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Question Three: Research Methods and Statistics

As a student at Northcentral University you have taken many classes to prepare you for the dissertation process. Following successful completion of the comprehension examination, you will begin to develop your proposal for your dissertation research. Part of this proposal will require you to develop a problem statement, purpose statement, research questions, and a method section where you describe the method by which you will collect data and the statistical design you will develop to test the research questions.

Question Three requires you to apply what you have learned regarding research methodology in psychology.

Note: You may find textbooks and readings from your research sequence courses helpful to you in preparing your response to this question.

Books & Resources:

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (Sixth Edition). Washington, D.C.: Author. ISBN 9781433805615

NCU Dissertation Center

Statistical Decision Tree

Supplemental Readings

When to use WHAT statistic?

Assignment Part One: Research Problem

For Question Three, your faculty has provided you with a general topic. Your task now is to use that topic to develop research questions, research method section, and statistical design. You may choose either a quantitative or qualitative perspective. (NOTE: You will use this same topic to complete Question Four.)

1. Develop a Problem Statement using the subject area provided by your faculty in Week 1.

In your problem statement, you will

• Explain the research topic behavior regarding the subject area provided by your faculty.
• Define the construct you are interested in researching related to the subject area provided by your faculty.
• Include the theory you would test related to the subject area provided by your faculty.
• Support your problem statement with at least 5-10 peer-reviewed articles.

1. Develop a brief Purpose Statement.
2. Develop two Research Questions using the subject area provided by your faculty, based upon just one of the research questions you have crafted.
3. Develop the Research Hypothesis based upon the research questions you have crafted.
4. Briefly describe how the Research Problem, Purpose, Research Questions, and Hypothesis are connected.
5. (end here, no need for more literature review; move on to Part Two which will require the remaining pages)

NOTE: The purpose of Question 3 is for you to demonstrate expertise in research methods. The most important sections of question 3 will be how you design your study, which are in Part Two below. It is best therefore to keep your question simple (the topic you were given is a great basis for a question, for example, no need to complicate it further). Focus on making sure to demonstrate a keen, deep and broad understanding of all that it takes to do valid and reliable quantitative and qualitative research, using your question as a tool.

Assignment: Part Two: Research Methods (major part of the question)

Using the same topic you addressed in Section One of this question, you will now prepare a Research Methods section.

In the method section you should have all the headings and subheadings outlined by APA. Please feel free to use the APA manual. Keep in mind that a reader should be able to read an author’s research method section and be able to run the experiment by him/herself (this means your procedures section should be clear and detailed as to what you are going to do).

Specifically, this section needs to address:

1. Participants

Briefly determine the demographics/eligibility requirements of the participants you would seek for the proposed study.

2. Research design (good models for this are the 'methods' sections of empirical research papers that include 'participants' 'research design' 'procedures' 'measures' 'planned analysis'

1. The specific research design you would use to test the research questions you have developed for this topic.
2. Justify the design.
3. Describe any limitations this design may have.
4. Describe any advantages and/or disadvantages this design may have.
5. If you have chosen a quantitative design, what would be the qualitative equivalent design for this mock study? If you have chosen a qualitative design, what is the quantitative equivalent design for this mock study? As part of this section, be sure to indicate which statistics would be used to analyze the data in the alternate design.
6. Under what conditions would you opt for the alternative design you have discussed in Item E?