Honours thesis in psychology/Marking criteria guidelines

Marking criteria guidelines

Examiners are asked to award a mark for each section, taking into account the dot points below.

Presentation /10

• Appropriate title
• APA format
• Expression, spelling, punctuation & grammar
• References in text in APA format
• Reference list in APA format
• Appropriate Appendices (e.g., questionnaire, detailed instructions to subjects)
• Overall impression

Abstract /4

• Concise summary of: problem, participants, method, results, conclusions

Introduction - Set up of problem /22

• Importance, relevance & context of issue established
• Theoretical or conceptual framework established
• Breadth of literature review
• Appropriateness of citations (current, major, original)
• Consideration of alternative perspectives
• Logic and clarity of argument leading up to hypotheses
• Appropriate formulation and clear presentation of hypotheses or statement of aim (for qualitative research)

Method /18

• Participants: appropriate and adequate sample on which to undertake research/test hypotheses; recruitment procedure and sample characteristics adequately described

• Materials/Measures: appropriate operationalisation of constructs; adequately described (format, measurement scale, reliability, etc)
• Procedure: appropriateness of method to address research question/test hypotheses, procedure fully described
• Design (optional): You may need to include a description of the overall design – this can be especially useful in experimental or complex studies)

Results - appropriate analysis approach and explanation /22 This section needs to be appropriate to research question/type of hypotheses, but is likely to include:

• Justification of approach (if necessary) and appropriate analysis for research question/hypotheses and participant group
• Depth of analysis adequate to fully test hypotheses / address research question
• Understanding of assumptions demonstrated
• Descriptive/preliminary statistics: full written description and appropriate graphs and tables in APA format
• Predictive or explanatory relationships: full written description and appropriate graphs and tables in APA format

Discussion - argumentation of results /24

• Summary of results
• Related back to research question/support for hypotheses
• Related back to theory
• Implications of findings
• Discussion of possible alternative interpretations of results
• Discussion of issues arising (explanation of unusual findings)
• Problems with current study
• Generalisation of results
• Implications for future research
• Logic, clarity, focus and expression