1. Section I- All the parts of the paper that were due last time. This includes the title page, the introduction, and the literature review. At this point, you should have made updates to your introduction and literature review to take the feedback from your peers into account. Additionally, the literature review should have been completed so that it has moved from outline from into paragraph form.
2. Section II- A rough draft of your methods section written in paragraph from. This is rough draft, so perfect is not expected, however, you will want to address each of the following subsections of an APA Methods section, including each of the following:
a. Participants
b. Design & Procedures
c. Measures
3. Section III- A complete reference list in APA style. ,
Let’s look at each of the Methods section components in more detail:
Participants:
In this part of the method section, you should describe the participants you plan to use in your experiment, including who they are (and any unique features that set them apart from the general population), how many (ideally) there should be, and how they will be selected. If you are going to use random selection to choose your participants, it should be noted.
This part of your method section must convey basic demographic characteristics of your participants (such as sex, age, ethnicity, or religion), the population from which your participants will be drawn, and any restrictions on your pool of participants.
For example, if your study consists of female college students from a small private college in the Midwest, you should note this in this part of your method section. If you are conducting an experiment, part of your method section should also explain how many participants will be assigned to each condition and how they will be assigned to each group. Will they be randomly assigned to a condition, or will some other selection method used?
It is also important to explain why your participants will take part in your research. How will you recruit your sample? Will your study be advertised at a college or hospital? Will participants receive some type of incentive to take part in your research? Authors should describe their inclusion and exclusion criteria, and how they were determined. Authors should also state that written informed consent will be provided by each subject. In this section it is very important to justify your decisions. Why are you choose the participants you are? Why is your sampling method appropriate? Provide an argument that your sample represents your population. Argue that your recruitment plan is ethical, etc. You need to build the case that your planned sample of participants is generalizable so your results have greater value.
Design and Procedures:
Describe the type of design used in the study- are you conducting an experiment? Are you doing a focus group or interviews? Specify the variables as well as the levels of those variables that you will be testing in the study. Clearly identify your independent variablesLinks to an external site., dependent variablesLinks to an external site., and if you are testing for any intervening variables- identify them.
Describe the materials, equipment, or stimuli to be used in the study. This may include testing instruments, technical equipment, or other materials used during the course of research. For example, you should explain if surveys or tests will be completed via computer or phone, or if paper and pen were used, etc.
Detail the procedures to be used in your study. Explain what you will have your participants do, how you will collect the data, and the order. For example: “An examiner will interview the children individually at their school in one session that lasted 20 minutes on average. The examiner will explain to each child that he or she will be told two short stories and that some questions will be asked after each story. All sessions will be videotaped so the data can later be coded.”
Again remember that at every stage you are building an argument for WHY you choose to do the things you did. Why did you use an experimental design (if you did), why did you decide to do an in-person survey, etc.
Measures:
The type of data, how they were measured, and which statistical tests were performed, should be described.
Specify how you will measure variables. If you are doing coding, include the coding scheme, if you are doing a survey, include the survey, if you are doing an existing scale that someone else developed, include a copy, etc.
Indicate the statistical tests you will use to analyze the data.
At the very bottom of this Assignment Description there is a sample Methods section from a past paper to help you see what a methods section might look like in a strong student paper. This student DID the research though, so his/her work is written in past tense. Yours would be written in future tense as you are talking about what you are PLANNING to do.
Sample Methods Section
Methods
Participants
The sample included 879 adults aged between 18 and 28. More than half of the participants were women (56%), and all participants had completed at least 12 years of education. Ethics approval was obtained from the university board before recruitment began. Participants were recruited online through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk; www.mturk.com). We selected for a geographically diverse sample within the Midwest of the US through an initial screening survey. Participants were paid USD $5 upon completion of the study.
A sample size of at least 783 was deemed necessary for detecting a correlation coefficient of ±.1, with a power level of 80% and a significance level of .05, using a sample size calculator (www.sample-size.net/correlation-sample-size/).
Design and Procedure
Potential participants were invited to participate in a survey online using Qualtrics (www.qualtrics.com). The survey consisted of multiple choice questions regarding demographic characteristics, the Centrality of Religiosity scale, an unrelated filler anagram task, and finally the General Trust in Science index. The filler task was included to avoid priming or demand characteristics, and an attention check was embedded within the religiosity scale. For full instructions and details of tasks, see supplementary materials.
For this correlational study, we assessed our primary hypothesis of a relationship between religiosity and trust in science using Pearson moment correlation coefficient. The statistical significance of the correlation coefficient was assessed using a t test. To test our secondary hypothesis of parental education levels and gender as predictors of religiosity, multiple linear regression analysis was used.
Measures
In the first analysis, the two independent variables were gender and parental education levels of participants and whether these characteristics predicted religiosity levels (the dependent variable). Religiosity refers to involvement and belief in religious traditions, Then in the secondary analysis, religiosity was the independent variable and the dependent variables was trust in science. Trust in science represents confidence in scientists and scientific research outcomes.
Religiosity
Religiosity was measured using the Centrality of Religiosity scale (Huber, 2003). The Likert scale is made up of 15 questions with five subscales of ideology, experience, intellect, public practice, and private practice. An example item is “How often do you experience situations in which you have the feeling that God or something divine intervenes in your life?” Participants were asked to indicate frequency of occurrence by selecting a response ranging from 1 (very often) to 5 (never). The internal consistency of the instrument is .83 (Huber & Huber, 2012).
Trust in Science
Trust in science was assessed using the General Trust in Science index (McCright, Dentzman, Charters & Dietz, 2013). Four Likert scale items were assessed on a scale from 1 (completely distrust) to 5 (completely trust). An example question asks “How much do you distrust or trust scientists to create knowledge that is unbiased and accurate?” Internal consistency was .8.
Professors Comments:
-big aspirations
-well written
-1/5 quote source?
-crisis response study source?
and how relevant?? doesn’t fit
-social media and entrepreneurship??
This paper doesn’t do anything– or propose anything.
Most effective way that social media can lead to growth?
This is a media comment,
