Psychology Question

Assignment InstructionsPROBLEM STATEMENT
Overview
The purpose of this assignment is to write a problem statement that focuses on a
potential topic for your dissertation research. A problem statement narrowly
defines your topic area to a specific problem or issue. In this case, you are taking
the next step in developing your dissertation topic that was the basis of your
assignment in Week 4—Research Topic Investigation. The idea is to take what
you learned in completing that assignment, and what you gained from your
instructor’s feedback, to develop a more formal, concise, and specific statement
of a specific problem that can be researched. The skills involved in writing a
problem statement will serve you well throughout your program and are
particularly important in the dissertation process. They are critical skills needed to
become a competent doctoral researcher in psychology.
A research problem is a concern, issue, or controversy that you investigate. The
problem may come from the need to extend research into an area not yet
studied. Many times, the specific problem or issue is identified at the end of
another research study where the author calls for additional research.
Regardless of the source of the problem, a researcher needs to have a clear idea
of the goal: the answers that are sought and the specific questions that need to
be asked.
This assignment will not be your final statement of this problem. The literature
review you will complete in Week 8 may cause you to revise your statement to
some extent, based on what you learn. However, this problem statement should
be better defined and more precise than the assignment you submitted two
weeks ago. You are familiar with the names of the researchers who have already
studied your topic area. You have located several literature resources—articles,
books, and summaries—that provide some of the existing knowledge on that
topic area. In the discussions and writing assignments in Weeks 3 and 4, you
may have already begun the process of summarizing what is already known in
the topic area. When you write your problem statement, rely on this work to help
you articulate a focus for your research—summarize what is already known, and
state clearly what you want to find out. What questions do you want to answer?
Writing a clear problem statement requires some significant thinking; consider
this assignment as a learning experience, one that help you hone your thinking in
preparation for attending the residencies.
Instructions
In a 1–2-paragraph problem statement (180–250 words):
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State the research problem clearly and succinctly.
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Summarize what is already known and the gap in the literature you perceive
to exist.
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Justify very briefly the need to study the problem by presenting a couple of
reasons why the issue is important.
Submit your assignment to your instructor by the end of the week.
Additional Requirements
Your assignment should meet the following requirements:
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•
•
•
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Written communication: Include written communication that is free of errors
that detract from the overall message.
APA formatting: Format resources and citations according to current APA
style and format guidelines.
Number of resources: Include a minimum of two resources.
Length of paper: Write 1–2 pages, double spaced, not including the title and
reference page.
Font and font size: Use Times New Roman, 12 point.
Assignment Instructions
Overview
This written assignment is designed to be a self-reflective analysis of your
writing. Broadly speaking, academic writing has two separate but similar ways of
communicating: formally and informally. Formal written communication can be
further broken down into two broad categories: objective, or what the American
Psychological Association calls professional writing and self-reflective writing,
which is a personal contemplative examination of a topic but is no less
rigorous. The hallmarks of professional or objective communication are
avoidance of self-references, rhetorical statements, and jargon maintaining a
style of writing that refers to the material presented as if from a distance,
detached, and impersonal, emphasizing facts and using clear argumentation
based on a thoroughly reasoned analysis of the material. To consider how
objectivity and subjectivity interact, watch this video:
Amy Butcher. (2014, April 13). Objective vs.
subjective [Video] | Transcript. YouTube.

When applied to writing, the difference between objective and subjective writing
conveys a perspective.
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On the other hand, self-reflective writing is a personal exploration of a topic
critically assessed from the observer’s point of view clearing stating the person’s
interpretation of material, concepts, and experiences along with being influence
by your feelings, values, and biases. For an examination of reflective writing,
watch the following:
Academic Skills, The University of Melbourne. (2017, June 1). Reflective
writing [Video] | Transcript. YouTube.

• Melissa Wehler. (2016, April 11). How to write a reflection
essay [Video] | Transcript. YouTube.

Both writing styles back their arguments and claims with supportive evidence
from the literature, and, depending on the audience, context, and purpose have
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their place. Further, both professional/objective and self-reflective writing employ
POETS: Purpose, Organization, Evidence, Tone, and Sentence Structure,
described on the home page of the Writing Center. Rigorously applying the
principles and practices of both writing styles will demonstrate mastery of the
material you will interact with throughout your studies.
A large part of your growth as a scholar-practitioner will come as a result of your
ability to use your writing as a vehicle for communicating objectively and critically
material that is complex, sometimes obtuse, and perhaps laden with
philosophical perspectives that influence or shape the researcher’s or author’s
results. Already in this course, you have completed an assessment of your
writing skills (Week 2), posted your ideas and responses to peers in discussions,
and turned in a written assignments designed to follow a particular structure and
style of writing.
In this this written assignment, you will reflect on what you know about your
current level of writing, including what you have learned from your experiences in
this course and from the feedback you have received. Consider how this
feedback has assisted you in improving your writing and formatting of your paper,
along with but not limited to:
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What did you learn about your writing from completing the self-assessment
in the Writing Center?
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What have you learned about your writing from your experience in the
course written assignments so far?
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What have you learned about your writing from the feedback you received
from your instructor on the Week 4 assignment?
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What have you learned about specific aspects of your writing from the
feedback you received from your instructor?
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What forms of writing assistance do you feel will be most helpful as you
continue to improve your writing skills?
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In which aspects of the doctoral process do you have the most confidence in
yourself? Why? Where did that confidence come from?
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Which aspects of the doctoral process concern you most? Why?
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To what extent are your beliefs about self-sufficiency impacting your
willingness to ask for help?
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Which sources of help in the process sound like they would be most helpful to
you, considering what you have learned in this week? Explain what you read
or heard that makes you feel this way.
Additional Requirements
Your assignment should meet the following requirements:
•
•
•
•
•
Written communication: Use written communication that is free of errors that
detract from the overall message.
APA formatting: Format resources and citations according to current APA
style and format guidelines. Visit Academic Writer for assistance with APA.
Number of resources: Use a minimum of one resource.
Length of paper: Write 3–4 pages, double spaced, not including the title and
reference page.
Font and font size: Use Times New Roman, 12 point.
ISSUES IN YOUR SPECIALIZATION
Overview
This week, you will present issues related to your specialization that are of
particular interest to you, as well as trends and hot topics in your specialization.
This assignment will help you clarify your own choices and motivations regarding
your specialization and increase your understanding of Capella’s degree
requirements, as well as the requirements of the profession.
Before composing your written assignment, complete this week’s discussion
activity and research your specialization.
In addition, refer to the Programs of Research: School of Psychology
[PDF] document for guidance on how to choose topics to fit your specialization.
In your paper, choose ONE of the following questions as prompts for your essay:
• What is your specialization within the College of Professional Studies?
Developmental psychology
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What interests you, excites you, makes you passionate about your
specialization, and how will it help you meet your career goals?
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What are the requirements for entering the workforce in your specialization?
Do you need a license or certification? If so, are there restrictions to that
license? Do you need to take certain courses or have certain employment
experience?
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What are Capella’s degree requirements for your specialization? How can you
plan to meet them?
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What did you learn about topics, issues and research methods in your
specialization from the three peer-reviewed articles you located in the
Capella library? What were the topics and issues, researched? How do the
research articles impact your thinking about the development of your
dissertation topic?
Additional Requirements
Your assignment should meet the following requirements:
•
•
•
•
•
Written communication: Include written communication that is free of errors
that detract from the overall message.
APA formatting: Format resources and citations according to current APA
style and format guidelines.
Number of resources: Use a minimum of one resource.
Length of paper: Write two pages, double spaced, not including the title and
reference page.
Font and font size: Use Times New Roman, 12 point.
SCORING GUIDE
Your work will be evaluated using this criteria.
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your
proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:
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Competency 2: Apply research processes and standards and the technical
skills of a researcher in the field of psychology.
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Competency 3: Analyze and apply professional ethical standards in
psychological research and practice.
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Format the paper in proper APA style.
Competency 4: Develop a professional identity as a doctoral-level
psychologist.
•
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Use appropriate, textual evidence to support their argument or
analysis when addressing the assignment topic.
Address the assignment with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate
data and evidence that demonstrate an understanding of the topic.
Competency 5: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and
consistent with the expectations for the members of the psychological
profession.
•
Write in a well-organized, grammatically sound, and tone-appropriate
way.
RESEARCH TOPIC INVESTIGATION
Overview
In this assignment, you will investigate a topic in your specialization area for your
dissertation. The focus is to identify sources, concepts, and questions that will
help you define your topic more precisely later. In addition, since ethics is so
fundamental to the field of psychology, you will make a preliminary assessment
of ethical concerns that should be considered in relation to your topic.
As a doctoral learner at Capella, you will need to investigate topics and projects
for each course that you take. In addition, you will continue to find a topic in your
specialization area for your dissertation. As a practicing doctoral psychologist,
you will need to investigate topics in your specialization area for your work.
Arriving at a topic that is significant requires finding out what is already known in
the field and pursuing your investigation to determine something important that is
not yet known. This assignment will give you the opportunity to develop the
background knowledge and more sophisticated skills required to carry out this
type of investigation. It will help you build a foundation for further research.
To locate useful information, you need to know what you are looking for and
understand the questions you need to ask to get you there. This assignment will
help you build the skills required to use the library in an effective and efficient
manner. You need to know who has studied the topic area that you plan to
examine. You have to build on existing knowledge. Investigating the literature
means locating summaries, books, and journals on your topic, selectively
choosing which literature to include in your review, and then summarizing that
literature. Your goal in this assignment is to gain a clearer idea of what is already
known and not yet known on the topic you selected in your specialization.
Instructions
Begin by reviewing the related activities you have completed this week and last
week, including the Choosing Your Specialization reflective discussion in Week
3, and the other discussions over these two weeks. Review the work you have
done to learn how to use the Capella library, including both the Library Research
and Information Literacy Skills and the search you did in your specialization area
in Week 3. To gain a clearer sense of open issues in your topic area—questions
that have not been answered—you will need to do a thorough search of the
library in your specialization area.
For this assignment:
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Identify a topic that would be related to your specialization and dissertation
interests.
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Write down key terms that could be used to search for your topic.
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Use the library specialization area databases to locate literature.
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Practice using your literature evaluation tool selected in Week 1: SQ3 or
SOAR method.
For your assignment, use the format of an annotated bibliography to summarize
the topic investigation you have done. Include the following:
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Title page, formatted according to current APA formatting.
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Include pertinent identifying information such as the name of your
project, your name, the course number and name, instructor name, and
date. See APA Style’s information on Title Page Setup.
Heading: Professional Interest.
• Explain how this topic relates to your specialization interests, along
with stating a clear and concise research question that frames your
inquiry.
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Heading: Potential Ethical Concerns.
• Assess the potential for any ethical concerns to develop around your
topic or in research studies related to it. Consider the principles of
conducting ethically sound research: fidelity, autonomy, beneficence,
maleficence, and justice. What in your research topic and process is
impacted by this list of principles?
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Heading: Keywords.
• List the keywords you used for the searches you conducted in the
scholarly databases.
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Heading: Databases.
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Describe the scholarly databases you searched and evaluate their
differences. Evaluating the differences between databases helps to
identify their strengths and limitations. So, in this section clearly and
succinctly evaluate the databases you used and whether the database
provided the results you were looking for.
Heading: Criteria.
• List and explain the criteria you used to evaluate the reliability,
validity, and credibility of the articles you selected, such as:
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The article was published in the last 5–7 years.
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The article included a literature review, methodology, and
results.
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The article was peer-reviewed. Remember there are different
genres of articles found in peer-reviewed journals. Be sure to
accurately assess the relative value of the article based on the
type of article.
Heading: Sources.
o Note: This section will be an annotated bibliography. Annotated
bibliographies do not appear in research articles or doctoral
dissertations, but they are recommended as a valuable tool for keeping
track of the content of resources as you research and build a literature
review.
o Summarize at least 10 scholarly sources that address a specific topic
within a psychology specialization in an annotated bibliography that
includes:
▪
A precise summary of each article, including information useful
in supporting the discussion in a research paper, clarifying the
unique contribution of each source.
▪
The APA citation for each article. For example: Author, A. A.,
Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of
Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. If available,
include DOI information. If the citation is from the Internet,
include the URL it was retrieved from.
• Heading: References.
o Include a separate reference page with all the references in
alphabetical order. Note: In this section, create a conventional
reference page, which is an alphabetical listing of all citations in APA
format. See pages 58–59 and 66–67 in your APA manual for examples
of a reference list.
For more details on formatting an annotated bibliography, review the Annotated
Bibliography presentation. You may use the Annotated Bibliography Template
[DOCX] to complete this assignment.
Submit your assignment as an attachment in the assignment area.
Additional Requirements
Your assignment should meet the following requirements:
•
•
•
•
•
Written communication: Use written communication that is free of errors that
detract from the overall message.
APA formatting: Format resources and citations according to current APA
style and format guidelines. Visit Academic Writer for assistance with APA.
Number of resources: Use a minimum of 5 resources.
Length of paper: Write 4–5 typed, double-spaced pages, not including title or
reference page.
Font and font size: Use Times New Roman, 12 point.
SCORING GUIDE
Your work will be evaluated using this criteria.
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your
proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:
•
Competency 2: Apply research processes and standards and the technical
skills of a researcher in the field of psychology.
•
•
Competency 3: Analyze and apply professional ethical standards in
psychological research and practice.
•
•
Format the paper in proper APA style.
Competency 4: Develop a professional identity as a doctoral-level
psychologist.
•
•
Use appropriate, textual evidence to support the argument or analysis
when addressing the assignment topic.
Address the assignment with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate
data and evidence that demonstrate an understanding of the topic.
Competency 5: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and
consistent with the expectations for the members of the psychological
profession.
•
Writes in a well-organized, grammatically sound, and tone-appropriate
way.