T1 - University Library - University of Saskatchewan

B. Second Assignment (30%): Term paper (Thesis paper)
Your term paper (second assignment) is to write a 10-15 page double spaced 12 point font
persuasive thesis paper ( no less than 3500 words, formatted to APA style and printed on a good
quality printer) on a topic of central relevance to child psychology. Remember that a thesis paper
makes a specific claim about what has been discovered in research on the particular topic of your
choice and examines the evidence in support of that thesis. Thus you must examine 4 empirical
articles from journals which publish empirical research pertaining to child psychology. Make
sure that each of the articles reports an empirical study on a topic having to do with children’s
behaviour and development pertaining to the topic of your choice. Note that a review article or
an opinion paper (journalist piece) will not be appropriate for this assignment. Following
the paragraph stems above, part of your assignment is to prepare a summary of the problem,
method, results, discussion and conclusions of the four articles. Thus, your summary of each
empirical article must include a description of the research question or hypothesis which was
examined in the study, a description of the method used to investigate the research question, a
description of the measures of psychological phenomena under investigation including evidence
for their reliability and validity, a description of how the data were collected, a description of
what was discovered (i.e. which hypotheses were supported or what answers were obtained for
the research questions) and a discussion of the limitations of the study (i.e., to what population
can we generalize the findings, are there competing explanations for the findings or are there
variables that need to be taken into account in subsequent studies, etc.)
At the beginning of your thesis paper, you must introduce your topic by defining it and locating it
within the general field of psychology. You must then present a specific thesis or proposition
about a concept, a discovery or theoretical idea for which you hope to provide evidence. You
must provide a summary of each of four empirical articles you choose and show how each of the
articles supports your thesis. You must give your critique of the research articles (i.e., indicate
why you trust the evidence given in the studies and determine whether the inevitable flaws in the
research studies cause you to be cautious about your claim of support to your thesis from the
evidence given in those articles.) Be sure to discuss any possible threats to internal and external
validity posed by the research design(s) used (see Chapter 2 of our text.). Your conclusion must
indicate how well the research you quoted supports the thesis of your paper. You must hand in a
copy of the Abstract of each of the empirical articles you choose. (Some of all of these
abstracts maybe from your first assignment).
The main body of your paper develops the thesis and provides references to your library research
sources to back up your claim. Be careful to document the ideas and references. Please note that
it is an academic offence, called plagiarism, to use another's (including students who have written
papers in preceding years) ideas without acknowledging them. Important points are:
1. Spelling, grammar, neatness and organization are crucial.
2. Your title page must include the title, author, class, and date and running head.
3. On the second page must appear an Abstract which is a summary of your thesis
statement, a summary of your library research regarding the thesis and a summary of
your conclusion. It should resemble the abstracts of the research studies you found.
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