PSY10008 Fundamentals of Psychology Assignment

Assignment overview

This assignment is designed to help you develop an important skill related to lab reports: hypothesis writing.

Hypotheses are usually developed from a specific theory or build upon previous research. It is a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables and should be a testable prediction about what you expect to happen in a study. Hypotheses can be thought of as a bridge that links the introduction of your lab report together with your results and discussion. Hypotheses that are not written well or accurately will have negative impacts on major sections (e.g. Introduction, Results, and Discussion) of your lab report. The feedback from this assignment will directly relate to Assignment 1B: Lab report (https://swinburneonline.instructure.com/courses/4821/assignments/42518) .

Note: Although this assignment does not contribute to your final mark for this unit, your hypotheses will form part of Assignment 1B: Lab report (https://swinburneonline.instructure.com/courses/4821/assignments/42518) , which contributes 35% to your final mark.

This assignment supports unit learning outcomes 3, 4 and 5.

Assignment details

Background

This lab report examines the effects of two different studying techniques on people’s test performance: massed practice versus distributed practice. Massed practice refers to studying or rehearsing information in one period (i.e. cramming), whereas distributed practice (also known as spaced practice) refers to spacing out the time spent studying over several sessions with a break in between (see Figure 1 from Carpenter et al., 2012, p. 370)

Importantly, the key difference is not the amount of time spent studying, but rather when the person spends the time studying and how much time passes between study periods.

For example, you can either study for eight hours straight for an exam (i.e. massed practice), or you can study for one hour each across eight different days (i.e. distributed practice).

In addition to exploring study strategy, in this lab report, you will also examine the relationship between mind wandering during studying and people’s ability to learn and recall information (Risko et al., 2012). Mind wandering is a growing topic of research that builds on existing knowledge about the importance of attention in encoding. Thus, you will also learn about the research into the role of attention and staying on task when trying to learn information

Aim

The study you will be writing about in Assignment 1B: Lab report (https://swinburneonline.instructure.com/courses/4821/assignments/42518) will compare two study strategies (massed practice versus spaced practice) on participants’ performance on a fill-in-the-blank test. The study will also examine the relationship between mind wandering and test performance.

Therefore, in the study, you will manipulate one independent variable with two levels—study strategy with massed practice versus spaced practice. In addition, two dependent variables will be measured—test performance and mind wandering. The two main research questions that the study will try to answer are:

1. Which study strategy will lead to the most accurate test performance?
2. Is there a relationship between mind wandering and test performance? If so, what is the strength and direction of the relationship?

Assignment 1A FAQS document (https://swinburneonline.instructure.com/courses/4821/files/3376041?wrap=1) (https://swinburneonline.instructure.com/courses/4821/files/3376041/download?download_frd=1)

Operationalising Hypotheses (read this for support writing your hypotheses) (https://swinburneonline.instructure.com/courses/4821/files/3375980?wrap=1) (https://swinburneonline.instructure.com/courses/4821/files/3375980/download?download_frd=1)

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