Explain which method you would use to examine the question (e.g., experiment or a survey), and why that method is most appropriate for the specific question. Your explanation should specify the advantages of using the method you choose over others and/or specific constraints (e.g., feasibility) that compel you to use one method instead of another. Address the ethical implications of your research. Acknowledge any limitations. Max: 300 words.

Learning Goal: I’m working on a communications writing question and need a sample draft to help me learn.

Paper Format: Introduction

My Name – Chelsea Nguyen

Assigned Research Question: Does Studying abroad improve educational satisfaction

Research Hypothesis: SHOULD BE DIRECTIONAL (DO NOT WRITE THE NULL)

SECTION 1: METHOD

Explain which method you would use to examine the question (e.g., experiment or a survey), and why that method is most appropriate for the specific question. Your explanation should specify the advantages of using the method you choose over others and/or specific constraints (e.g., feasibility) that compel you to use one method instead of another. Address the ethical implications of your research. Acknowledge any limitations. Max: 300 words.

For all topics, your method choice should be either an experiment or a survey. As I’ve discussed in class, there are many ways one might legitimately design a study for a given topic–the point is for you to justify your choice. Note that under no circumstances should you propose a content/interaction analysis or some version of a qualitative study!

SECTION 2: SAMPLING

Explain your sampling procedure, including (a) who will be in the sample, (b) where your participants will come from, (c) how many participants will be included, and (d) how they will be selected. Define the population of interest (e.g., all people in the United States of a specific age or characteristic) and identify the specific sample type (e.g., a convenience sample of University of Arizona undergraduates). Explain why the sample is appropriate (e.g., is it representative of the population to which you want to generalize?) and what constraints make it less than perfect. Acknowledge limitations in the sample. Max: 200 words.

SECTION 3: KEY VARIABLES

Say explicitly which variables are being examined—each student’s research question contains two variables so you must describe both in this section. Provide conceptual and operational definitions of each (and you can find these explained in Chapter 4 of your text) and why you think the variables should be related in the manner stated in your hypothesis (e.g., why do you expect men, rather than women, to more frequently self-disclose?). These definitions should be clear and explicit. Providing materials like an exact replica of questionnaire items or experimental stimuli will be rewarded (e.g., describe the specifics of experimental stimuli, and so on, if applicable). You are encouraged to do some research to find out if others have already measured your variable, and you may use an existing measure in your paper if it fits your research question and hypothesis. Materials like questionnaire items are additional to this word limit and should be included as an Appendix (labeled and referred to in your narrative, e.g., “See Appendix A”). Your goal is to help the reader understand exactly how you generate NUMBERS in order to do the statistical analysis. Max: 400 words.

SECTION 4: ANALYSIS

Describe which statistical test would be used (and your choices are t-test, correlation/regression, or chi-square), and provide example data (e.g., means, correlations, a graph, a table, etc.) that reflect your expectation of what you would find assuming you reject the null hypothesis. DO NOT show complete calculations with fake raw data—the goal here is to demonstrate your understanding of what the data would look like, how the data would be analyzed, and what the analysis might show in order to reject the null hypothesis. For example, if your hypothesis were “Communication undergraduates have higher intelligence than sociology undergraduates,” you would provide two means on the scale of the intelligence variable identified in the previous section (with a higher mean for the communication undergrads), confidence interval, degrees of freedom, and so on. Again, you do not need to supply fake raw data (i.e., scores for each fictional person in your study). Max 200 words (plus possibly graphs/tables of numbers). TO REITERATE: YOU WILL NOT COLLECT ACTUAL DATA FOR THIS PAPER! AND I REALLY DON’T LIKE ALL CAPS BECAUSE THEY ARE PAINFUL TO THE EYE, BUT IT SEEMS WARRANTED HERE!

FORMATTING

The paper should be double-spaced in 12-point font with 1” margins all around. Standard grammar, spelling, and presentation expectations apply. The maximum number of words is a MAXIMUM. You can check this easily with the “word count” feature (under “tools” in the file menu) in MS-Word. Other applications have similar tools. We’ll use it to check so you should use it, too! (By the way, you may be able to achieve a top grade using significantly fewer words.) Should you provide citations in your paper, you must use APA format. There are many “crib sheets” online that you may use as guides (e.g.,The Purdue Owl APA website).

NOTES FOR THE WRITER:

– I have attached 2 samples below that you can read as examples