Stress Interventions Research Project Assignment

Stress Interventions Research Project Instructions

There are two parts of the research project: a proposal and a report on how the research project went. Both may be done either alone or in a group. It is up to you how big you want your group to be, but based on the class feedback, around 4-5 people was considered optimal. (Please note that grading will be skewed, with higher expectations for those working in larger groups.)

Everything for both the research project proposal and the final research project should be in APA format and double spaced (if writing). If not writing, just be very careful to ensure that all information that would be in a paper is covered in your submission.

Only one submission per group is necessary. Submissions will be uploaded via Canvas.

Looking for group members? We have a set up a page on Canvas for this.

Looking for ideas of what to do? There are a zillion stress interventions listed on line, some good, some not! Use the internet, your past textbooks, ask your friends, etc. Your goal is to find an activity that would work over a short amount of time.What could you do in a short time that would make a big difference in how stressed a group of people felt? The key here is that you need to prove that this WAS stress reducing in some way and have a good rationale for why it would be. For example- if you organize a huge dance competition on ring road, does research say exercise is good for stress? Music? Dancing specifically? Why would it help? Your paper should discuss why you think it should help and your final report will explore if it actually worked.

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Stress Interventions Proposal (10% of overall class grade)

You will come up with a creative and new idea for improving the stress levels on campus. This can be any targeted group (e.g., freshmen, certain types of staff members, faculty, first generation students, students in certain majors) or it can be the campus at large. You will create a brief proposal to support your idea including at least two supporting empirical articles. There should be a brief one page introduction (if writing, or equivalent amount of information/background in non-written formats), including your hypotheses. You should also have a methods section (at least one page if writing) that describes how you will do your project and how you will know if it works (i.e., how will you know if your hypothesis is supported?).

If you prefer, you can submit your proposal using a creative submission approach, such as creating a video report, an audio recording with a set of PowerPoint slides, a podcast, a poster, etc.. We will create a rubric that can grade multiple submission types. As long as you include all of the requirements, typical essay writing is not necessary.

Your proposal must include a minimum of the following details:

Stress Interventions INTRODUCTION:

1. Your IDEA and the plan on how you will do it in some detail.
2. Why you think your proposed idea will work, including at least two citations of research (IN APA STYLE) that suggest it will work. You are welcome to draw on class materials to support your idea, but citations we bring up don’t count as your 2 research studies that support your project. You must describe these studies and explain HOW they support your project concept. Note: this should not simply be a summary of the precise details of the studies that you are citing. It should be a brief description of the studies and what they found INCLUDING how they are relevant for your research project, whether they inform your study design, etc.
3. Your hypotheses. *Note, you should indicate here whether past research you cited supports these hypotheses, and if it does not, why you think your intervention activity will work.

Stress Interventions METHODS:

4. Your population of choice (e.g., how many, who, how they will be recruited into the study)
5. Your measures (e.g., surveys, behavioral observations). You should include example items, or entire surveys as an Appendix. CITE any published measures you are using
6. Your procedure of what you will do for this activity. This should include possible obstacles and how you will overcome them.

Stress Interventions HYPOTHESIZED RESULTS:

How you will tell if your activity worked – what before and after measures will you use to tell if your project succeeded? How will you collect this data? What will you do to tell if your activity worked? You are not required to do statistical tests in this class (but you can if you want). You will be required to present DATA in your final report to help illustrate if your project was successful.

REFERENCE SECTION: include all citations used in your paper (e.g., empirical articles, popular articles online)

Stress Interventions Project Proposal Rubric

Stress Interventions Research Project  INTRO
Introductory content that includes a description of at least two past studies (empirical articles) that are relevant and support your idea for a stress intervention that will work on campus to reduce stress. Include enough detail to provide evidence that the stress intervention you have chosen is supported by the literature and fully articulate why you think your activity/intervention would be effective (how will it change stress? will it increase control, alter perceptions of threat, provide support, positive emotions, physiological relaxation?)	8
Hypotheses are included (i.e., what do you expect to happen? What measures/outcomes will change?)	2
METHODS Stress Interventions Research Project
Subjects/Participants: Population of choice and why you chose this group	2
Measures/Materials: What will you use to assess if the intervention is effective? (e.g., behavioral observation, self-report, specific assessment tools, materials you need for the activity)	3
Procedure: Procedure of stress intervention and how you will assess whether it was effective is described in detail; include descriptions of possible obstacles and how you will overcome them. Be sure to include what exactly you will measure and when. What method of measurement are you using? (e.g., real time observation? a paper survey? a photo?). If you aren’t sure on the level of detail, look at the procedures section of some published APA style articles.	10
RESULTS Stress Interventions Research Project
Expected Results: Include a brief but clear discussion of how you will tell if your activity worked and if your hypotheses were verified. What data will you look at? Will you compare a control group to an experimental group? Will you compare before and after stress scores? Will you look at if people seem less stressed after (e.g., less negative facial expression) vs. before your activity? Think about this carefully – your methods should show that STRESS is reduced and not just any positive benefit.	5
OTHER Stress Interventions Research Project
Reference section in APA format for all works cited (including two articles and any other published measures/methods or work that you describe)	5
Flow of writing, spelling, grammar, APA format outside of reference section (e.g., for in text citations). If using spoken/video, flow of speech, correct grammar, if there is sufficient detail, if we can understand the content, etc.	5
	out of 40