Your second written assignment in 3P62 is a capstone term paper meant to demonstrate your understanding of relevant concepts from across the course and your ability to apply them to a research area and question of your choosing. It is worth 25% of your final grade in 3P62. In this research proposal you will integrate everything you have learned so far about qualitative research in psychology to propose your own qualitative research project on a psychological topic of your choice. Once you have your hypothetical research topic selected you must then craft an appropriately qualitative research question, provide a brief literature review (2-3 paragraphs) to properly contextualize your research question, and explain in detail how you would use an appropriate qualitative method to generate/identify data and an appropriate form of qualitative data analysis to answer your research question. PLEASE ENSURE YOU READ THE DETAILED ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS ATTACHED!!! They tell you everything you need to know to do a great job on this assignment!
IMPORTANT: You will NOT be collecting any actual qualitative data for this assignment and no actual analysis of qualitative data will take place. We do NOT have class-wide REB approval for you to actually conduct your own research for this course (i.e. interacting with participants, gathering data etc.) so please do not attempt this!
NOTE: Your grade on this paper is not only a reflection of how well you′ve understood the material from 3P62 but also how well you can express you ideas clearly and concisely through your writing. For this reason we HIGHLY recommend that you get started on this paper EARLY (one month will fly by!), meet with Scott or your TA to run ideas by, get an outline and then a rough draft started early, edit, proofread, edit again, swap with a peer for feedback/suggestions, and visit the A-Z learning service at Brock to get help honing your craft as an academic writer and researcher. We don′t have time in class to cover the basics of good writing style BUT Brock has lots of resources available to you for you to develop this essential skill on your own. Your grade on this paper (and the course) will reflect how much time and effort you put into your writing!
Relevant Learning Outcomes:
Identify, understand and critique the strengths and limitations of different approaches to qualitative research in psychology as well as the pros and cons of qualitative vs. quantitative forms of psychological inquiry
Understand, describe and be able to identify what constitutes an insightful, interesting and high quality analysis of qualitative data
Rubric – Paper #2 accounts for 25% of your grade in the course and will be graded out of 25 points broken down as follows:
4 points – Clear, comprehensive and complete brief introduction and literature review that properly contextualizes the research question and draws on appropriate psychological literature.
2 points – Research question is clear and appropriately psychological and qualitative (i.e. it can be answered using qualitative methods)
2 points – Positionality statement clearly links the author’s identities, experiences and perspectives to the proposed research topic and briefly reflects on the implications.
7 points – Desсrіption of method of data generation / data identification is clear, comprehensive and complete and includes not only an explanation of WHAT you propose but also an explanation of WHY this is a suitable method. Full marks on this section would mean that no details are left out and the reader has a very clear idea of exactly how you would complete your proposed research.
2 points – Consideration of ethical issues in the proposed research is clear, comprehensive and complete and shows a thoughtful engagement with both microethics and macroethics that may be relevant to the proposed research.
4 points – Clear, comprehensive and complete desсrіption of proposed qualitative data analysis that not only explains WHAT you plan to do but also WHY this is a suitable method of data analysis to answer your research question.
2 points – Clearly and concisely written overall (paragraph structure, grammar, free of typos)
2 points – Perfect APA format (i.e. margins, title page etc.). Every source you refer to in your research proposal (e.g. outside literature, class readings, Scott’s lectures) MUST be properly cited using APA.
Good luck!!
