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PSY313 Adult Development and Aging

This resource assists with Assignment 2 in the PSY313 Adult Development and Aging course.

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The following information is from the Assignment 2 Selected Literature Review handout (September 20, 2017)

Purpose:

The course covers many aspects of aging (biological, psychological, social, environmental) and how they inter-relate to affect the length and quality of adult life. The purpose of this assignment is for you to select and examine an example of the research literature on any one of these aspects of aging that is of interest to you. If you wish, you may use the literature you work on for this assignment to guide the research proposals that you will be working on for the next two assignments.

Tasks:

  1. (1 mark). Select a research paper from a peer-reviewed journal with original empirical findings (i.e., a study in which data was collected from participants) on any topic covered in this course.
    1. You may get ideas from the references cited in the textbook or in the lecture slides or from other sources.
    2. The research must use either a cross-sectional group (comparison of at least two age groups) or longitudinal design (comparison of the same people at two or more time points) to investigate age-related changes in healthy adults.
    3. DO NOT select a paper investigating the effects of an intervention.
    4. DO NOT select a paper that is a review paper or a meta-analysis of many studies.
    5. DO NOT select a paper using correlations as the main statistical analysis.

AS SOON AS you have selected a paper then go to the blog set up for ASSIGNMENT TWO on Blackboard and check to be sure no other student has selected the same paper. If no other student has selected your chosen paper yet then enter the citation for your selected research paper using APA format and if possible provide a link to the paper. Also include the proper APA citation information and link (doi) if available in your report.

  1. (numbering of points continued from above)
  2. (1 mark). Why did you find this paper interesting?
  3. (1 mark). Describe the research design and the characteristics of participants who were studied. This description must include whether the research design was longitudinal or cross-sectional or a hybrid combination of those two types of design.
  4. (1 mark). What was the main outcome measure used in the study?
  5. (1 mark). What was the main finding of the study?

Report:

  1. Upload your report by the deadline. If you wish to receive written comments then you may ALSO hand in hardcopy by the beginning of class on the due date (see syllabus).
  2. Maximum length of your report in Word should be 1 page (maximum 300 words) (12 pt font, 1 inch margins, double-spaced).
  3. Be sure to use APA style for all references. Familiarize yourself with the information in the syllabus about how not to plagiarize (http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/using-sources/how-not-to-plagiarize).
  4. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO UPLOAD YOUR WORK.