Topic overview:
Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS; also referred to as Supplemental Instruction, SI, and Peer Assisted Learning, PAL) is an academic support program in which weekly, voluntary peer-learning sessions, facilitated by senior students, are held alongside challenging undergraduate units. As Dawson, van der Meer, Skalicky, and Cowley (2014) observed in their recent systematic review, a considerable amount of research has focussed on assessing the efficacy of PASS, although virtually none of it has been experimental. In this assignment, your task is to design a piece of experimental research that could be used to test the efficacy of PASS. While doing this, you may come to the conclusion that your experiment could never actually be conducted in ‘real life’. That’s okay. The purpose of this assignment is simply to get you thinking about everything that must be considered when designing an experiment.

Formatting requirements:
There are many decisions that need to be made and defended in designing any piece of research and, as this is your first attempt at such a task, we are going to guide you through the process by asking a series of questions.
Your answers to all 10 questions must be contained within four pages (excluding reference list) that meet the following formatting requirements:
a. 12-point Times New Roman font.
b. 2.5 cm (1 inch) margins.
c. 1.5 line spacing.
d. Indent the first line of each paragraph.
Note that you do not need to re-type the questions before your answers, or leave blank lines between answers. Just number each answer clearly.
Likewise, you do not need to write an “introduction” or a “conclusion”.

1. Provide a brief (absolutely no more than one page) critical overview of relevant research that has informed the development of your experiment. In this overview, please cite at least three pieces of original research and aim to address the following issues with regards to each:
(a) What research methods were used?
(b) What was found?
(c) What (if any) is the key limitation of the research? Ideally, your answer to this question will be an integrated review (in the style that you would find in the introduction of a journal article), rather than three discreet paragraphs, each dedicated to a single study. (15 Marks)
Now that you are familiar with the relevant body of literature, you can begin describing and defending the design of your experiment. Keep it simple. You only need one IV (with two levels) and one DV, and you are not expected to propose anything methodological or statistical that is not covered in the first six lecture topics.

2. In one sentence, specify a research question for your experiment. (5 Marks)

3. Use your research question to develop a (i.e., ONE) hypothesis for your research. (5 Marks)

4. What is your IV (and what are its levels)? What is your DV? How will you operationally define these variables (i.e., how will you measure or manipulate each?), and what will the resultant data look like (i.e., will it be nominal data? Interval data?)? If your operational definitions are inspired by previous research, be sure to include the appropriate citations. (10 Marks)

5. Who are the proposed participants for your research? In your answer, please define the population, and explain how you will sample from this population. Also specify how large the sample is required to be, and justify this decision. Note that a good justification will demonstrate a clear understanding of a priori power analysis and related issues. (10 Marks)

6. Describe, in a systematic fashion, the procedure for your experiment. In your answer, describe how participants will be assigned to levels of your IV, and then describe what you will ask them to do. Again, if your proposed procedure has been inspired by previous research, don’t forget to include citations. (10 Marks)

7. Explain how you will test your hypothesis. What statistical test will you use? If your hypothesis is supported, what would you expect the results of this test to look like? (For example, what might the pvalue be? What might the group/condition means look like? How large do you expect the effect size to be?) What are the assumptions of your hypothesis test? How will you know whether or not these assumptions have been met? (15 Marks)

8. Describe one plausible threat to the internal validity of your study, and explain how you will address or limit the impact of this threat in your design. If your design does not address this threat, explain why not. (10 Marks)

9. Comment on the external validity of your study. (10 Marks)

10. Describe one ethical issue that you could encounter in this research, and how it might be addressed/resolved to the satisfaction of a Human Research Ethics Committee. If you don’t believe that it could be addressed/resolved to the satisfaction of a Human Research Ethics Committee, explain why not. (10 Marks)

Referencing: Students should use the 6th edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style when preparing this assignment. Note that the APA’s publication manual should be considered the definitive source for all APA style matters, and if you use an APA style guide from another source, you do so at your own risk. There are plenty of copies of the publication manual in the library.