“What are the cognitive processes and biases that contribute to irrational decision-making, and how do they impact human behavior and decision outcomes?”

Overview

For this milestone, due in Module Five, you will submit a draft of your final research investigation paper. Your instructor will give you feedback on your paper to help you improve it for the final version. Do the best possible job on your draft; the more closely it meets the final requirements, the less editing you will have to do on the final version, which is due in Module Seven. Your final paper draft should incorporate instructor feedback gained thus far in the course. It will also be very important for you to apply the feedback you receive from this draft to your final submission. The final project is meant for you to propose a hypothetical study. You are not and should not be conducting human subjects research for this project. It is not necessary for the purposes of this assignment. All human subjects research requires written approval from the SNHU COCE Institutional Review Board in order to protect the welfare and ensure ethical treatment of the subjects.

You may use material from your Topic Proposal and Literature Review Worksheet and discussion posts, as these assignments were based directly on the final paper requirements. Their purpose was to help you gather material to use in the final paper. The research investigation paper requires seven references to use for the literature review requirements in the rubric. You may use references from the milestones or swap out some for other appropriate references, as long as you use a total of seven. Follow the rubric requirements very closely, since your grade is based on how well your draft meets the requirements in each of the rubric categories.

Be sure to use the provided Final Project Paper Template document as a guide to help ensure you meet all of the requirements. The template is formatted in APA style, which you must use in your final submission. As a reminder, refer to the Online Writing Center (found in the Academic Support module) for guidance on how to properly cite sources in APA style.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

1. Literature Review: In this part of the assessment you will analyze existing research in the field to understand how the field of cognitive psychology has changed over time, how researchers have designed research to study cognition, and how issues of ethics have historically been addressed in the field.
   1. Summarize the claims made by the authors of the existing research in the field regarding the key aspects of cognition. In other words, what conclusions have the authors of the research reached about the important aspects of our cognitive capabilities? For example, what claims do the authors make about memory, attention, or perception? What claims are made about problem solving, language, and critical thinking?
   2. Summarize the claims made by the authors of the existing research in the field regarding how cognitive processes influence human behavior. In other words, what conclusions have the authors of the research reached about how key aspects of cognition influence our behavior?
   3. Explain how the view of cognition has evolved over the history of cognitive psychology. Be sure to support your explanation with examples from research. Explain the conclusions you can reach about research in cognitive psychology. In other words, explain what we know about cognition, based on your review of the existing research in the field. Be sure to support your analysis with examples from research to support your claim.
   4. Describe the specific research designs used in the existing research in the field and how these designs are used to address research questions. For example, what were the specific methods used to address their research questions? What types of research design were used?
   5. Explain how research designs were used by authors to conduct research in cognitive psychology. In other words, how did the research designs used by researchers help in conducting research regarding cognitive psychology?
   6. Discuss how issues of ethics have been addressed in the existing research in the field. For example, how did the authors inform the participants of what the experiment would entail? How did the authors account for any potential risks to participants associated with the study?
   7. Discuss how issues of ethics in cognitive psychology have been viewed historically. In other words, how have issues of ethics in the field been viewed over time? Has this view changed as the field has progressed? Be sure to support your response with examples from research to support your claims.
2. Research Design: In this part of the assessment, use your previous analysis of the existing research in the field to develop your research design. You will identify a gap in the research you have reviewed, explain how the research supports further exploration of that aspect of cognitive psychology, and develop a research question addressing the gap. You will then determine an appropriate research design and explain how it could be implemented, and how you will account for issues of ethics in your proposed research question.
1. Identify a gap in cognitive psychology research that is unexplored or underdeveloped. For example, is there an unexplored aspect of cognition you believe could be further explored?
2. Develop a basic research question addressing the identified gap. In other words, create a question that you could answer in potential research further investigating your identified gap. Be sure to support your developed research question with examples from research to support your claims.
3. Determine an appropriate research design that addresses your research question regarding cognitive psychology and explain why this design was chosen. Be sure to support your response with examples from your analysis and the existing research in the field that supports the determined research design.
4. Explain how you will account for issues of ethics associated with your proposed research. In other words, how will you ensure that issues of ethics associated with your proposed research have been managed appropriately? Be sure to support your analysis with examples from research to support your claims.
5. Explain how your approach to accounting for issues of ethics was informed by your review of the existing research in the field. In other words, what did you learn from the existing research in the field in terms of how to address issues of ethics that you were able to incorporate in your own design?

What to Submit

Your final paper draft should be 4–6 pages in length, using 12-point Times New Roman font and one-inch margins. It should include seven sources cited in APA format.

Note: The grading rubric for this milestone submission is not identical to that of the final project. The Final Project I Rubric will include an additional “Exemplary” category that provides guidance as to how you can go above and beyond “Proficient” in your final submission.