Research Seminar

Research seminar “Social and Cross-Cultural Psychology” and "Economic and Organizational Psychology" is aimed to introduce to students the international standards of good quality research in the field of social, cross-cultural, economic, and organizational psychology. During the seminar students will learn how to develop their own research projects, how to plan and organize their own research, and to participate in the scientific discussion.

Framework for Research Seminars 

«Social and Cross-Cultural Psychology»
and
«Economic and Organizational Psychology»

Master’s programme “Applied Social Psychology”

Specific topics addressed are:

• Standards and evaluation criteria of academic work;
• Project proposal: structure and content. Formulating research questions and hypotheses;
• Research methods in social psychology;
• Using open-access databases for research: European Social Survey, World Value Survey, International Social Survey Programme;
• Writing a theoretical overview: information search and quality standards;
• Writing a year essay.

The main objectives of the course are:

• To develop students' abilities to participate in the scientific discussion;
• To help students to develop their own research projects;
• To teach students how to plan and organize their own research.

Methodical novelty of the course:

• Use of reviews as an instrument for understanding and differentiating a good quality research.  Students are asked to write reviews three times: at the beginning of the year they review a published article, then they participate in the conference, and review two presentations, and at the end of the year they review two 1st year papers written by their group mates.
• Group discussions at all stages of the development of students’ research projects. This gives students a unique opportunity to receive feedback not only from teachers, but also from the group, which helps to understand the weaknesses of the project, and improve it. 
• Combination of practical sessions (working with electronic library or open-access databases) with analytical work (reviews) and development of their own research projects makes the course diverse and interesting for students.
• All work is organized in a way that students can always connect the tasks with their own research interest, which increases students’ motivation significantly.

Formed competencies:

• Student is familiar with the research methods of social psychology, and is able to use them appropriately.
• Student is able to plan and organize an independent research project according to international standards.
• Student is able to use modern IT technologies for information search and analysis.
• Student is able to carry out research on the international level.
• Student is able to present the results of scientific work in a written and verbal form in Russian.

First year Research Seminar is aimed to theoretical and methodical basis development for master thesis. Students participate in a course paper defense procedure at the end of the first year. First year course paper is should include:

• Well-grounded theoretical basis including main theories and models description and comparison, key notions description;
• Project proposal including problem statement, aim of the study, key notions operationalization, hypotheses and research questions, and method section (study design, measurements, sample description, and proposed statistical analysis).

Second year Research Seminar is aimed to master thesis study carrying out. During the second year student refine theoretical basis if necessary, conduct the main study, wright a text document of master thesis. Written paper framed up according to international standards is a final outcome of Research Seminar teaching process.