Introduction

You will demonstrate these skills by producing an APA7-style written research report. You should refer to the Assignment Guidelines when preparing your assessment, as this outlines the assessment requirements and expectations in detail. This is a group assignment. Groups consist of a maximum of two people; therefore, you may choose to work with one other person (i.e., as a group of two) or by yourself (i.e., a group of one). Because undergraduate students benefit from participating in authentic research (e.g., Roberts & Allen, 2013), we are undertaking a study together as a class. The research we will undertake is an extension of an experiment by Cook et al. (2023). The full reference for this research (peer-reviewed journal article) is: Cook, A., Thompson, M., & Ross, P. (2023). Virtual first impressions: Zoom backgrounds affect judgements of trust and competence. PLoS One 18(9), Article e0291444. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291444

As an extension-replication study, the research design is set. However, you will choose an appropriate hypothesis to test, conduct the relevant analyses, and report on your findings. We will collect the data for this research early in the term (Week 1). Time is allocated to working on the research report (including analysing the data) during the week 3, 4, 5, and 6 tutorial activities. The materials to complete the associated data analyses are available on LearnJCU and additional information about the procedure will be discussed in the week 4 tutorial. Make sure you prepare and plan accordingly to maximize your opportunity to work on and discuss the research report assessment during the tutorials in weeks 3-7. In the week 7 lecture, we will discuss reporting research findings in APA7 style.

In this assessment, you must not use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) for any elements of the assessment task including the generation of any materials or content in relation to the assessment item. You will submit your written research report on LearnJCU (in Assessment > Research report) by the stated deadline. Please note that one member of the group will submit the report on behalf of the group. For information about extensions, see JCU’s Special Consideration Procedure.

You can find information and apply for special consideration online at: https://www.jcu.edu.au/students/assessment-and-results/special-consideration. You are responsible for ensuring the upload is successful and for saving a copy of the receipt for your own records. You should check your assessment using SafeAssign prior to your formal submission, as this will help you to identify areas of plagiarism or areas that have not been accurately referenced within your assessment and rectify them prior to your final submission. If you have not used SafeAssign before, information is available on JCU’s website.

The written research report will be marked out of 100. The marking criteria are included below. As the report is produced together, all group members will earn the same mark.