PSYC 1010
Assignment
Article Published in a Psychology Journal
The most important aspect of this assignment is for you to show ability to INDEPENDENTLY follow the outlined steps and to pace yourself to submit the assignment by the specified deadline.
Please do not ask your instructors to pre-approve your selection of articles. It is your assignment and part of the assignment is proper selection of articles, concepts etc..
This project will give you an opportunity to apply psychological research to understand real world problems. You are asked to locate and read two articles:
- an article from the popular press describing a current issue or event that is related to the material covered in the course.
- a research study report on that same topic from a peer-reviewed psychology journal.
Finally, you are asked to consider how the results of the research study relate to the current issue/event from the everyday press.
Please note that the page count is a rough estimate.
Please follow the steps:
- Find a recent article (published within last three months) describing a real world issue/current event in popular press that you can relate to psychological concept, topic, or a theory covered in the course (do not use a report of a study or a summary ofstudies in psychology). The examples of good choices of sources are (use archives or feel free to locate the hard copies in the library):
CBC Toronto Star Now
BBC
Examples of current issues/events (do not use those for your paper):
Not fitting into the gender binary makes public washrooms my enemy Why CBC is turning off Facebook comments on news posts for a month In The Heights: Lin-Manuel Miranda sorry for lack of Afro-Latinos
- Read the article and identify 3-5 relevant psychological concept(s)/theories that relate to the issue/event.
Examples of psychological concepts: obedience, operant conditioning, biological drives, nature-nurture, attachment, stress and coping, etc.
Locate a recent (published within last 10 years) empirical research article (either correlational or experimental design) from a peer -reviewed psychology journal that relates to the same psychological concept and to the issue/current event identified in part one. It is important to select a ‘research article’ describing a study done by the authors (hint: look for the ‘method’ and ‘results’ sections) NOT a review article NOR a meta-analytical article.
- Read the research study and think about how the results may relate to the current issue/event
- Write a 5-7 double-spaced page paper that addresses the following points:
In one paragraph summarize the real-world issue/current event selected in part one. Submit the article describing the current issue. (2 points)
Clearly describe the psychological concept(s) or theory that is related to the selected issue/current event. Incorporate plenty of terms from your textbook to demonstrate your understanding. 2-3 pages (6 points)
Locate the research article relevant to the concept/theory and to your selected current issue/event. Your paper needs to relate to at least one of the concepts identified in point 2 (however, it could relate to more than one of those concepts). In a brief paragraph describe your search strategy (which search engine? keywords? how did you retrieve the article?). Maximum ½ page.
See Psychology Research Guide on information about searching for the peer-reviewed articles.
To search for the article, use one of the online academic search engines like PsychInfo, Web of Science or PubMed.
Information on how to use those engines is available at York’s library website at PsycInfo: http://researchguides.library.yorku.ca/psycinfo
or other search engines http://researchguides.library.yorku.ca/content.php?pid=239475&sid=1975887
Summarize the recent research article related to the current event/issue. Describe what the study was investigating (what was the research question? hypotheses?), what kind of research design was used (e.g. correlational, experimental)? Identify the variables (dependent, independent?) and describe the findings (what were the results and how do they relate to the hypotheses?). 1-2 pages (6 points)
Describe how the results of the research article may relate to the real-world issue/current event. E.g. can the results of the study be used to explain the current issue/event? Or do the results suggest how to deal with the issue, or how to prevent it in the future? 1-2 pages (4 points)
Check grammar, spelling, and organization of the paper. Use short paragraph format.
This is not a formal APA submission. However, when using other sources, you need to cite them in APA style.
Include the full reference of the research article (author, year, title, journal name, volume, pages) using APA style. (4 points)
For more information about APA style check the OWL Purdue website: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introductio n.html
Submit to TURNITIN ASSIGNMENT: your 5-7 pages of the word document only In addition, submit to ASSIGNMENT ARTICLES forum on Moodle:
- the article (pdf format)
- the popular media article (screenshot image format, .doc, .docx, or .pdf only) All of the files must to be identified with your name. Assuming your name is John Student, you would name the documents JohnStudentAssignment, JohnStudentPeerPaper, JohnStudentMedia
Please note that the number of pages suggested in this document is to be treated as an estimate not precise count.
Please note that there will be lateness penalty: 5% per day.
