St. Joseph's University New York · Fall 2026 · Prof. Michael W. Magee, Ph.D.
One semester. One question worth asking. One original research proposal.
This is your capstone. You will pick a topic in psychology that you actually care about, master its literature, find the gap nobody has filled, and design the study that would fill it. By the end of the semester you will have written a complete, APA-style research proposal — the same document a working scientist writes before collecting a single data point.
You won't do it alone. This seminar runs as a guided independent study: after our first group meeting, you and Professor Magee meet one-on-one every week. Each week you learn one concrete research skill, apply it to your topic, and bring the result to your meeting. Nothing you do this semester is busywork — every assignment is a piece of your final paper.
There are no point spreadsheets in this course, and no anxiety about percentages. Your work is evaluated holistically — the whole story of your semester, not a tally. What counts: showing up to every meeting genuinely prepared, the steadiness of your weekly work (six to eight hours a week, spread out, not one blast the night before), how much your drafts grow in response to feedback, and the quality of the finished proposal.
If you show up prepared, engage fully, take feedback seriously, and do your very best, you can earn an A — regardless of whether your paper looks "better" than another student's. This is not a contest for the best thesis; it's a challenge to discover how deeply you can invest in your own project. And there will be no surprises: we talk about where you stand all semester long.
Every week has the same shape. You have a seminar folder shared with Professor Magee; everything you produce lives there, including your research journal. Before your meeting: your journal entry for the week — a full record of what you did, ending with at least two concrete goals for next week. At your meeting: a real conversation about your topic and your articles — these conversations matter more to your grade than any single document, because they're where you show you understand what you've been reading. After your meeting: the week's skill assignment, which feeds directly into your paper.
Journal entries can't be written after the fact; they are the preparation for our meeting. Well… that's the whole system. Show up prepared thirteen times and the paper practically writes itself.