PSK 435 - Undergraduate Thesis Study I

The aim of this course is to develop students' skills in forming research topics, problems, and hypotheses, planning and conducting research, and academic writing by planning and implementing research in the field of psychology. The course aims to equip students with the ability to review academic research, critique academic studies, identify their strengths and weaknesses, design research to test the formulated topics, problems, and hypotheses, determine data collection tools, collect data, and apply statistical methods to the collected data.

Within the scope of the course, students will learn the concepts, principles, and methods necessary to conduct research in psychology. Based on the theoretical knowledge they have gained throughout their undergraduate education, they will develop a research question and hypothesis on a topic of their interest, create a research design, collect data, analyze the data, and prepare a thesis. This thesis will include the evaluation of their findings within the context of the literature and will be reported in accordance with APA writing guidelines.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). Washington, DC: APA.
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Field, A. (2018). Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (5th ed.). London: Sage Publications.
Pallant, J. (2020). SPSS Survival Manual: A Step by Step Guide to Data Analysis using IBM SPSS (7th ed.). Routledge.
 

Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2019). Using Multivariate Statistics (7th ed.). Pearson.
 

This course is the first stage of the undergraduate thesis process, emphasizing scientific thinking, methodological rigor, and academic writing in psychology.
Students are expected to demonstrate research ethics, critical thinking, and the ability to integrate theoretical knowledge into practical research design.

• Attendance is mandatory (minimum 70%).

• All assignments must adhere to APA 7 formatting standards.

• Ethical approval must be obtained before data collection.

• Plagiarism or data fabrication will result in automatic course failure.

• Active participation in supervision meetings is required.