10  Senior Project

Near the end of your Junior II semester, you will describe your plans for your senior project (taking into account your preparation), and the Psychology Program will match you with an appropriate advisor. Students choose to pursue a project in the Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing OR a project in the Division of Social Studies. There are three types of senior project possible (two in the SM&C Division and one in the SSt Division); requirements for these three types are here or can be downloaded here. Seniors must confirm the Division in which they intend to graduate by the end of the Add/Drop period of their Senior I semester.

10.1 Project Milestones

  • Regular meetings with senior project advisor: You should consider your meetings with your project advisor as a regular class time. Attend meetings prepared!

  • Senior Project Statement: You will submit a 1–2 page description of your project in which you: (1) state your research question and provide a brief summary of how you intend to answer it, with 2–3 initial sources; and (2) indicate whether you are completing an SM&C proposal project, an SM&C empirical (data collection) project, or an SSt project. If you plan to collect data, you will describe your plans for doing so and estimate your expenses. If you are completing an SSt project, you will explain why your project must be completed in that division rather than in the SM&C division.

  • Senior Project Midway Paper: Your midway paper may emphasize different aspects of your project; discuss with your advisor which focus for writing will be most useful for you and your board members during your midway board discussion. Midway papers frequently are excerpts of the writing for a section of your project. Midway papers should be approximately 10–12 double-spaced pages of text, and include your proposed project title and an annotated bibliography with at least 10 sources. Projects which will include data collection should also include at least a brief summary of the plan as part of the Midway.

  • Senior Project Midway Meeting: Your meeting with your committee is an excellent opportunity for feedback—the more thoughtful and detailed your proposal is at this point, the better feedback the committee can offer. If necessary, you may submit (working closely with your advisor) an IRB proposal before your midway board, but you may not begin data collection until after the board meeting. This meeting must be timed so that faculty feedback can be integrated into any potential IRB revision. The board is comprised of at least two members of the psychology program and (optionally) one other Bard faculty or staff member.

  • Project pre-registration (SM&C projects only): You will, in the spirit and practice of Open Science, pre-register your empirical plan online (https://cos.io/prereg/) using the template at https://aspredicted.org/ or another suitable preregistration template. If you are doing a data collection project, this preregistration will be submitted after receiving approval from the IRB (though preparation should begin earlier) and before data collection begins. If you are doing a data proposal project, this preregistration will be completed by the middle of the second semester. The preregistration should be included in your project’s Appendix.

  • Midway Senior Project PowerPoint Presentation: All students will deliver a 5-minute oral presentation to the program faculty and student peers at the start of their Senior II semester.

  • Final Senior Project Poster Session (SM&C projects only): Students graduating from the SM&C Division will publicly present a poster at the end of the Senior II semester.

  • Final Senior Project Oral Presentation (SSt projects only): Students graduating in the SSt Division will deliver a 15–20 minute presentation at their final senior board.

  • Final Senior Project Board: All students meet with their board and discuss the submitted senior project. See requirements for final projects here.

10.2 Senior Project Grading

The final senior project grade will be determined by all members of the project board and will be based on the rubric provided below. Performance on all aspects of the project, including the final senior project Board and senior project presentations, will be assessed. The Board will then discuss and finalize grades in conjunction with all faculty in the Psychology Program later in the week (or in the following weeks). Once the final grade is determined, advisors will share the grade and provide additional feedback on criteria sheets or otherwise.

Senior Projects will be graded according to the full letter grade range.

10.2.1 Senior Project Assessment Guidelines

Grades will be based both on the quality of the project and on the effort put into the project. Note that final grades will be based on quality and effort demonstrated across both semesters! Thus, strong effort in one semester cannot make up for poor effort during the other, and consistent and prolific production of writing in second semester cannot make up for a lack of writing during first semester. As projects may take a variety of forms, it is important to consult with your advisor, Midway Board members, and senior project criteria here to confirm clear assessment guidelines for the finished product by the end of Senior I.

10.2.2 Quality of Product

Research Question

  • Novel
  • Suitable for year-long project in Psychology

Literature Review

  • Provides rationale for research question
  • Comprehensive in scope, draws on relevant and contemporary academic sources
  • Linearly organized
  • Literature is reviewed critically (i.e., in addition to providing summaries of the literature, the benefits and limitations of such literature are noted)

Study Design and Execution (where appropriate)

  • Free of significant confounds
  • Uses valid measures

Results and Discussion (where appropriate)

  • Appropriate statistics are used
  • Study was preregistered
  • Interpretations of evidence (student’s own and/or empirical literature) are offered
  • Discussion clearly follows from presented evidence and integrates the prior literature and the student’s analysis
  • Thoughtful suggestions for future work are made

Documentation (where appropriate)

  • IRB application and approval in appendix
  • Proposal or empirical projects: Informed consent, and debriefing, proposed budget, detailed statistical plan, and all measures and methods are described and/or included as an Appendix
  • Preregistration is included in appendix

Process

  • Raw data are retained (to the extent new data have been collected)
  • Final project incorporates feedback from the midway (or provides a clear rationale for why such feedback was not incorporated)
  • APA format is followed (except where College-wide policy contradicts APA format; in-text Figures and Tables may be used)
  • A 250-word abstract is included
  • The project follows the format described in the Bard Student Handbook
  • The project is carefully proofread

Presentations

  • Mastery over material is demonstrated during the final board meetings (e.g., student demonstrates awareness of relevant scholarly literatures and is able to integrate such literatures with their own work in meaningful and novel ways that were not necessarily already included in the project itself; student demonstrates thoughtfulness and sophistication in conveying criticisms of own work)
  • Midway Powerpoint presentation and final poster/oral presentation are thoughtful and clear

10.2.3 Effort

Initiative and Independence

  • Student took initiative to schedule and attend regular meetings with the advisor according to agreements established at the beginning of the semester, proposed additional consultation from other knowledgeable individuals in the field, including other members of the board, where appropriate
  • Student attended meetings prepared with questions and demonstrated initiative of both thought (e.g., questions about material) and process (e.g., independently at-tempted statistical analyses and literature integration prior to asking for help)
  • Independence in thought and work grew throughout the year. It is expected that students will need help with research question and thesis formulation, experi-mental design, and techniques early on, but by later in the year the student should be proficient in all aspects of the projects – able to understand research methodology, troubleshoot problems, and interpret results with little to no help

Working with Faculty

  • Student responded well to and incorporated feedback (as demonstrated by continual additional work – both revised and novel – that is brought to meetings with advisor throughout the year)
  • Individual advisors may have additional expectations (e.g., attendance at a weekly lab meeting)

Reliability and Consistency

  • Students are expected to work a minimum of 12 hours per week on the project. Work during the January (or summer) break does not make up for low effort during the first semester of the project. As a general guideline to planning the year, for most projects in the first semester, students will be doing a lot of background reading, refining the research question, and developing the thesis and experimental design
  • For projects that require collection of data, data collection should aim to begin by the end of the first semester. In the second semester, library research and writing should continue. Data collection should end at least 5–6 weeks prior to the due date for the final paper so that data analysis, data interpretation, and final report writing can proceed

10.2.4 Academic Integrity

Bard takes academic integrity seriously, and the Psychology Program requires that students submit their own original work. Indeed, you’ll be asked to defend your writing during your Senior Project board meeting. Plagiarism (e.g., using the words or ideas from another entity without proper citation) is not acceptable in this—or any—academic context. Thus, using text produced by a generative system (e.g., entering a prompt into a generative artificial intelligence tool like ChatGPT or Google’s Bard and using the output in your Senior Project) does not meet the requirements for original work. Moreover, content produced by such tools is generated based on others’ (uncredited) work, can be inaccurate, and risks reproducing pre-existing biases/other problems from its source material. As always, you should evaluate your sources and methods carefully before drawing conclusions.

The Program urges you to use this critical time in your intellectual development to strengthen your own capacities to learn, think, and write effectively–in your own voice. We want to hear from you–your ideas, your words.

When in doubt as to what constitutes plagiarism, you are encouraged both to consult the student handbook and to ask your advisor for further guidance. There is absolutely no penalty for asking for clarification; however, failing to abide by Bard’s standards for academic integrity can result in failing the Senior Project.

10.3 Senior Project Funding

Students may request funding from the Program to assist with their senior projects (e.g., to cover the cost of participant compensation). To make such a request, students should submit this form (while signed into your Bard email) to the Psychology Program Director by the end of their Senior I semesters. The form will ask you to include the following information, as relevant:

  1. whether data collection will take place online or in-person,
  2. the targeted number of participants, with rationale for that number (e.g., an a priori power analysis),
  3. the expected length of the study (e.g., 40 minutes),
  4. the payment rate or how participants will be paid (e.g. pro-rated 20-minute study, or a drawing every 20 participants),
  5. the total expected cost, and
  6. a budget/plan for use of the funds.

You must discuss your plans with your senior project advisor before submitting this form, as well as after receiving approval.

Once the budget is approved by the Program, it is up to the student and their advisor to devise a plan for utilizing funds, ordering supplies, etc. This may be done via reimbursement (if the student themselves fronts the costs) or through direct purchasing by the College. Careful records must be kept of all funds used.

Participant payment considerations:

In-person participants should be paid at New York minimum wage ($15/hr as of 2024), per quarter-hour. That is, if you are running a 15-minute study, you should pay approximately $3.75 for that quarter of an hour in 2024. Online studies should be paid at no lower than the Federal minimum wage ($7.25 in 2024). Seniors who expect to pay more than this minimum wage should include their reasoning in their participant compensation plan (see above). Drawings, raffles, and other alternate compensation methods may also be used where appropriate. Seniors who collect data online should consult with their advisor about possible fees charged by online payment systems.

Students are also encouraged to seek out additional funding opportunities, such as the Dean Stuart Stritzler-Levine Seniors-to-Seniors Scholarship.