PSY2144: Social Psychology Research Assessment Brief 2026 | Sunway University

PSY2144 Assessment Brief

Assessment Title : Social Psychology Research

Research Proposal (20%) – Group (Week 6)

In this assessment, you will work in groups of six within your assigned tutorial group to develop a social psychology research proposal. Working within the same tutorial ensures that all group members receive consistent guidance, participate in the same scaffolded activities, and have equitable access to feedback throughout the proposal development process.

Your task is to design a simple, ethical, and feasible study based on one of the approved topic areas in social psychology. You are required to identify key variables relevant to your chosen topic and explain how these variables are conceptually related, drawing on appropriate social psychology theory or research. Rather than listing variables independently, your proposal should demonstrate clear reasoning about how and why these variables are expected to be related.

Your study must adopt a simple two-group comparison design. You are required to formulate two clear and testable hypotheses, with at least one involving a manipulated independent variable, and ensure that both hypotheses are directly aligned with your variables and overall study design. The emphasis of this assessment is on clarity, alignment, and coherence, rather than complexity.

The proposed study must be practical and manageable within the given timeframe, and suitable for face-to-face data collection. Participants must be recruited from outside your own class (e.g., non-psychology students or junior cohorts). You should demonstrate that your procedure can be realistically carried out within these constraints.

As part of your proposal, you are expected to demonstrate ethical and responsible research planning. This includes clearly outlining how participants will be informed about the study, how informed consent will be obtained, how confidentiality and withdrawal will be managed, and how the study will be conducted from beginning to end. You are also required to consider both ethical risks (e.g., discomfort, misunderstanding) and practical risks (e.g., low participant recruitment, time constraints), and propose appropriate strategies to manage these risks.

In addition, your proposal must include an implementation plan, specifying the roles and contributions of each group member (e.g., proposal writing, materials preparation, recruitment, data collection, and data handling), as well as a clear execution timeline for completing data collection and analysis.

The proposal should follow a structured format, including:

• Introduction (background, literature, research aim, research question, hypotheses, and justification)
• Method (design, participants, procedure, and materials)
• Ethics and Implementation Plan (ethical procedures, roles and contributions, execution timeline, and risk considerations and management)
• Planned Data Analysis (how the data will be analysed and how this aligns with the hypotheses)
• Appendices (all study materials, such as participant information sheet, consent form, questionnaires/scales where applicable, task instructions, debriefing, research protocol, and procedure flowchart)

Your proposal will be reviewed after submission for ethical soundness and feasibility. You will receive an approval outcome (approved, approved with revisions, or not approved), and only approved studies may proceed to data collection. Groups required to make revisions must address the feedback and obtain approval before proceeding.

Important!

Note that your grade is based solely on your submitted proposal in Week 6. Feedback provided after submission is formative, intended to help you refine your study before data collection, and will not affect your proposal mark.

Overall, this assessment is designed to develop your ability to translate theory into research, design a study that is logically coherent and practically executable, and demonstrate responsible and ethical research planning. Students are encouraged to keep their study simple, clear, and well-aligned, ensuring that variables, hypotheses, procedure, and analysis are consistently connected.

Your proposal should not exceed 2,000 words (excluding references and appendices).

Research Poster (30%) – Individual (Week 14) 

You will need to create a professional research poster based on your social psychology experiment. Your poster should be designed to engage viewers at an academic conference, conveying key information quickly and clearly.

Poster Specifications:

• Size: 36×48 inches (vertical) or 48×36 inches (horizontal)
• Orientation: Portrait or landscape
• Must include: Sunway University logo, group members’ names, supervisor’s name

Content Requirements:

• Title (clear and prominent)
• Introduction/Background (1-2 brief paragraphs)
• Research Question/Hypothesis (clearly stated)
• Methodology (concise description)
• Results (visual presentation preferred)
• Discussion (key findings and implications)
• References (essential sources, APA 7th format)

Design Guidelines:

• Use legible fonts
• Maintain high visual contrast
• Balance text and visuals (graphs, charts, images)
• Ensure logical flow and organization
• Use colour strategically for emphasis

Data Submission Requirement :

You are required to submit your raw data and data analysis output (e.g., software output files) together with your poster submission. This requirement ensures transparency, academic integrity, and allows verification of the reported result