| Course | PS499 Bachelor's Capstone in Psychology |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 9 |
| Paper type | Capstone presentation |
| Length | About 870 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Psychology |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PS499 Unit 9
Fifteen Minutes at Dawn: A PS499 Unit 9 Capstone Presentation With Speaker Notes
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
PS499: Bachelor's Capstone in Psychology
Unit 9 Capstone Presentation
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The presenter, her hospital and her crew are composite; the studies cited are real.
Slide 1: Fifteen Minutes at Dawn
Subtitle: Could a short walk built around wonder ease stress for the people who clean a hospital overnight? Bachelor of Science in Psychology capstone.
Speaker notes: Good evening. I run the overnight cleaning crew at a Lansing hospital, and my capstone asks whether a fifteen-minute walk at the end of the shift, built around noticing something vast, can lower my coworkers' stress.
Slide 2: Who Cleans the Hospital at Night
Fourteen people on my crew. Rooms turned over around the clock. Many immigrants and refugees. Little recognition.
Speaker notes: When you are discharged from a hospital at midnight, someone cleans that room before the next patient arrives. That is us. We work hard, we work fast, and most people in the building never see us.
Slide 3: Night Work Is Hard on People
Shift work and short sleep are linked to accidents, poorer health and poorer mental health (Kecklund & Axelsson, 2016).
Speaker notes: The research on shift work is clear about risk. My crew sleeps in pieces, often around children's school schedules, and several hold second jobs during the day. Stress is not a personal weakness here; it comes with the job.
Each slide carries one idea, and the speaker notes say what the slide does not.
Slide 4: What Is Awe?
Awe is the response to something vast that stretches our understanding (Keltner & Haidt, 2003).
Speaker notes: Awe is what you feel at the Grand Canyon, at a newborn's first cry or watching a skilled team save a life. Researchers describe two parts: something vast, and the need to make room for it in how we see the world.
Slide 5: Awe Walks in Older Adults
Eight weeks of fifteen-minute weekly walks. More positive emotion and less daily distress than ordinary walks (Sturm et al., 2022).
Speaker notes: The study that inspired mine asked older adults to take a weekly walk and look for awe. Compared with people who simply walked, they reported more compassion and gratitude and less distress. Their selfies even showed bigger smiles.
Slide 6: The Gap
No published trial of awe walks with shift workers. Nature walks reduce rumination (Bratman et al., 2015), so a fair test must compare awe walks with ordinary walks.
Speaker notes: My literature review found nothing on awe interventions for people coming off a night shift. Because walking outdoors helps by itself, the only fair test compares an awe walk with an ordinary walk on the same route.
Slide 7: The Proposed Study
Randomized pilot, about sixty workers at two hospitals. Awe walks or ordinary walks, three mornings a week for six weeks.
Speaker notes: A computer would decide which group each worker joins. Both walk the same river trail at the same time. Only the awe group receives a one-minute invitation to notice vast or unexpected things.
Slide 8: What We Would Measure
Perceived Stress Scale at baseline, three weeks and six weeks (Cohen et al., 1983). Awe after each walk. Closeness to coworkers. Short interviews.
Speaker notes: The main outcome is perceived stress. We would also measure whether people actually felt awe, because if they did not, the walks could not work the way I expect. The study is a pilot, so its main job is to estimate how large any effect might be and whether workers will keep coming, which will tell us whether a larger trial is worth running.
Slide 9: Protecting My Coworkers
A coordinator recruits, not the supervisor. Data stay with the research office. Materials in four languages. Results shared with the crew first.
Speaker notes: The hardest ethical issue is that I supervise many of these workers. So I would not recruit, lead walks or see anyone's data. People need to be free to say no to their boss's study.
Slide 10: Culture Matters
Awe is shared across cultures, but its triggers differ. Walk instructions now include people and memories, not only the sky.
Speaker notes: When I asked coworkers where they find that feeling of wonder, one said the choir at church and another said the emergency team at work. I changed the instructions to make room for those answers.
Slide 11: From Study to Program
Dawn Walks: three mornings a week, two volunteer leaders, about $9,900 a year in paid time, monthly attendance and a three-question survey.
Speaker notes: Even before a study, the department can offer the walks as a modest, voluntary program with simple safety rules and honest tracking.
Slide 12: What I Learned and What Comes Next
Narrow questions, fair comparisons, ethics built in. Next: submit to the hospital review board.
Speaker notes: The capstone taught me to turn a worry about my crew into a question I can test. My next step is to submit the proposal to the review board and, I hope, to watch a few sunrises with the people I work with. Thank you.
References
Bratman, G. N., Hamilton, J. P., Hahn, K. S., Daily, G. C., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(28), 8567-8572. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1510459112
Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385-396. https://doi.org/10.2307/2136404
Kecklund, G., & Axelsson, J. (2016). Health consequences of shift work and insufficient sleep. BMJ, 355, Article i5210. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i5210
Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297-314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302297
Sturm, V. E., Datta, S., Roy, A. R. K., Sible, I. J., Kosik, E. L., Veziris, C. R., Chow, T. E., Morris, N. A., Neuhaus, J., Kramer, J. H., Miller, B. L., Holley, S. R., & Keltner, D. (2022). Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote prosocial positive emotions in older adults. Emotion, 22(5), 1044-1058. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000876
The Purdue Global PS499 Unit 9 instructions
In Unit 9, PS499 asks you to present your capstone project. Build a slide deck, often ten to fifteen slides, that covers the problem, the research behind your question, the gap, your proposed study or project, ethics, diversity considerations, applications and next steps. Keep each slide to one main idea with few words, and put what you will say in speaker notes, including transitions. Cite sources on the slides where you use them and list references at the end. Time the talk to the length allowed. Some sections ask for a recorded presentation, so write notes you can speak naturally. Use APA style for citations. Keep slides simple and readable from the back of a room.
Inside the PS499 Unit 9 example
The deck opens with a title slide and the presenter's reason for the question, then a slide on the crew and one on night work's health risks. Awe is defined in plain words, and the older adult walk trial is summarized with its selfie findings. A gap slide explains why a comparison walk is needed. Slides on design and measures lay out the pilot and note why awe itself is measured. An ethics slide removes the supervisor from recruitment and data, under a highlighted line that each slide carries one idea. Culture, the applied program and a closing slide on lessons and the review board follow, with speaker notes throughout.
PS499 Unit 9 rubric: what earns full points
Graders look for a deck that tells the capstone story in order, with one idea per slide and speaker notes that add explanation rather than repeat the slide. Coverage of problem, research, gap, design, ethics, diversity and application shows integration of the program. Citations should appear where research is used. Notes earn credit when they sound like spoken language and include transitions. Timing should fit the assignment. Visual simplicity, few words and readable text, is often part of the rubric. A clear ending with next steps shows professional communication. A reference slide in APA style completes the deck. Decks that end on a clear next step usually stand out.
PS499 Unit 9 help: mistakes that cost points
Capstone decks often paste paragraphs from papers onto slides, leaving speaker notes empty. Others skip ethics or diversity, which instructors expect in a capstone. Students frequently run long, with twenty slides for a ten-minute talk. Citations may appear only on the last slide. Endings tend to stop at the results or design without saying what happens next. Before submitting, read your notes aloud with a timer, cut any slide with more than about thirty words, check that each source appears on the slide where you use it, and make sure the last slide names your next step. Practice once in front of someone else. Keep details composite. Then trim again.
Get a PS499 Unit 9 example written to your instructions
Send your project and the instructions with the rubric. A custom deck with speaker notes presents your capstone clearly. The first is free, back within 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More PS499 papers and BS in Psychology samples
- PS499 Unit 1: Capstone Question Board Post
- PS499 Unit 2: History and Perspectives Paper
- PS499 Unit 3: Literature Review
- PS499 Unit 4: Research Proposal
- PS499 Unit 5: Career Plan
- PS499 Unit 6: Research Ethics Paper
- PS499 Unit 7: Culture and Diversity Board Post
- PS499 Unit 8: Applied Intervention Plan
- PS499 Unit 10: Capstone Reflection
- PS115 Unit 9: Psychology Degree Map
- PS450 Unit 9: Program Evaluation Paper
- PS200 Unit 9: Brain and Cognition Paper
- PS440 Unit 9: Sociocultural and Legal Paper
PS499 Unit 9 questions, answered
How many slides should a capstone presentation have?
Commonly ten to fifteen, depending on the time allowed.
What goes in speaker notes?
What you will say, including transitions and citations.
Should the deck include references?
Yes, usually on a final slide.
Where can I find a free PS499 Unit 9 sample paper?
This page holds the complete PS499 Unit 9 capstone presentation, twelve slides with speaker notes, on a composite awe walk study for night-shift housekeepers.
How long is the talk in the PS499 Unit 9 sample?
About twelve minutes, with one idea per slide and speaker notes written to be spoken.