Adult Development & Aging
Assignment Instruction Sheet & Rubric

Objectives: You have been introduced to a number of research designs. You should have a good understanding of the basics of both experimental research and observational research methods. As discussed in your class, the research methods used for studying adult development and aging, namely cross-sectional, longitudinal and sequential designs are all considered observational studies. However, the level of evidence in relation to age changes are much stronger in longitudinal and sequential studies than that of cross-sectional studies. For this assignment you are required to find two empirical papers (research articles) about a topic of your choice related to adult development or aging and write a paper, in which you discuss your topic and both empirical papers you will find and compare and contrast the results of the two studies and make a clear conclusion.

Please note that the empirical papers (research articles) you pick should be a primary research article rather than a review paper. Primary research articles are the ones in which the author(s) conducted the study and normally contain the following sections:
• An abstract that summarizes the entire research
• An Introduction that provides background information and rationale/objective/hypothesis of the study
• Methods that provides information about the participants, their recruitment, measurements used (survey or self-rated questionnaire, MRI, etc.) and procedure.
• Results section in which data analyses are reported
• Discussion section in which the authors discuss the findings of the study and examine the results in light of previous research and most often limitations of their study and future direction.

Review papers on the other hand, summarize, analyze and synthesize the findings of several primary research articles. The two empirical papers you need for this assignment MUST be both primary research articles. In addition, the two empirical papers you choose, need to demonstrate 2 of the following research designs: cross sectional study, longitudinal study, sequential study. For example, if your first paper describes a longitudinal study, your second paper should describe either a cross sectional study or a sequential study. Review paper may only be used in the introduction of your paper.

Start by choosing a specific topic in the area of adult development and aging that interests you. For example, you might be interested in the topic of development of depression among older adults living in long-term care facility. You may then choose a cross-sectional study in which, depressive mood of older adults living in long-term care facility is being compared to depressive mood of older adults living in community. Basically, in such study a representative sample of older adults living in community and a representative sample of older adults living in long-term care facility are chosen. These individuals are then administered a validated instrument such as Beck Depression Inventory, by which levels of depressive symptoms are measured and then compared between the two groups. The next article you may choose can be a longitudinal study, in which older adults that admitted to a long-term care facility were followed over time and their depressive symptoms were measured at least twice over some period of time. For example, at baseline and every year for 3 years.

Do not choose topics that may be too broad, for example depression among Canadians would be too broad. Instead, focus on a specific population such as the above example, older adults living in long term care facility or depression in women recently diagnosed with cervical cancer. Another example would be examining the risk of developing depression in widows compared to widowers, or the risk of developing depression in young widows compared to older widows. Likewise, you could examine similar questions regarding dating habits in widowhood, resilience of widows/widowers, etc. The two empirical papers you choose should both be about the specific topic you have chosen, so that you can compare and contrast the two articles.

Important Notes Regarding Your Assignment:
• Your topic needs to focus on adult development. That means no children or adolescent participants. Adults only.
• Articles in magazines, such as Readers Digest or Psychology Today, are NOT empirical papers and are not accepted for this assignment.
• Not all papers fit into longitudinal, cross sectional and sequential, thus, don’t make the mistake of assuming if it’s not longitudinal it must be cross sectional. That’s not necessarily true. Also remember for this assignment you should NOT use articles that have used experimental research designs (for example Randomized clinical/controlled trials).
• Additionally, be aware that in some “cross-sectional” studies correlations between two variables are being measured. For this assignment, choose a cross-sectional study in which two or more different age groups are being compared on a specific measurement or choose a cross-sectional study, in which two or more groups of adults with different characteristic are being compared on a specific measure. For example, a study in which depressive behaviours of older adults living in community is being compared to depressive behaviours of older adults living in long-term care facility is an acceptable cross-sectional study for this assignment. Another example of a suitable cross-sectional study would be the one in which alcohol abuse between older adults and middle-aged adults is being compared. Another example would be a cross-sectional study, in which spatial navigation abilities of older women is being compared to younger women. Please note, only in the last two example cohort effect would be a confound since two different age groups are being compared. Cohort effect is not an issue for the first example as the same age groups but with different characteristics (i.e. living in community vs. living in long-term care facility) are being compared.
• Be mindful that this is a psychology assignment. Don’t go to medical. You need to be addressing a topic related to psychology. Medical topics such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease for example are not acceptable. However, neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease or mental illness such as depression, anxiety or substance abuse disorders are acceptable. However, if you are interested in development of mental illness such as depression amongst those suffer from a medical condition such as arthritis or osteoporosis or cancer, etc. then it would be an acceptable topic.
• Please do NOT email your TA’s or instructor the articles you have chosen and ask them to confirm the appropriateness of your articles. Finding proper articles is part of this assignment.
• A title page and a reference list are required (and must comply with APA guidelines). You will lose marks if they are missing. The title page and reference list do NOT count towards the page limit.
• The page limit is 4 to 6 pages (each of the four sections should be approximately 1 to 1.5 pages). If your paper is too short or too long, you will lose mark.
• Save your work in WORD document (do NOT save it in PDF) and name the file as follows: your last name-your first name- keyword1-keyword2. The keywords are related to your topic. For example, if your name is John Smith and the topic of your paper is about depression among older adults living in long-term care facility you would save your paper as: Smith-John-elderly-depression. Assignments uploaded with wrong format (e.g. PDF) and/or saved in a different way will be penalized by 3%.
• You may find an article, in which the authors conducted and reported more than one research, or investigated more than one outcome. In this case, you should only report one of the study or one of the outcome. For example, if the study measured both depression and anxiety and your topic is related to depression, you should only concentrate on the results related to depression.
• Upload your paper electronically to Turnitin.com before the due date. Late assignments will be penalized by 10% of the assignment total mark per 24-hour period. The late penalty begins immediately after the posted time, at which the assignment is due.
• Do not use direct quotes, paraphrasing is always preferred.
• All sources must be properly cited within text and in the reference list and according to APA format.
• The publication dates of the articles you will choose for this assignment, are not required to be in the past 10 years.
• The studies are NOT required to have been done in Canada but the entire study should be reported in English language.
• Use the following headings in your paper and follow APA formatting for headings.
– Introduction
– Empirical paper 1
– Empirical paper 2
– Compare, contrast and conclusion
– Reference section should also have References, as its heading.
• Please read the instructions of your assignment carefully.
• There should NOT be extra line spacing in between each section.
• Each section (except the reference section) should NOT start in a new page.