Essay Instructions: Here is the project scenario:
You work at a university research clinic that sees a wide variety of clients from its large student population. The students range in age from 18-year-olds starting college to mid-60’s in some college and graduate programs. You are given one million dollars to design a research study exploring the efficacy of Forgiveness Therapy with the population of your choice. This study must be a true experimental design, either comparing Forgiveness Therapy with another counseling treatment or evaluating the effectiveness of Forgiveness Therapy alone. Design such a detailed study. This is called a research proposal. You will not actually be running the study, just proposing it.
Key material to help you in designing an efficacy study proposal may be found in chapters 8 (excluding the developmental designs) and 10 from the Jackson text. Consult with the efficacy studies exploring Forgiveness Therapy that are present in the empirical literature. There are several such studies on Forgiveness Therapy which are accessible in the Psychinfo database and other databases found in Liberty’s online library. Remember, not all studies on forgiveness are true experiments. Some are developmental surveys, correlational studies or use other designs. Focus on the true experiments only. The Jackson chapters mentioned highlight the characteristics that will help you recognize them. True experimental designs are covered in Week 6 lectures and in chapter 8 of the Jackson text. Prominent authors in forgiveness research include Robert Enright and Everett Worthington. They are a good place to start to find true experiments on Forgiveness Therapy. Do not use exactly the same populations they did in designing your study. You may get ideas about your potential design from them however. Just be sure to make it a new population you are investigating.
In addition to your Jackson text, both the APA manual and the Pyrczak & Bruce text, Writing Empirical Research Reports, will be of great help to you in completing this assignment. For an overall description of what should be included in an APA-formatted research proposal paper, read chapter 13 of the Jackson text and pages 4–69 and 306–316 of the APA manual. The Jackson text has a sample APA paper in chapter 14. Your write-up should be in APA format, divided into the sections below, and should address the following:
Title Page (Due in Week 3)
For information on how to write a title and what should be included in a title page, see the APA manual, pages 10–12, and Pyrczak & Bruce, chapters 1 and 5.
Make a title for the study. The title should not exceed 12 words.
Abstract (Due in Week 8)
The abstract is a word description of the proposed study. [Hint: Normally this is the last section of the proposed study that you write. Why? Because it’s easier to get a brief description of the proposed study once you’ve developed a detailed one.] For information on what should be included in the abstract, see the APA manual, pages 12–15, and Pyrczak & Bruce, chapter 13. The abstract should be under 120 words.
Introduction (Due in Week 3)
Normally in a real research article on Forgiveness Therapy, this is a thorough examination of the empirical forgiveness literature. For this project, you will only need to:
A. Briefly introduce the topic of forgiveness. (Define the construct of forgiveness using the research. Why is it important to study forgiveness in counseling?)
B. Briefly describe the model of Forgiveness Therapy you have chosen to investigate. (Hint: Robert Enright’s or Everett Worthington’s models have the most research.Enright’s model was discussed in the Forgiveness Video.) Include the basic stages of the Fogiveness Therapy model chosen.
C. Describe three empirical (true experiment) studies that have been done on your forgiveness model. What population was involved in each study?
D. Now, review the literature on your Forgiveness Therapy model to see if it has been used with any other populations.
E. Is there a population that needs further research or a population that has not been studied yet?
F. Choose the population that you want to study and beifly describe them (You will go into more detail about the population under the heading of Participants of the Methodology section)
G. Review the literature on this population.
1) Use descriptive statistics found in research articles about this population (for example, if your study is about adult survivors of child abuse, then you may include the statistics such as ? % of people have a history of child abuse etc).
2) Demonstrate what types of psychological symptoms, physical symptoms, or other issues/problems are common among this population using scholarly sources.
3) Argue the possibility that the Forgiveness Therapy may be effective in dealing with these problems using the previous studies. If you can find previous studies that have implemented Forgiveness Therapy as intervention, it makes it easy. If you find inconsistent findings, then you can state that further research is needed. If there is no empirical studies implemented the Forgiveness Therapy on this population, then you can highlight the importance of your study.
4) Your literature review should logically lead to the purpose/ rational for your study, and your hypothesis using these scholarly sources. The best literature review builds a case for your research hypothesis.
H. Provide one research hypothesis about this project. (Hint: Do you believe a using Forgiveness Therapy with this population will result in a reduction in psychological symptoms? Do you believe that a using Forgiveness Therapy with this population will increase this population’s ability to forgive?)
I. Indentify your independent and dependent variable(s).
The introduction should be 3–5 pages. For information on:
• Defining constructs and definitions – Pyrczak & Bruce – chapter 7
• Writing introductions and a literature review – Pyrczak & Bruce – chapter 6
• Writing a research hypothesis – Pyrczak & Bruce – chapters 2–3
• Identifying independent and dependent variables – Pyrczak & Bruce – chapters 2–3
Methodology section (Due in Week 5)
The methodology section will contain four sections: Participants, Measures, Treatment Providers, and Procedure. This is the most detailed section of your paper. If someone can read this section and then implement what you did in your experiment themselves, you have done a good job on it. For information on what needs to be included in the methods section see the APA manual, pages 17 – 20, and Pyrczak & Bruce, chapters 9–10. The methodology should be 3–5 pages.
Participants
What types of clients do you want your study to focus on? How do you go about getting the clients? You may get some ideas about this from the studies you read. What are your exclusion criteria for the study? (What types of people do you not want in your study?) I note in some of the lecture topics about typical exclusion criteria that enhance internal validity but compromise external validity. In this particular project, it’s okay to use these exclusionary criteria as you want to emphasize internal validity in your experiment. Also, reading some studies will likely give you an idea about the exclusion criteria typically applied to true experimental studies. You will acknowledge the differences in your experimental population and the more inclusive general population with this disorder when you complete the Discussion section (see below).
Measures
What instrument(s) will be used to measure forgiveness? What instrument(s) will be used to mesure psychological symptom(s)? Briefly describe these instruments. Look for instruments that have some psychometric research to support them. Cite these studies of support. Again, research studies on the population of your interest and forgiveness studies will be good places to find potential measures. Do not make up your own survey or instrument.
Treatment Providers
Often, PhD graduate students in a university counseling program are the ones providing treatment. Sometimes licensed counselors do as well. How much general counseling experience do you want your providers to have? How much training and experience with Forgiveness Therapy models do you want your counselors to have? Describe these characteristics of the treatment providers in your study.
Procedures
What is the experimental design that you have chosen to research the efficacy Forgiveness Therapy with this particular population? Describe as many of the specifics of this design as you can in regards to using it to research Forgiveness Therapy (for example, whose protocol do you use (Enright’s model or Worthington’s)? What will the length of the forgiveness protocol be? What time durations will be used for any follow-up testings? How many research subjects will be involved? How do you assign them to groups if you have groups? etc.).
For information on what needs to be included in the methods section see the APA manual, pages 26–27.
Result (Analysis) section (Due in Week 6)
You do not have to make this an extensive section. For the purposes of this research proposal identify the particular statistics you would use to analyze your data and test your hypothesis and explain why. Remember, different research questions and designs lead to different statistics for analysis of the data and hypothesis. For an overview of the different statistics and when they are used, see chapters 9–11 and the inside front cover of your Jackson text. The results section should be no more than 1 page.
Discussion section (Due in Week6)
Normally, this section summarizes the key findings of the study, the implications of these findings, limitations to the study, and directions for future research. For the purposes of this assignment, you will only need to address the limitations to your study and make recommendations for directions for future research. [Hint: Did your exclusionary criteria leave out a portion of the population that merits examination in future studies? Note these types of clients and encourage future research on them.] Be sure to include the specific threats to internal and external validity based on your particular research design. The discussion section should be 1–2 pages.
For information on limitations, see Pyrczak & Bruce, chapter 8, and the Jackson text pp. 178–186.
Note: The Abstract along with all of the revised sections will be due in Week 8.
Your professor will rewiew and comment on all three sub-sections of the paper submitted. You will then have the opportunity to revise your paper prior to final submittal.
Hi Class,
Here are some tips on structure for the Introduction:
A. A paragraph about the problem (e.g. college students with unresolved sexual abuse). Give some cursory statistics, etc.
B. Segue into the topic of forgiveness
C. Discuss the different models of forgiveness or FT
D. Discuss the model you are employing
E. Discuss at least three specific empirical studies using your model. You may also want to discuss FT studies with your population (e.g., sexually abused college students) if there are any regardless of which model of FT was used
F. Transition from what HAS been done (i.e., empirical studies) to what has NOT been done to what YOU are going to do. This is the rationale for your study.
G. After stating your rationale, it logically leads to the hypothesis/ses. For example, “Although there have been studies investigate X (FT) with Y (problem: DV), it would appear that little has been done with Z (population). Therefore, this study will investigate the effect of X on Y with Z. The hypothesis is that X will reduce/improve Y over those Z’s who do not receive X.” You should end your introduction here and move to your Method section.
Other Notes
1. For this project, you should consider not having multiple DV’s (depression, anxiety, forgiveness, conflict, aggression, etc.) as it makes your study more complex. Make sure you are clear about the direction of your hypothesis (“…conflict will be significantly lower than…” or “self-esteem will be significantly higher than…”
2. You will not use descriptive or correlational designs. You will be using between group designs. For this class, you are only allowed to use Randomized Control Pretest-Posttest Between Group Designs.
3. The literature review is written in past or past perfect tense and references to your study are in the future tense.
4. Remember that you are only reporting the facts in the literature review and you should give little or no commentary.
5. Please re-read the assignment descriptions and my aids.
Hi Class,
Please watch Dr. Garzon's videos on the project before starting it. The Introduction is more than just a paragraph about what you are going to do. It includes the literature review and is typically 3-5 pages long. Please see the scoring rubric to ensure that you include everything on there (hypotheses, number of empirical studies, etc.). Your literature review should look like the literature sections of many empirical articles (just a bit more expanded). Also, when referring to your project proposal, you use future tense and when discussing the empirical studies, you use past tense. The Methodology section is to be in future tense also. The reason for future tense is that your project is a proposal, not a completed study--you do not have to create data and analyze it. Do not use first person anywhere in the entire project.
Your Jackson textbook has a very good sample paper in Appendix D. Also, your APA Publication Manual gives examples throughout the book.
In regards to your title, it must have three components: efficacy-dependent variable, independent variable, and population. For example, "The Effectiveness of Enright's Forgiveness Therapy in Reducing Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Females" would be acceptable. The word effectiveness refers to a treatment or efficacy study. The treatment condition (i.e., receiving or not receiving Enright's Forgiveness Therapy) is the independent variable. The dependent variable is depressive symptoms. The population is depressed adolescent females. The title is very important because it dictates the focus of your study, hypotheses, methodology, and so forth. Feel free to re-work my title in an area of personal interest. Stay away from ambiguous titles like, "Adolescent Depression" or "Physical Symptoms in Depressed Men". When looking at the literature, you will notice that the titles of the studies are very specific. Remember, you can tell three components of the study from a well-worded title.
I will not spend much time alerting you to grammar and spelling errors, along with APA errors. Typically, I will catch the first one but not any subsequent ones. In graduate school, proper grammar should be assumed before submitting your paper (I have my wife proof my papers).
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You complete this large project in three sections.
Blessings,
Hi Class,
Week three brings with it two new activities: Quiz 1 and the submission of the title page and introduction to your forgiveness project.
For your first section of the FRPP, you should have at least 10 references, 3 of which should be empirical studies closely related to your proposal. The other seven could be empirical studies, books, or a combination. The important thing is to support your rationale with a good literature review.
The 10 resources are reported in the introduction. The introduction is minimally 4-6 pages long. When reading journal articles, you will notice that the author generally makes some problem statements, gives some research, and then gets to the purpose of his/her study. For this class, you should take a minimum of 4-6 pages to do this. Of course, most of the introduction will be on the 10 sources you discuss, especially the three empirical articles/studies that you have chosen. Do not treat the three empirical studies like an annotated bibliography (“My first empirical study was done by ….”—and do not use first person).
