PS598 Unit 10 Capstone Research Proposal Example

Ten Minutes of Kindness Before the Anatomy Exam: A PS598 Unit 10 Capstone Research Proposal

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS598: Master's Capstone in Psychology

Unit 10 Capstone Research Proposal

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the college, the enrollment figures and the planned study are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

Abstract

Test anxiety lowers exam performance, largely through self-critical thoughts that occupy working memory. Self-compassion offers a different response to such thoughts, and brief pre-exam writing has improved performance in earlier research. This proposal describes a randomized experiment with about 260 community college students in Anatomy and Physiology I. Students will be randomly assigned to write for ten minutes before their first unit exam, either responding to their worries with self-compassion or describing their route to campus. The study will test whether self-compassion writing lowers cognitive test anxiety, raises exam scores and helps most for students low in baseline self-compassion. Results will inform low-cost support for students in high-stakes prerequisite courses.

Introduction

Every term, the tutoring center I coordinate sees students who know their anatomy and still freeze when the exam begins. In nursing prerequisite courses, where a single grade can decide admission, that freeze has real consequences. Research has established that test anxiety harms performance, particularly its cognitive component: worry and self-deprecating thoughts during testing (Cassady & Johnson, 2002). Self-compassion, which Neff (2003) frames as gentleness toward one's own failures, a sense that others fail too and a steady view of painful thoughts, offers a response to those thoughts that does not depend on feeling confident.

Literature Review in Brief

The full review in Unit 5 synthesized four claims. Test anxiety is consistently related to lower performance on exams and other measures, with stronger links for high-stakes tests. Its cognitive component, rather than its physical symptoms, best predicts lower scores (Cassady & Johnson, 2002). Self-compassion can be increased through intervention and is associated with less anxiety and self-criticism, and self-compassion after failure supports, rather than undermines, effort to improve. Brief writing before an exam improved performance in laboratory and classroom experiments, especially among highly anxious students (Ramirez & Beilock, 2011). Nobody has yet put a short self-compassion exercise right before a graded exam and tested it with community college students.

Theoretical Framework

Attentional control theory proposes that anxiety lets threat-related thoughts capture attention and impair the working memory functions that demanding tasks require (Eysenck et al., 2007). Self-compassion should weaken the capture of self-critical thoughts by changing how a student meets them, freeing working memory for the exam.

The proposal's logic fits in one sentence: if kindness loosens the grip of self-critical thoughts, the exam gets back the working memory those thoughts were using.

Hypotheses

The first prediction is that kind self-talk on paper will leave students reporting less anxious thinking during the exam than route-to-campus writing does. The second is that the same students will score higher. The third is that the anxiety benefit will be biggest for those who start the term hardest on themselves.

Method

Participants will be about 260 students enrolled in Anatomy and Physiology I across two terms, a figure set by a power analysis in G*Power (Faul et al., 2007) for an effect of d = 0.35 with power of .80. The design is a randomized two-group experiment with a baseline covariate. The twelve self-compassion items go out during the first week to those who agree to take part. Before the first unit exam, students will open identical sealed envelopes containing either the self-compassion prompt or a neutral prompt and write for ten minutes. Anxiety items follow as each exam is handed in. Instructors will remain blind to condition, and exam scores will be collected after grading.

Analysis

H1 and H2 will be tested with analyses of covariance controlling for baseline self-compassion and term, with effect sizes and confidence intervals. H3 will be tested with a regression including the product of condition and centered baseline self-compassion, probed at low, average and high values. Assumptions, missing data and an engagement analysis are planned as described in Unit 9.

Ethics

An outside research assistant will recruit without instructors present, students who decline will receive a blank page so participation is invisible, consent will describe the study in general terms with full debriefing afterward and data will be coded and stored securely. The self-compassion prompt will be offered to all students before the second exam.

Limitations

All the data come from a single course on a single campus, so claims beyond Rock Springs must be cautious. Ten minutes may be too short to shift a habitual way of responding. The anxiety scale is self-report and is completed after the exam, when students' impressions of how they did may color their ratings. A neutral writing control cannot show whether self-compassion content adds anything beyond writing about worries; a future study could add that comparison.

Significance

If the hypotheses are supported, community colleges would have a free, ten-minute tool for students in high-stakes courses, one that tutoring centers and instructors could offer without specialized training. If they are not, the results will still clarify whether self-criticism is the right target for brief interventions before exams.

Timeline

If the Institutional Review Board approves the proposal by July, recruitment will begin in the first week of the fall term, the first unit exam will take place in week four and fall data will be matched by October. The procedure will be repeated in the spring term, with data collection finished by the end of February. Analysis and writing will take place in March and April, and results will be shared with instructors and the tutoring center by the end of the academic year, in time to decide whether to offer the exercise to all students the following fall.

Revisions Made for This Final Version

Assembling the proposal exposed three mismatches in earlier drafts. My Unit 2 hypotheses mentioned a third condition that the power analysis later ruled out; the final hypotheses now compare two conditions only. The analysis plan originally tested H1 one-tailed; I changed it to two-tailed reporting to match the conservative approach described in the ethics and limitations sections. And the measurement section now states that the anxiety scale follows the exam, which the earlier abstract had left unclear. I also asked two instructors to read the method section as outsiders would; both caught a step I had assumed, how exams are matched to codes, which is now spelled out.

Conclusion

This proposal tests whether a brief self-compassion writing exercise reduces cognitive test anxiety and improves exam performance among community college students in a high-stakes prerequisite course. Each part, from the literature review through the analysis plan, now serves the same three hypotheses, and the design can support the causal claims they make.

References

Cassady, J. C., & Johnson, R. E. (2002). Cognitive test anxiety and academic performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27(2), 270-295. https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.2001.1094

Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7(2), 336-353. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.336

Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175-191. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193146

Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860309032

Ramirez, G., & Beilock, S. L. (2011). Writing about testing worries boosts exam performance in the classroom. Science, 331(6014), 211-213. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199427