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School of Psychology Office: psychologyoffice@adelaide.edu.au; ph +61 8313 5693

Students will attend 6 Research seminars designed to introduce the research process and develop the
skills necessary for successful completion of the research project component:

The seminars are held on Monday afternoons and we treat attendance at the seminars as an important component of the assessment and development of students. Attendance at 75% of the seminars for the full seminar time is a requirement
and the thesis will not be marked if this requirement is not met.

An attendance sheet will be circulated during each seminar to keep a record and non-attendance is only accepted under exceptional circumstances (illness, deaths in the family, serious accidents). Seminar attendance also requires professional behaviour and apologies should be submitted prior to the seminar if students cannot attend.

1. Demonstrated original and useful contribution to psychological knowledge;

2. Mastery of the content psychology areas across the discipline

3. Ability to develop clear arguments that justify the research aims and cogently discuss the extent to which the aims have been borne out in the findings of the research thesis;

4.  Deep understanding of sound research methodology in psychology

5. The ability to apply appropriate quantitative and/or qualitative data analysis; and

6. A critical awareness of the implications of the findings as well as the strengths and limitations of the research thesis. 

The required resources in Honours are defined by supervisors of the research thesis.

Students will be introduced to key resources required to complete their research thesis within the school including;

Test Library
Research Participation Pool
Ethics Committee and Sub-Committee

The seminars in semester 2 are held in weeks 1-6 and are 2 hours in duration (depending on the topic and amount of interaction).

All other course content is placed online.

Please note that workload is across 1 year for thesis components

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course
requirements.

Lectures:  6 x 2 hours  = 12 hours
Ethics Application & Proposal: 20 hours
Research Presentation preparation:  30 hours
Independent research:  65 hours
Final submission: 3 hours
Supervision Meetings: 26 hours

Total: 156

Seminars require students to bring along drafts of the components of the thesis for workshops and interactive feedback

Seminar 1: Abstract and Introduction

Seminar 2: Method

Seminar 3: Results and Figures

Seminar 4: Discussion

Seminar 5: Thesis submission & Assessment procedures

Seminar 6: Life after thesis: Postgraduate pathways to professional practice and research careers

The thesis represented 50% of the weighting for the final Honours result (and 100% of the assessment within the PSYCHOL 4200A/B course).

It assesses all Learning Outcomes in the course and represents a substantial piece of independent research work carried out under supervision.

Research Thesis Requirement

The School offers opportunity for both quantitative and qualitative research without bias and across a wide range of topics.  Our concern is that the methodology and report should be appropriate for the nature of the research.  Given that quantitative and qualitative research have different conventions, the following should be read with care:

The Australian Psychological Society Course Accreditation Guidelines for Fourth Year courses (June 2010) stipulates a research project with the  following requirements:

1.1.11     The research project must include an individual research question, individual intensive empirical literature review, individual data analysis, individual reporting of results and discussion, but may involve shared data collection. The research project should be structured so that students participate in all of the steps involved in research including the formulation of research questions, the design of the study including selection of appropriate methodology, the collection and analysis of data to test the
research question, the interpretation of the findings and the writing up of the report. The research question being pursued should be psychological in nature.

4.1.12    The research question being pursued must address issues specifically relevant to the field of psychology.

4.1.13     The research project may be supervised either solely or jointly, but in all cases at least one supervisor must be a member of the academic staff from the Psychology AOU.

4.1.14    The research project should be written up, adhering to APA format, and presented as a report for assessment. The report should include a substantial literature review and may take the final form of a traditional thesis, or a literature review accompanied by a report of the research presented in the format of a peer-reviewed scientific journal article.

4.1.15   The total length of the text of the written research report should be 9000 words. Data collected for the research project must be available for inspection by APAC on request.


At the 成人大片: The thesis is required to be of a length of 9,000 words NOT INCLUDING the abstract, declaration, acknowledgements, title page, table of contents, in-text tables, in-test figures, title of tables and figures, references in the Reference section and the appendicies (which are NOT marked by the examiner and are simply there to clarify any in-text materials). The word count INCLUDES Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, in-text citations, quotes and references, and in-text statistics.

The presentation of the thesis must adhere to APA (Publication Manual of American Psychological Association, 6th Edn.) format for
an Empirical Study as per Chapter 2 of the APA manual and a copy of the APA guide is available from the school office for use by Honours students. Some theses (ie., qualitative or discourse analytic theses) will not fit into this format and as such an non-empirical thesis format should be used. 

Theses will be stored electronically in the Digital Thesis Repository of the Barr Smith Library. Those theses successfully submitted for publication may be eligible for an award (please see the School of Psychology home page for details).

Honours Thesis Criteria

An outstanding thesis in Honours Psychology should reflect all of the following qualities. It should demonstrate:

(a)   originality and/or a useful contribution to psychological knowledge;

(b)   mastery of the content area;

(c)    the ability to develop clear arguments that justify the research aims and cogently discuss the extent to which the aims have been borne out in the findings;

(d)   clarity and quality of written expression including appropriate figures and tables;

(e)   a sound research methodology;

(f)    the ability to apply appropriate quantitative and/or qualitative data analysis;
and,

(g)   a critical awareness of the implications of the findings as well as the strengths and limitations of the study.

 

Further details regarding the assessment criteria and assessment process for theses can be obtained from the Psychology Honours handbook.

The submission of the thesis is electronic and will be outlined in week 5 of the seminar series. Submission of data, consent forms and return of equipment to the School must concurrently with the submission of the thesis. Please refer to the Psychology Honours Handbook for details.