As a professional with a cognitive psychology background, you may be called upon to contribute your insights to help solve a contemporary problem in an applied setting. This solution could take the form of a proposal for a new program, research study, or initiative. For your final project, you will select an applied professional setting and contemporary problem related to cognitive processes and draft a proposal to explore strategies to improve the problem in that particular setting.
In order to help you organize the thoughts you generated in an earlier discussion topic in Module One, this assignment will allow you the opportunity to develop a topic suggestion. First, you will identify your topic of interest within the field of cognitive psychology from the following options:
- Attention
- Learning
- Memory
- Language
- Decision making
Next, you will choose an applied setting, a professional field that could pose a contemporary problem related to your identified topic. You will describe how this problem relates to your topic and setting in this assignment.
- Education
- Law
- Mental health
- Technology
Finally, you will generate three research questions about a contemporary problem related to your topic and applied setting.
For example, if your topic is attention and your field of interest is technology, your potential problem could be related to decreasing attention spans and the online learning environment. Some potential research questions related to this problem might include:
- How does multitasking (e.g., listening to music while reading or texting while reading) influence attention to online course material?
- How do individuals with ADHD perform in an online learning environment, and what strategies can help them succeed?
- What strategies can teachers and students use to increase attention to relevant material in an online course?
Note that the topic and setting elements are graded Pass/Fail. Please see the feedback provided by your instructor and re-submit, as needed.