200234 SE Theorie und Empirie wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens (Geist und Gehirn) 2 (2024W)

Element 1: 2 x team presentations (2 x 10% = 20%)

Teams will be expected to do two 15-minute presentations. The first presentation will outline your research ideas and questions based on a) theory and literature and b) the data available in the PANS (i.e. the core of the pre-registration). The second presentation will outline descriptive and modelling results based on the planned analysis of the selected part of the PANS data (i.e. the core of the final paper).

Team talk 1: 14th November 2024
Team talk 2: 16th January 2025

Each team talk will be scored 1-10 (with 10% of the final grade assigned to each talk).
All team members are expected to attend and be part of the presentation (unless sick etc.).

Element 2: Pre-registration protocol (20%)

The Pre-registration protocol is a detailed research plan of what you will do in your research project. It will include: a) a brief rationale – what are you are looking at and why is what you are doing new and original (based on a brief review of the literature), b) specific research hypotheses and/or research questions; c) planned method – including approximate sample (based on the available PANS data), overview of the PANS data collection methods, and materials you will be looking at (i.e. survey questions etc.); and d) a statistics/analysis plan – how will you analyze the PANS data to answer your Hypotheses & Research Questions. To structure the Pre-registration protocol, we will use the Open Science Framework’s pre-registration template.

Pre-registrations are increasingly important in psychology (and science more generally) because they aid open science and reduces the chances of subsequent data manipulation (intentional or unintentional) to support specific hypotheses. For more details see here: https://www.cos.io/initiatives/prereg.

Each team will write a pre-registration protocol and submit it as a team. The pre-registration protocol should be APA style, maximum 2,000 words long, and can include up to 2 Tables and 2 Figures, and a maximum of 20 references. It will also contain an Author Contribution Statement outlining who did which aspects of the pre-registration (examples will be discussed in class).

The grade for the pre-registration protocol will count 25% towards your final grade for the course.

Draft pre-registration (one per team)
Submit via Moodle by 8th Nov, 23:59

 
Element 3: Research report/paper (50%)

The final report will be in the form of a draft research paper formatted in the same style as would be expected for a peer-reviewed journal. The paper should be APA style, maximum 5,000 words long (remember the intro and methods will already be largely written as part of the pre-reg), and can include up to 4 Tables and 4 Figures, and a maximum of 60 references. It will also contain an Author Contribution Statement outlining who did which aspects of the research report.

The grade for the final report will count 50% towards your final grade for the course.

Submit via Moodle by 14th Feb, 23:59

One member of the team will submit 1) the pre-reg, and 2) the final report as a .doc or .docx file via Moodle. The marking rubric for the reports will be available via Moodle.

Element 4: Class participation (10%)
Your in-class participation including active discussion, feedback, and paper reading will count towards 10% of your final grade for this course.

NOTE. Replicating what happens with real research papers, each team will deliver two presentations together and will submit one pre-registration and one final report as a team and so will receive the same grade. The Author Contribution Statement will be used to follow up any issues regarding unequal contribution. In cases of doubt, students may be asked to undergo an oral interview to explain the project and their contribution. Weekly sessions with the teaching team should mean this does not become a problem as we will work with each team from the start to ensure equity and fairness.