This is a capstone forum requiringconsolidation of information learned and skills acquired during the courseterm. Here you will share with classmates a research study proposal you havedeveloped that could be used to investigate a social-psychological issue. Social Psychology focuses on the impact of social environments on individualsor groups.

For this forum a longer initial post is required for capstonework.  A minimum of 400 words is required.  Replies to your classmates' initialposts should be minimum of 200 words.

Two examples of social psychology focused studies are:

A study that researches the impact of public awareness ad campaigns on publicattitudes toward the severely mental ill

A study comparing types school administrator response to reports of bullyingand victims' willingness to report instances of bullying to their parents.

Developing your research study proposal and sharing it with fellow learnerswill give you the opportunity to put into practice what you have learned thiscourse term about conducting research and engage in collaborative, respectfullyconstructive dialog about your proposed research design with tips and ideasfrom your fellow learners available for use refining it.  The lattermirrors what practitioners in the field regularly seek from colleagues whenplanning research activities.

Begin your post with why a particular specialty area within the larger generalfield of psychology might want to study the particular topic you are proposing,before moving on to the details of your proposal.  There are multiplespecialty areas in psychology about which students learn in the completion oftheir undergraduate degree program.  Our BA in Psychology PSYC101Introduction to Psychology and PSYC102 Professional Careers and Education inPsychology courses cover these but if you need refresher, http://www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/careers.aspx#is an excellent source of information about psychology's areas of specialization).

The following information is required for yourproposal.  In your post, please place the heading My Research Proposal over this portion for ease of everyone being able to distinguish between the aboveand your actual proposal:

1. Proposed study's topic and focus
2. Hypothesis (can be in a form of question or stating the Ho and Ha)
3. Participants (also sometimes referred to as "subjects")
4. Proposed sampling method
5. Data gathering method
6. Method of analysis (The type of statistics you would use to analyze gathered data; not stats formula details, but which stats you would use).
7. An explanation of your study's contribution/s to the field (the benefits to individuals, group's and society as a whole of the study results. Example: Using the first hypothetical social psychology study above, if we find that public awareness ads are associated with improved changes in attitudes toward the severely mentally ill might we use such study results as a means of advocating for Federal funding for expanding advertising efforts; or if study results show no to little association between ads and public attitude changes,might we better serve the severely ill by pursuing other means of reducing stigma?