Group Project
24 percent of final grade
The group project grade is comprised of three assignments described below. Each group will be required to submit their posters to display on August 141.
Assignment 1: APA-Style Research Poster (75%)
Each group is responsible for working together to design, create, and present an APA conference-style research poster based on the famous psychology study your group is assigned. Group assignments are based on your response to the Personal Information Survey, where you indicated which topics you are most interested in.
Below is a list of famous psychology research studies that we could cover this semester. Read the topics and decide which ones interest you the most. Rank order the top FIVE of those that you would like to learn about the most, and so on.
| Experiment | Topics | APA Citation | Download |
| Shock Experiment | Obedience, Authority, Social Psychology | Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378. | |
| Car Crash Experiment | Memory, Forgetting, Cognitive Psychology | Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of auto-mobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal behavior, 13, 585-589. | |
| Marshmallow Test | Self-control, Delayed gratification, Developmental Psychology | Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. B. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16 (2), 329. | |
| Subway Study | Bystander Effect, Prosocial Behavior | Piliavin, I. M., Rodin, J., & Piliavin, J. A. (1969). Good samaritanism: an underground phenomenon? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13(4), 289. | |
| Stanford Prison Experiment | Obedience, Authority, Social Psychology, Forensic Psychology | Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review, 30, 4-17. | |
| Strange Situation | Infants, Attachment, Developmental Psychology | Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bell, S. M. (1970). Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. Child Development, 41, 49-67. | |
| Little Albert | Learning, Conditioning, Infants, Behaviorism | Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3 (1), 1. |
Your group will take the famous study you are assigned and describe what the researchers did in your own words, to create an original APA poster project that will be shared and presented to the class during the “online” poster session on August 14.
Each group may organize the poster creatively, but the poster should include the following sections based largely on the sections of an APA style paper:
Background information about the literature or theory that prompted the research.
Participants: Who (what) and how they were selected
Materials: Equipment, measures, and materials used to collect data
Procedure: Treatment and data collection process
Description of the data analysis process and results. Does not need to be too detailed or statistics based. Use visualizations and charts to show findings.
Relating the findings to the previous literature, limitations & future directions.
Identify and describe any obvious violations of ethical standards in the study. Would an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approve this study today? If not, what changes might need to be made? Discuss anything that interests you related to the ethics of the study in this section.
The goal of this project is to provide you with the experience of creating a research poster that accurately and effectively shares information about this well-known, foundation study in psychology. Poster’s are one of the main ways that undergraduate students are asked to share and present their research. However, instead of conducting your own original research, in this project your group will be translating another researcher’s work into the approved APA poster presentation format.
An electronic version of the group’s final poster (e.g., pdf) needs to be turned in to Canvas by 11:59PM on August 13. Only one electronic submission is required per group, but the names of all group members must be listed on the final submission. Please see the additional materials and rubric for more details about the format and requirements for the poster. In order for the group to receive full credit the content on the poster should be well-written, accurate, and your original work.2
You should note that these are guidelines. You need to be creative and thoughtful in your creating of your poster. More information about the structure and format of your poster is describe in the poster slides below.
| Description | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Title Section: Chose a title that captures the interest of the audience and is relevant to poster’s content. Proper capitalization and grammar is used. Proper citation to the original authors of the article is included as sub-title. Names of all group members presented clearly in appropriate format. | 5% |
| Poster Layout: Sections of the poster are easy to identify and create a logical reading flow on the poster. Required sections are all present and complete including: 1) title, 2) introduction, 3) method, 4) results, 5) conclusion and 6) ethics. | 30% |
| Poster Sections: Relevant research used for topic area assigned; summarizing findings and not just repeating what the author said. Each section contains an appropriate amount of information to serve as aid in conversation about research. | 40% |
| Poster Visuals and Graphics: Pictures, tables, figures, or other items are used to illustrate concepts and add to the poster’s content. Graphics on the poster are all relevant to the topic and accurate based on the article. | 10% |
| Well-written: Grammar, use of formal writing style. Font used is clear and large enough to read from a distance. | 15% |
A note on formatting your poster: Several templates will be provided to help you in designing your poster. Additional resources instruction you how to design your research poster will be provided on Canvas. Please ask for help, if you or your group needs it.
Assignment 2: Poster Presentation (Individual) (15%)
Each member of the group will be responsible for individually recording a 3 to 5-minute audio recording of you presenting your group poster. During the presentation you should briefly describe what the researchers did and what they found in your own words. A rubric for the individual presentation grade will be posted to Canvas the week before the poster session in August. Your individual presentation is due on Canvas This individual presentation of your poster will be worth 15% of your poster grade.
Assignment 3: Peer Grading (10%)
On the day of the poster session, each group member will also turn in a peer evaluation of the fellow group members. 5% of your grade will come from the grade your fellow group members give you. If you do not turn in a peer grading form, then you will receive no points.
The other 5% of your participation grade will come from your “attendance” at the poster session. On August 14th, you will be asked review at least two of your peers poster presentations. These will be peers who are not in your poster group. You will be assigned poster presentations to review on Canvas. You will need to listen to the audio recordings, review the poster and fill out the rubric. If you do not complete this portion of the assignment, then you will receive no points.
Making Your Poster
See the slides below for more information about how to format and submit your poster project. Do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions or concerns!
🎥 Looking for a video? You can only find those on Canvas.
Either click on the slide area below or click Here to view it in fullscreen.
Use your keypad to navigate the slides.
Footnotes
Additional information and resources about the in-class poster session and how it will work will be provided after Exam 1.↩︎
If you get caught trying to destroy the planet and using GTP-chat or a similar LLM text generator service for this assignment, your entire group will get a zero for this part of the project.↩︎