Grant Proposal Research

							              PSYCHOLOGY 547 FINAL PROJECT: GRANT PROPOSAL

This assignment involves preparing a grant proposal requesting support for a 12-month
research project (beginning Fall 2008 and running through the end of Summer 2009). You
will draw on any theoretical perspective in cultural psychology to develop a novel
research hypothesis. You will then propose 1-3 studies testing your hypothesis. Though
your dependent measures/outcomes may stem from any area of psychology, your
theoretical and methodological approach must be cultural psychological in nature,
including experiments, in-depth interviews, and surveys. Sections 1 –4 of your proposal
(see below) should be roughly 12-15 pages (double-spaced, 12 pt. font, APA Style). I have
posted a funded social psychological grant proposal as an example of this process. The
proposal currently is in force, so please do not circulate or discuss the proposal outside of
this class. Your grant proposal is due on Monday, March 12 at 10:00 am. The major
components of your proposal are outlined below.

Major Components of a Grant Proposal

1. Specific Aims: The goal of this section is to provide a brief overview of your proposal
as well as specify the specific research questions you will address.

2. Background: The goal of this section is to provide a well-developed literature review
that leads to your research question. In most respects, this section is precisely what you do
when you write the introduction section to a research paper. In this section, you will draw
on cultural psychological literature to develop a cultural psychological theoretical model
addressing your research topic. When describing your model, be sure to carefully define all
your terms. This is especially important, as these definitions will be critical in
operationalizing your empirical constructs. You are encouraged to present a figure
displaying your model. At the end of this section, you should clearly specify your research
hypotheses.

Because of length restrictions in actual grant proposals, this section needs to be particularly
tightly written. However, for our purposes in this class, you have the liberty to elaborate
and present this section in more detail.

3. Proposed Studies: This section will very much resemble a typical methods section like
the one you would write in an empirical paper (except that the data have not yet been
collected). You should describe between 1-3 studies that test your hypotheses. At least one
of your proposed studies must be experimental in nature (i.e., involving at a minimum one
manipulated variable). Creativity is encouraged in both research design and measurement
strategies.

4. Data Analytic Strategy: In this section you should briefly describe how you will
analytically test your hypotheses.

5. References
6. Budget: A typical grant proposal has a very detailed budget. For our purposes here, you
should include an appendix with a rough outline of what a budget might look like. The
budget may be written in outline format. The goal of this exercise is for you to spend time
thinking about the costs of conducting research. Here are some examples of expenses you
could include:
        1. Direct Costs:
           A. Personnel:
               -20-hour/week graduate research assistant for 12 months is roughly $25,000
               (this covers salary, tuition, and fringe benefits)
               -Principal Investigator Summer Salary (make-up your 9-month salary (be
               realistic!) and divide it by 9, then multiple this number by the number
                 of months of salary you wish to pay yourself (this can range from 1-3
                 months; 2-months salary (assuming 100% effort on your grant) is
                 typical.
           B. Equipment:
               -List major purchases that will be necessary to complete your project (e.g.,
               computers, video equipment, physiological measures, expensive software,
               etc.) and roughly estimate these costs. Also, provide a couple sentences
               justifying these purchases.
           C. Other Expenses:
               -Participant Payment (if necessary)
               -Conference Travel
               -Miscellaneous Expenses (e.g., postage, phone bills, photocopying, etc.)

       2. Indirect Costs:
-Multiple your total direct costs budget by .49. This amount represents the indirect costs of
your grant application. This money goes to the university towards operating costs,
overhead, etc.

        3. Total Costs: Sum up your direct and indirect costs. Did the total amount surprise
you?


Evaluation: Your grant proposals will be evaluated on the following criteria:

1. Clarity, originality, and significance of the goals of the proposed research plan

2. Adequacy of knowledge and presentation of relevant literature and current methods in
the proposed research area

3. Soundness and feasibility of the experimental approach, methodology, and analytic
plan.

4. General organization, compliance with instructions, etc.