Research participation is educationally beneficial for students. First, students can learn a good deal about a particular topic by participating in research. Students can learn how psychological theories lead to psychological studies and how different methodological approaches are applied to test research hypotheses. Second, research participation assists students in understanding the importance of ethical conduct in psychological research. 

The research participation component of PSYC105 assessment involves a total of 4 hours of participation (8 credits) in research conducted within the Department of Psychology. Time spent is credited on a pro rata basis. 15 min = 0.5 credits, 30 min = 1 credit, 45 min = 1.5 credit, 1 hr = 2 credits, etc.

To ensure that you obtain experience with a variety of methods for conducting research, you are required to participate in at least 2 hours of face-to-face research studies. That is, you will not receive more than 4 of your 8 research credits from online studies. Studies are run at a variety of days and times, including after hours and weekends, in order to accommodate a range of student timetables.

We use SONA, a participant pool, to connect students with researchers. A large number of psychology research projects are being conducted in 2017 by staff members, research assistants, postgraduate students, and honours students. To search for projects, make bookings, and view research participation records, go to: www.subjectpool.com/mq/participant/. The PSYC105 SONA pool opens on 06/07/2017 and will close at 5pm Friday 03/11/2017 (Week 12). Students must complete their research participation before the pool closes.

If you completed PSYC104 in Semester 1 or enrolled in PSYC105 prior to 01/07/2017, you should be automatically enrolled in SONA.  If you do not have an account, you need to email psy_pool.admin@mq.edu.au with the following information: First & Last name; Student ID number; MQ email address; PSY Unit Number (i.e. PSYC105)

EXAMPLE:  Name: John Smith, Student ID: 43409999, email: john.smith@students.mq.edu.au, course: PSYC105

After registering for a study, students should keep a record of the following details:         

• The researcher's name
• The date and time of the study
• The location of the study
• The contact phone number

You are required to keep your appointments. If, as a result of illness or misadventure, you are unable to keep an appointment, you must notify the researcher prior to your appointment. Failure to do so will result in a penalty. The total number of hours (and thus assessment mark) that you have accrued over the semester will be posted on the PSYC105 website by 9am on 06/11/2017 for you to check. In case of any discrepancy, you can appeal by 5pm on 10/11/2017. To appeal, send an email to psy_pool.admin@mq.edu.au and copy in (CC) PSYC105@mq.edu.au. In the email, include how many credits you were awarded, and how many credits you think you should have been awarded. Additionally, for each study you participated in, include the 1) experimenter's name, 2) the date and time of the experiment, and 3) how long it took you to complete the study.

The PSYC105 research report requires students to write a psychology report based on data that they have been involved in collecting. Writing empirical papers is one way that psychologists disseminate research findings. The research report must be 1500 (+/- 150) words in length. The title page and reference list are not included in this word limit, but in-text citations are included in this word limit. Your report must include a title page, the body of the report (with separate sections of an introduction, method, results, discussion) and a reference list. More details on the report will be provided in tutorial classes and posted to iLearn.

This research report must follow the APA Style rules, detailed in the "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association." This is a psychology report, not a biology, chemistry, or law report, so do not use another referencing style. Marks will be awarded for correctly following APA Style rules, and you will lose marks if you do not apply the rules correctly. You can find out more about APA Style rules by attending tutorials and by reading the sixth edition of the "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association" (one of the PSYC105 required textbooks).

Some starter references have been provided for you (see iLearn for details). You MUST read, use and cite these references in your report. Students are also required to find at least THREE additional references (peer-reviewed articles published in a scientific journal) of their own to use in the report. The Group Presentation assessment will help students with this task. When selecting articles to use as references, think about what will most assist you in telling a logical story. In using published research to support and evaluate the research project in your report, you are expected to reflect carefully on the instructions and feedback given during the tutorials.

Participating in tutorials will be essential for writing your research report. During tutorials, the literature will be reviewed, the class project will be discussed, hypotheses will be generated, data will be presented, and APA Style guidelines will be reviewed. Additionally, you also will assess a past report using the unit’s marking criteria. This activity will be invaluable in helping you to avoid common pitfalls encountered when writing your first psychology research report!

The research report must be submitted electronically via a Turnitin link on iLearn. Turnitin is anti-plagiarism software that will compare your paper to your classmates' papers, to papers from previous students at Macquarie University and other universities, as well as to material on the Internet (e.g., the articles you will be citing, websites, etc.).  Students should take note of the similarity index of their report when it is uploaded (though please note that it can take up to 24 hours for the Turnitin report to be processed). Students can delete and re-upload their report as many times as they like until the report deadline. Please note that if you want to re-upload a paper, you must wait at least one hour from withdrawing a previous document. Thus, the last time you can check your similarity indices is at 4pm on 03/10/2017 if you want the opportunity to upload a revision. 

We expect that students are aware of what does and doesn’t constitute academic dishonesty and plagiarism. To learn about this, students are expected to complete the online Academic Integrity Module for Students: a link can be found on the PSYC105 iLearn page or via this website http://students.mq.edu.au/support/learning_skills/academic_integrity_module_for_students/.  Students are also expected to read Macquarie University's Academic Honesty Policy, http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html. Not knowing what constitutes an act of academic dishonestly is not grounds for excusing inappropriate behaviour.

Students should be aware that iLearn and Turnitin can lag when large numbers of students are uploading documents at the same time. Submission time for assignments will be counted as the time the assessment was received, not the time the uploading began. Because of this, make sure you don't leave your submission to 4:55pm the day it is due! Late penalties will be applied to assignments that are received after the due time.

Penalties will be applied when requirements are not met: 

·  A penalty of 5% of the maximum mark per day (including weekends) will be applied to late assignments. For example, if a student submits the Research Report one day late, then 1.5 marks [= 5% x 30 (worth 30% of the final grade)] will be subtracted from the original mark. If a student completes the Research Report 3 days late, then 5.5 marks [= 3(5% x 30)] will be subtracted from the original mark. Assignments received after the 5pm deadline are considered late (even if it is only a matter of minutes!)

·  A penalty of 5% of the maximum mark (1.5 marks [= 5% x 30]) will be deducted from the research report for every additional 150 words over or under the limit.

Attend tutorials and visit iLearn for information on marking criteria.

Presentations at scientific conferences are another method that psychologists use for disseminating and learning about research findings. Accordingly, during the Week 6 tutorial, your group will give a 10-minute presentation on one research article that you find which is relevant to the Research Report. (This article must not be one of the starter references you have been provided with.) The presentation must be done using PowerPoint or another computer-based presentation software. Presentations are to cover the entire research process (e.g., background, methods, results, discussion), similar to a research report. Students will form their groups in the Week 2 tutorial, and be expected to find time to work together between then and Week 6 when the presentations will take place.

Each member of the group is expected to present (speak) for approximately the same amount of time, so you will need to divide the 10 minutes up accordingly. This could be achieved by each member covering different aspects of their presentation (e.g., one person to cover the background information, one person to cover the methodology, one person to cover the results, and another person to cover the discussion), or some other arrangement that the group thinks is fair. Even if different people present different segments, presentations should flow as if one person has written the talk. This means that a good presentation requires great teamwork! Finally, academic integrity applies to research presentations, so do not forget to cite and reference appropriately.

Your team should arrive to the Week 6 tutorial with a copy of your presentation saved to a USB device and with a hard-copy of your presentation to submit to your tutor. Failure to present your tutor with a hard-copy of your presentation at the beginning of the tutorial will result in a penalty.

If you cannot attend your Week 6 tutorial due to a serious and unavoidable disruption and you are not there for the presentation, and if your team agrees that you fully contributed to the development of the presentation, you may lodge a Disruption to Studies request via ask.mq.edu.au and apply for an alternate time to deliver the entire presentation on your own in front of your tutor and/or the unit convener and/or the assistant to the unit convener. This will only be considered if the request meets the requirements of Disruption to Studies (see http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/disruption_studies/policy.html for information on the policy).

One-third of PSYC105 course content is focused on applied psychological statistics; both learning the fundamental concepts and understanding how to summarise data and perform statistical analyses using the statistical software Stata. Your ability to understand statistical concepts is assessed in weekly, online quizzes that occur during Weeks 2-13.

Statistics quizzes are to be completed in students’ own time throughout the week. Each quiz will cover information delivered that week in lectures and the corresponding textbook sections. The quizzes open each Monday at 9am and close the following Sunday at 5pm. Each quiz is comprised of 5 questions (short-answer or multiple-choice format). The quizzes are to be completed within the online statistics textbook (see 'Delivery and Resources section').

The final exam is held during the university final examination period (13/11/2017 – 01/12/2017) and consists of 95 multiple-choice questions. Students are allowed 2 hours plus 10 minutes reading time to complete the exam. Questions are derived from the lectures (including statistics lectures), tutorials, and the required readings. There will be five response options for each question. There is only one correct answer to each question. Wrong answers are not penalised (that is, the total score is simply the sum of correct answers: you are not penalised for guessing). Past exam papers are not available, but a full-length practice exam will be available on iLearn after the final course content has been taught (end of Week 13).

Students complete the multiple choice exam by filling in a multiple choice answer sheet. These sheet are scanned and read by a computer to produce each student’s final exam mark. It is crucial that you write your name and Student ID number on both the final exam question paper and also the multiple choice answer sheet during exam time. Failing to do either or both of these, or incorrectly entering your details, will result in your exam not being marked: how can we give you marks if we don’t know who you are?! Don’t let all the hard work you put into the final exam go to waste by not filling in the answer sheet correctly!

You are expected to present yourself for examination at the time and place designated in the University Examination Timetable. The timetable will be available in Draft form approximately eight weeks before the commencement of the examinations and in Final form approximately four weeks before the commencement of the examinations. http://www.timetables.mq.edu.au/exam