FALL 2009 - Research Competition Information

FALL 2009 - Research Competition Information

Psychology Research Area & Psi Chi

Research Competition (FALL 2009)

Research Competition Information packet

Department of Psychology

California State University, Northridge

Table of Contents

Title Pagei

Table of Contentsii

What is the Research Competition1

Reasons for the Research Competition2

Important Dates3

Competition Participants & Awards4
Awards

Rules & Requirements5
General Rules & Requirements
Application Deadlines
Eligibility
Submission Limits6
Sponsors
Judging Criteria
Posters Presented must have a researcher present all day
Poster Guidelines7
Facilities
Timing

Judging8
Breakdown of the Judging of Presentations
Form10

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What is the Research Competition

The CSUN Psychology Department Research Competition is a friendly contest for undergraduate students enrolled in Psychology courses conducting empirical research. The undergraduate students will present the findings of their research at the Psychology Department's Poster Presentation Sessions. At the end of the poster presentations, three to four faculty judges will award one 1st and 2ndplace award.

The competition is held to assist students who intend to present posters at larger psychology conferences like APA. This is a great chance to display your hard work to faculty and students in the Psychology Department, as well as gain useful experience that may help in your future careers.

Reasons for the Research Competition

Even before they have completed a written draft of their experiments, psychologists often report their results at professional meetings.

Conventions are a good means to:

• Report preliminary findings in a new area of research
• Receive feedback: from others about their findings, probable interpretations of the data, and future avenues to pursue
• Gain exposure in the field
• Learn about others' findings.

Conventions accept three modes of presentation. A researcher can submit their results for presentation as a Poster, as a Verbal Presentation, or within a Symposium. The researcher who wants to present results via a poster submits an abstract to the convention sponsors. Once accepted, the presentation will be assigned a time and place for display. Poster presentations require the researcher to prepare a brief, neat, easily understandable presentation of their theory (or purpose), methods, results, and possible interpretations on a large poster or a collection of small poster boards. During the assigned time (usually 2 to 3 hours), the researcher stands next to the poster and often has a short manuscript to hand out. Interested viewers attending the convention look at the posters being presented and have the opportunity to discuss topics of interest with the researcher. When the specified time for presentation has elapsed, each researcher removes their poster.

For the CSUN Psychology Department's Research Competition, ONLY Posters will be presented. For the Department's competition there will be two poster sessions, held on the same day. Each project will be presented at only one session. For further details about the rules and regulations, please see the section titled, “Rules and Requirements.”

Important Dates

Fall 2009

The Research Competition will be held on Monday December7th from 8:00am to 1:00pm. The competition will be held in the Whitsett room.

All submissions for entry into the Research Competition should be received by the Research Coordinator’s Office by 4:30pm on Monday, November 16th. Any experiment that has not yet completed research by this deadline should submit the preliminary findings or a statement of what your study will support. (It is highly recommended that your study be finished with data collection by the entry deadline.)

No late submissions will be accepted.

The faculty judges will be making a preliminary finding and a final decision in order to select the winner. The preliminary decisions for acceptance into the competition will be announced on Wednesday, November 25th. The announcement will be made via email and posted on the Research Area bulletin board. As soon as the decisions are made, Psi Chi will call the participants to reserve dates for each experimenter’s participation in the competition.

Competition participants & Awards

The CSUN Psychology Department Research Competition is meant only for undergraduate research. The Competition is a friendly contest for undergraduate students enrolled in Psychology courses conducting empirical research. The majority of research was collected during students experiments run for the PSY 321 course. The undergraduate students will present the findings of their research at the Research Competition. At the end of the poster presentations the winners will be announced.

Awards:

1st place:

One first place award will be granted. The first place experiment will be listed on the Psi Chi Research Competition plaque. The winning study will also be submitted the “Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research” by our own Psi Chi organization in hopes of getting the study published.

Psi Chi has also decided to give the first author full Psi Chi regalia if the winner is a member.

Any other awards are still under consideration.

rules & requirements

General Rules & Requirements

The CSUN Psychology Research Competition is a volunteer competition. Presenting your study at the competition is not mandatory for PSY 321 students; however, if you are hoping to present a research project at the annual WPA convention, or another convention, we recommend you get some real life experience here at CSUN before you go.

Each semester the competition will be presided over by faculty judges, Psi Chi, and the Research Coordinator’s Office. The judging will be left solely to the faculty judges.

In order to be eligible for the competition, each experiment must comply with ALL rules and requirements including strictly adhering to the application deadlines.

Application deadlines

All applications must be received by 4:30pm on Monday November 16th.

No applications will be accepted without a faculty sponsor's signature.

Nominated students should bring their signed and completed applications andabstracts to the Psychology Department's Research Coordinator's Office, SH333-G, by the deadline. If necessary, the Research Coordinator will contact you by email about your submitted information. Partners working on a research project together should be nominated on the same application form.

Any experiment that has not yet completed research by this deadline should submit the preliminary findings or a statement of what your study will support. (It is highly recommended that your study be finished with data collection by the entry deadline.)

Eligibility

To be eligible, students must be enrolled as an undergraduate and must have made a significant contribution to the research project they propose to present.

Participants in the Research Competition must have a faculty sponsor who is also their professor. Each faculty member, who teaches a lab that conducts empirical research, may sponsor two to four applicants.

Students must have doneORIGINAL research or creative projects and must NOT have participated in the Research Competition with this project in the past. A project is eligible as long as the student is an undergraduate and has not used this specific study in the Research Competition.Students withPSY 499 projects can be nominatedas well.The 499 students will be judged separately and have separate awards than the rest of the participants.

Faculty acting as judges cannot nominate students for the competition within that semester; however another consenting faculty member could make any nominations in their place.

Submission Limits

Regardless of how many submissions we receive, only thirty (30) student entries will be able to participate in the Research Competition due to spacing issues. All of these entries must be complete, have turned in their application, be verified, and turned into the Research Coordinator’s Office to be official.

This preliminary round will be decided by the faculty judges based on the Abstracts and submission paperwork. The finalists will be announced onMonday, November 30nd and then will be contacted by Psi Chi.

Sponsors

Faculty should nominate students whose projects seem promising and/or students who show a great interest in participating in the competition. Faculty can nominate a maximum of four students from each of their lab sections of any undergraduate course where empirical research is conducted. The faculty sponsor should not be included in any of the student’s posters. Students who did original research or creative projects from past undergraduate courses can be nominated and sponsored for the competition, (provided they are still undergraduates). Faculty supervising 499 projects can nominate one or two students.

Judging Criteria

A sample copy of the judging form is located under the section titled “Judging” of the Research Competition Packet.

Posters presented must have a research member present all day

Only posters will be presented at the CSUN Research Competition.

Poster group times will be decided based on contact from the Research Area or Psi Chi. The timeslots will be on a first offered, first response (first come, first serve) basis.

If a selected group cannot present in one of the timeslots available, that group will forfeit the chance to participate in this Research Competition but will still be allowed to resubmit this data in another semester’s competition as long as all other conditions listed are met.

The Research Competition Organizers (Psi Chi and the Research Coordinator’s Office) are not required to have the full allotment of posters present at the competition. If an experiment group cannot attend the organizers are not necessarily required to add one of the groups from the preliminary judging

Poster Guidelines

The poster has to meet APA standards. For more information and guidelines visit

You may provide copies of your presentation to inquiring viewers if you wish.

Facilities

Please do all preparatory work on your posters before you arrive.

The Psychology Department will NOT be providing scissors, glue, a paper-cutter, glitter, copies, or anything else your poster group would like to use on the posters.

The presenters of each poster will be allowed twenty (20) minutes to set up before the Research Competition begins. Each session will have this twenty minute allotment.

Timing

All students selected for our department's Research Competition should be strongly encouraged to also send in an application for the Western Psychological Association's (WPA) Convention, for either the Regular or Psi Chi Poster Sessions.

Judging

General Guidelines

1) IDEA(15 Total Points)

Creativity (5)

a. Authors are able to look at the research question in an original and innovate way.

Resourcefulness of Approach to Research Question(5)

a. Authors are creative in terms of research design and function.

External Validity (5)

2) POSTER CONTENT(50 total points)

Introduction(10)

a.The project includes a brief overall review of past literature.

b. Literature review helps to establish conceptual validity.

c. References key theories relevant to the current study. (if applicable)

d. Is clear, organized and easy to understand.

Methodology (10)

a. Purpose is clearly stated in line with the overall objective of the current study.

b. Hypotheses are logical, specific, testable, and make predictions about the findings

c. The materials and procedure used are parsimonious, deterministic, and empirical.

d. Construct validity of IV and DV.

Results (15)

a. Use appropriate statistical analysis (significant findings are not necessary)

b. Able to clearly explain their results.

Discussion (15)

a. There is a logical and clear take-home message.

b. Presenters are able to explain how the current findings fit within the current body of literature on the given topic.

c. There is a reference back to literature on the topic.

d. Authors refer to the limitations of the study.

e. Authors provide ideas for future research.

3) COMMUNICATION(35 Total Points)

Aesthetics (5)

a. Creativity in terms of overall appearance

Readability (5)

a. Overall the poster is easy to read and understand.

b. Charts/Graphs/ Data Displays and Statistics are easy to understand and

Organization (5)

a. The poster should have a natural and obvious organization that flows easily

Presenter Communication (20)

a. Ability to explain studies purpose.

b. Able to communicate and explain the findings of the study.

c. Ability to receive and answer questions.

Judging form

Below is the judging formed that will be used for the competition

RESEARCH COMPETITION JUDGING FORM
IDEA (15 total points) / Info / Points Awarded (comments)
Creativity / 5 points
Resourcefulness of Approach to Research Question / 5 points
External Validity / 5 points
POSTER CONTENT (50 total points) / Info / Points Awarded (comments)
Introduction / 10 points
Methodology / 10 points
Results / 15 points
Discussion / 15 points
COMMUNICATION(35 total points) / Info / Points Awarded (comments)
Aesthetics / 5 points
Readability / 5 points
Organization / 5 points
Presenter Communication / 20 points

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