ECON2060 Research Proposal Snapshot and
Peer Review: Instructions
Overview

This assessment aims to support students in preparing for their major research project in behavioural
economics by encouraging early engagement with research ideas, offering initial feedback, and
developing peer review skills. This task is designed to prepare you for the research proposal (worth
50% of your total grade) due in at the end of the semester. You submit both items through Turnitin,
with the Peer Reviews due one week after the Snapshot is due.

You don’t have to write your final Research Proposal on the same topic as your Snapshot. However,
the peer feedback, in addition to your mark, will guide you as to whether you are on the right track,
and will hopefully inform a better, higher-quality final proposal.

Note: Due to the peer review requirements and to ensure a fair distribution of peer feedback, there
are NO late submissions or extensions permissible for these tasks.

Learning Outcomes Assessed: LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4

Task requirements

1. Research Proposal Snapshot

Write a 150–200-word snapshot outlining your research proposal. It is similar to a published paper’s
Abstract, except that your Snapshot is forward-looking.

Focus on a causal research question. One way to check is that you should be able to rewrite your
question in the form “Does X cause Y?”.

Then, specify your research method. Remember that experiments are the ‘gold standard’ for testing
causality. They can be performed in the lab or in the field or with observational data from a ‘natural
experiment’. You don’t have to propose an experiment, but about 80% of students typically do. If
you prefer a different method, then it is doubly important that you clearly outline why your method
can test a causal effect.

Clearly describe:
• Your causal research question
• How you will design your treatment and control groups
• How your treatment effect will be measured and how it well tests your causal question.

Take time to consider the following items. You don’t need to explain all of this in your snapshot, but
it will help focus your thinking, and will certainly aid you in your final research proposal.

• Comparable conditions in experiments ensure that all groups in a study experience similar
conditions, except for the independent variable being tested. This helps isolate the treatment
effect of the independent variable. It reduces confounding factors and increases the internal
validity of the results. How will you ensure you have comparable conditions between your
treatment and control groups?
• How will your design mitigate issues such as selection bias, self-selection bias, social
desirability bias, self-report bias, experimenter demand bias, etc. that are common in social
science research?
• How will you allocate participants into groups?
• How feasible is your design? What practical difficulties could you face, and how will you
overcome them?

Your Snapshot also needs to reference at least one relevant economics paper (or justifies why a non-
economics paper is more appropriate). This is in preparation for your final research proposal, in
which, in the Related Literature section, you are required to reference, in a substantial way, at least
one academic journal article that has been published since 2024.


2. Research Proposal Snapshot

After the deadline for submitting your snapshot has passed, you will be assigned three peer
proposals to review. You do this through the same Turnitin link.

Your task is to provide substantive and constructive feedback on each one.
• You will first mark each Snapshot on each of the 7 criteria, using the 3-point scale “Weak”,
“Moderate”, or “Strong”.
• You will then give free-text feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of the Snapshot,
and your suggestions for improvements (min. 50 words).


Academic Integrity and AI Use

You may use AI tools to assist your thinking and drafting of your Snapshot. However, you must
critically engage with your work and demonstrate detailed comprehension of your submission. This
task is designed to give you feedback on your own thinking about your final assessment; an AI-
generated Snapshot would not provide much value to you.
You cannot use AI to generate your Peer Feedback. Every student could just ask ChatGPT to give
feedback on their Snapshot, so your doing so would not provide any value to them. Writing your
own feedback is not a difficult task, but it will help your peers understand which parts of their idea
aren’t clear and need improvement.
Any use of AI assistance for your Peer Reviews would constitute a breach of the Student Code of
Conduct.

Support and Preparation

Your main source for preparing for this task are the tutorial activities. The material covered in
tutorials 7, 8, and 9 will be particularly useful. Tutors are available to assist in consult times and at
certain times during research proposal related questions in the tutorials to help refine your ideas.

The task description for the 50% research proposal may also be useful because the snapshot is
preparation for this larger assessment (see the following link for full details of that final assessment:
ECON2060-20885-7520 - Course profiles - The University of Queensland).

Rubric

Criteria Pass (1 mark) Fail (0 marks)
Topic There is a clear, original, and specific research question.
Research question is unclear or
unoriginal.
Contribution
The proposal clearly outlines how the
research contributes to existing
knowledge.
The proposal does not clearly outline how
the research contributes to existing
knowledge.
BE Concept The proposal is grounded in a clearly relevant behavioural economics concept.
Behavioural economics concept is
missing or not correctly linked to the
topic.
Feasibility The proposal outlines a methodology that is both clear and feasible.
The proposal’s methodology is unclear or
not practically realistic.
Method
The methodology aligns with causal
inference principles and is appropriate for
answering the research question.
The methodology is unlikely to causally
answer the research question.
Reference
The proposal references at least one
relevant economics paper (or justifies
why a non-economics paper is more
appropriate).
The proposal does not reference at least
one relevant economics paper (or no
appropriate justification for including a
non-economics paper).
Writing The proposal is well-written and easy to understand.
The proposal is not well-written or easy
to understand.


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