use these articles when writing your research proposal.

 

Example of how to do it according to the instructions:

Hypothesis: "Mild dehydration can affect cognitive performance. We could assess cognitive performance with a vigilance task and a reading comprehension test, comparing people when they are mildly dehydrated to when they are not. This could be important for anyone looking to start a high-risk task." (taking a final exam or being an air traffic controller), they should perform tasks better if they are adequately hydrated.

 

Pros/Cons: how to induce dehydration in a controlled way? Some previous work has used diuretics combined with exercise, but they did not appear to control the degree of dehydration. So try to come up with ideas to build on and improve previous work (maybe weigh them before or after exercise to accurately measure how much water weight was lost?).

 

The discussion should include complete sentences and should address the following three points.

 

1-What is the hypothesis?

2-In general, how could the hypothesis be evaluated?

3-What would the results tell you (some examples will be provided below)?