Final Year Project Interim Proposal Form
PROPOSAL FORM GUIDANCE NOTES:
Your interim proposal should give a brief but informative overview of your planned final year project (max. 2000 words) and should include the following sections:
1. Summaries
There are two summaries – a lay summary and a scientific summary. The scientific summary should be written for a reader with a good knowledge of psychology (e.g. your supervisor) whereas the lay summary should be written for someone with a good general education, but no specific knowledge of psychology (e.g. a friend or relative). Both summaries should give a clear overview of what you intend to do, why it needs to be done, how you are going to do it and what it might tell us. These should contain no more than 200 words each.
2. Background
This section should provide the rationale for your study giving details as to why your study is interesting and important and what it hopes to achieve. There should be a handful of relevant references in this section. Max. 400 words.
3. Questions to be answered
Write a single sentence question for each of the major scientific questions your study hopes to address.
4. Plan of investigation
Give details about how you plan to answer these questions giving details of your methods. Provide details of the experimental design and include information such as participant numbers, population sample, any equipment or stimuli you might use, counterbalancing etc. etc. Give enough detail to make it clear that you have thought it through and know what you are doing. Max. 400 words.
5. Details of data analysis
Once collected, how will the data be analysed? For example, if using ANOVA, give details of data pre-processing, factors and levels, planned or post hoc analyses etc. etc. Say why the analysis is appropriate. (Max. 400 words)
6. Expected outcomes
What results do you expect to find? What are the possible outcomes of your analyses? If the experiment worked as planned, what might the results look like? (Max. 200 words).
7. Theoretical implications
If you found your expected outcomes, what would it all mean? How would this extend our knowledge in this area of psychology? (Max. 200 words).
8. Timeline
Give an indication of how long you think ethics clearance, stimulus preparation, participant recruitment, data collection, analysis and interpretation will take.
9. Ethics, risk assessment and RPS
a. You should already have applied for ethics approval in conjunction with your supervisor. Explain which sections of the ethics checklist your study needs approval for. Remember, you cannot begin to collect data until you have ethics clearance. Tick the appropriate boxes.
b. You must complete a University Risk Assessment before you can collect data.
c. Insert the description of your experiment on the RPS if applicable.
10. References
Fully reference all citations.
DO NOT SUBMIT THIS ELECTRONICALLY
Final Year Project Interim Proposal Form
Student:Student ID:
Supervisor:
Project Title:
1. Summaries
Lay Summary (max 200 words):
Scientific Summary (max 200 words):
2. Background (Max. 400 words)
3. Questions to be answered
4. Plan of investigation (max 400 words)
5. Details of data analysis
6. Expected outcomes
7. Theoretical implications
8. Timeline
9.
a. Ethics
List of relevant items from ethics checklist:
I have ethics approval
I have submitted an ethics request and awaiting the outcome
I have discussed ethics with my supervisor and an application is underway
I have done nothing about getting approval for my study.
b. Risk Assessment
I have completed a risk assessment and my risk score is:
c. Research Participation Scheme
I have completed the 1 page debrief sheet for participants (see Appendix 1)
Description of study on RPS system (max. 200 words).
10. References
Supervisory Comments
Experimental Debriefing Information
School of Psychology
University of Nottingham
Name of Experimenter: / Email of Experimenter:Name of Supervisor: / Email of Supervisor:
Title of Experiment:
Background/Hypothesis:
Design and Dependent Measures:
Intended Analysis:
Useful Reading: