Experimental/quasi-experimental methods:
a. State the characteristics of your research subject, the number of subjects included in the project, and the method by which you select them. Discuss the external validity of the experiment and techniques that you can use to maximize this type of validity. Address the problem with the subjects’ reluctance to participate in the experiment.
b. Explain how you will design your experiment. Be sure to explain which type of experimental design will be used, whether you will have comparison groups, whether you will have a pre-test, and whether random assignment will be use. Make sure you explain why you make these decisions and why they will make your research sound.
c. Discuss what treatment will be administered and how it will be administered. Also discuss what the pre-test and the post-test will consist of.
d. Identify the issues that would be arising in your experiment (e.g., rival threats to internal validity and reliability of variables) and discuss how you would minimize the biases introduced by these potential threats.
Survey methods:
a. Identify concepts that you need to measure. List five independent variable(s) (IVs) and one dependent variable.
b. Operationalize your IVs and DV. Include five sample survey questions, with response categories, that you will use for the project.
c. State what type of survey will be used and explain why you would like to use this type. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this type of survey. Discuss what your time frame is.
d. Explain how you will select your respondents. What is your sampling design? How will you select the sample from the population? Are you using a probability or non- probability selection? Why? How many respondents will be in your sample? What response rate do you expect to get? What efforts will you make to maximize response rates?
Content Analysis:
a. State what type of content will be studied and how much of it you will analyze. Explain your sampling strategy (e.g., how exactly will you decide with “texts” to study, and how will you select these texts?).
b. Specify at least three concepts that you will measure. Conceptualize these measures and specify which one is your dependent variable. Then operationalize your three concepts and indicate whether and how you will measure frequency, directionality, intensity, or special dimensions for each variable.
c. Create a brief coding sheet that you could use to record your data.
d. Identify difficulties that you anticipate facing as you code your data. Discuss implications
this has for the reliability and validity of your results.
Existing/secondary data:
a. Identify and briefly describe your data source(s).
b. Specify how many years of data are available in the data source(s), and how many of
these years you will include in your analysis.
c. If information is available, specify how the data were collected. (If no information is
given, please indicate this.)
d. Describe concepts that you will need to measure. List at least five independent variables
and their variable attributes that you will use from this source. List one dependent variable and its variable attributes that you will use from this source. Indicate how each of these variables is measured and conceptualized.
e. Identify difficulties that you anticipate facing as you go about using existing data to answer your research question. Discuss implications this has for the reliability and validity of your results.
Field research methods (participant-observation, interview, or focus groups):
For participant observation:
a. Describe the social setting(s) you will do your research in, the time of day you will conduct these observations, the length of time these observations last each time, and the length of time your entire observational period might last.
b. Explain why this setting is an appropriate place to investigate your research question. Discuss your needs for observation and measurement.
c. Given your research topic, discuss the possibility that you have trouble getting access to the social setting in which you want to do your participant observation and the steps that you will take to gain access.
d. Discuss where you will fall on the complete participant to complete observer continuum. State what role you will have in the setting, how your presence in the setting might affect what you observe, how you will minimize the possibility that your presence in the setting will bias your observations because people will act differently than they normally do.
e. Explain how you will gather your data (e.g., video tapping; speaking your notes into a recorder; taking photographs; take notes in the setting, when leaving the setting, or both.)
For interviews or focus groups:
a. Describe your respondents, the sampling strategy, the method of recruitment, the number of total respondents you plan to have, the number of people in a focus group, the number of focus groups you plan to have, and the approximate length of each interview that will last.
b. Given your research topic, address the problem with the subjects’ reluctance to participate in your interview of focus groups. Provide some strategies for dealing with these difficulties.
c. Describe the places you will conduct the interviews or focus groups and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of conducting them in these locations? Specify steps you will take to ensure that both you and your respondents feel safe and at-ease in this setting.
d. State your research questions for respondents and list the main constructs you will include in your interview guide. Design at least five interview questions that you will ask your respondents. At least one of these questions should specifically be about your main topic of interest (DV).
e. Explain how you will gather your data (e.g., recording the interviews, taking notes during the interview/focus group, or doing both strategies).