The capstone project provides students with an opportunity to investigate a cybe

The capstone project provides students with an opportunity to investigate a cyberpsychological topic of interest
in conjunction with faculty guidance and oversight. Through the capstone research sequence (three sections of
PSY 610 followed by three credits of PSY 690), students develop a research topic, secure Institutional Review
Board (IRB) approval (if necessary), collect data and / or secure access to archival data prior to enrollment in
PSY 690, and then finalize, present and defend their research project’s conclusions in PSY 690. Passing
PSY 690, and therefore completing your capstone research represents the culmination of the MS.CYP degree.
Capstone projects may be quantitative or qualitative in nature and may be based on any type of research
endeavor approved by the PSY 610 instructor and/or the Capstone Chairperson. Examples of appropriate
research projects include but are certainly not limited to surveys, focus groups, case studies, experimental
design, use of secondary or archival data, or meta-analysis. Some of these methodologies are generally beyond
the scope of what is typically covered in MS.CYP courses (eg, experimental studies; meta-analysis); however, a
student may conduct such studies with the approval of their Capstone Chairperson.
Special note about literature reviews as a viable capstone project: A literature review is not the same as a
qualitative analysis or a meta-analysis. Conducting a comprehensive literature review on a pre-approved topic
will only be allowed if the following criteria are specifically adhered to:
1. The purpose of your literature review must be to offer some real-world relevance to your topic,
otherwise, it will not rise to the level of rigor required for the degree. Simply summarizing a handful of
research studies, without providing discussion or implications for academic / research / clinical / other
relevant practice will not be acceptable.
2. The beginning of your capstone deliverable must be a statement of purpose highlighting the importance
of your literature review and what reviewing the literature for your specific topic will facilitate for others
who may be interested in your topic. In essence, tell your audience why anyone should be interested in
what you are reviewing—why is it important. This is a required component of the Capstone Proposal.
3. In addition to the purpose statement needed for the Proposal to be approved, the Capstone Manuscript
(the document deliverable upon your defense meeting) must include your comprehensive literature
review, which should be organized in a manner that is logical and coherent based on the stated purpose
of your project. Information must not be presented in a manner similar to an annotated bibliography.
Additionally, you will need to agree upon with your Chairperson a reasonable number of sources you
plan to include in your literature review. The review must be comprehensive, which will dictate how
many references you are likely to need. These are to be peer-reviewed academic articles, although you
are allowed to include non-academic sources to supplement your writing. In general, these additional
sources should be from reputable sources.
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4. Your methodology section should be a detailed account of what you did to search for, and sort through
the sources you used. There should be a detailed account of your keywords and searches, including how
you narrowed your results and chose articles for the review that you did.
5. The results section is going to be the qualitative (or quantitative) themes present (or noticeably absent)
from the articles you reviewed.
6. The discussion portion of the manuscript must demonstrate a synthesis of the information you
summarized from the literature. You will summarize the broader themes and patterns you observed
during your research, make inferences and generalizations (where appropriate) to add relevance to your
review, and provide your perspective on areas for future research that could be based at least in part on
your findings.
Capstone completion requires a written and oral deliverable. The written portion will start with a research
proposal (PSY 610) and end with a finalized capstone manuscript (PSY 690) that will mimic the format and
writing style of a peer reviewed academic journal article in decided upon by the student and the student’s
research Chair. The oral component will mimic the format of a professional presentation delivered to an
academic audience, utilizing web conferencing tools (eg, Zoom, MS Teams, etc). Further guidance, forms, and
required documentation can be found in Appendix H. My subject is Navigating Identity and Self Esteem: The Impact of Social Media on Black Teenage Girls