Project Information

A draft schedule for the presentations, including all officially ratified projects, can be found here

• Information available as pdf here

The purpose of the project is to give you some experience in study design, data collection, data analysis, report writing, teamwork and oral presentation.

Working in groups of size 3 (other group sizes will only be permitted under special circumstances, and will need to be approved by me) you are required to design and conduct a study of your (group's) choice and to analyse the resultant data.

Each member of the group is required to participate in the writing of a report (one report per group) in a style that follows, as far as is practical, the format of a research paper, namely:

1. Abstract -- a half-page (or there abouts) overview of the paper.
2. Introduction -- literature review and statement of purpose.
3. Method -- description of the experiment and method(s) of analysis.
4. Results -- report of the statistical analyses using a combination of text, tables and graphs.
5. Discussion -- interpretation of findings, possible shortcomings of the study and conclusions.
6. References -- a list of books and/or papers referred to in the report.
7. Appendix -- a place for more technical details and computer output.

You will also be required to participate in an oral presentation of your work (20-25 minutes) which will be scheduled during the last two weeks of semester (May 19 - 30).

Before collecting any data, groups must submit an outline of their proposed study to me for approval. The outline should be brief (no more than 1 page). It should specify the question to be addressed by the study, the type and (an estimate of) the amount of data you intend to collect, and an indication as to how you intend to analyse the data.

Due date for written report: 4:30pm, Friday May 30.

Grading scheme: 15 total

• design (including data collection) 4
• analysis 5
• report 4
• talk 2