**IMPORTANT: This is an “individual” assignment. Each of you must complete this paper individually based on your team’s hypothesis and research results.
This assignment requires that each of you complete a communication-related research project using quantitative methods (a survey or an experiment). Each individual student should submit her/his paper by May 1st (Wednesday) at 11:59 PM. Although I expect the entire paper to be 6-8 pages long (excluding your appendix), you will use your team’s literature review for this final paper. Therefore, I expect you will write only 4-6 pages of new content (i.e., your own individual abstract, (revised) hypothesis section that (now) reflects your actual hypothesis test with your survey data, method, results, and discussion sections). This final paper should:
1. Adhere to APA guidelines (Check out this Five Minute APA Guide for a quick reference)
Your paper should include all the subsections (i.e., title page, “extended” abstract, introduction, literature review, method, results, discussion, and references).
Create a title page indicating the title of your paper and the name of the author (see the APA Style Guidelines)
For sample papers formatted in APA Style, you can check out this APA website here. Please remember those sample papers are just for the “formatting” of your paper. You should follow the content guidelines discussed here for your final paper.
Be sure to follow the APA guidelines for in-text citations
Basics for in-text citations
In-text citations: Author/Authors
2. [Departmental Requirement] Include an extended abstract (just 300-500 words), which highlights your research project outcomes. Be sure to include a heading that says “Extended Abstract” (without the quotation marks). This extended abstract should start on a new page. This part is required by the Communication Department and should discuss:
Your research topic, your questions (or hypotheses), and a rationale for the study
A summary of your literature review and how this review informs and guides your research question (or hypothesis)
A summary of your survey (experimental) research (focusing on your sample and measurement of your variables) and your “overall” hypothesis test results (you don’t need to report actual statistics here)
A summary of your key findings and the significance (or implications) of these findings
3. The introduction describes the topic being studied and the importance of studying this topic:
This introduction section doesn’t need a heading but it should start on a new page.
Introduce your topic and provide some background information on this topic
Discuss the significance of your study (why it is important, interesting, and significant to study this topic)
If appropriate or relevant, descriptions of real-life interactions or non-academic publications may be used here to demonstrate why this topic should be studied.
The research question guiding your project may be described in this section.
Conclude with a “road map” or preview describing what will be addressed in your paper.
4. Include a literature review describing research and theories that are relevant to your study:
Be sure to include a heading that says “Literature Review” (without the quotation marks).
This part will be based on your team’s earlier work on your literature review. Please just insert here the “mini” literature review you and your teammates have already completed. Revise this part if necessary. [IMPORTANT: Please note revising your literature review is not required. However, if you have made significant changes to this part, please clearly indicate what changes you’ve made to your team’s earlier work in the paper or separately via email. This is important for me to give you credit for your efforts to improve your paper.]
This section should only include scholarly publications (journal articles or books).
Use the literature review to discuss what research already has been done, but your goal here is to show why your research still is needed (either identify what questions were not answered in previous research or explain why existing research needs to be replicated).
This section should NOT be a one-paragraph summary of each reference in your list. Rather, the lit review should tell the “story” behind your research and explain why your study is needed, using your references to explain what has already been done and what is missing or needed.
Be sure to provide a descriptive summary of your theory/theories, showing how and why it is useful for understanding your topic.
At the end of your literature review, present your hypothesis (or hypotheses if you have multiple hypotheses), making sure to explain how your hypothesis was developed based on what was learned in the lit review. Remember your hypothesis should state a predicted relationship between two variables. Please make sure this hypothesis matches with the actual SPSS hypothesis test you will report in your result section.
If the literature is unclear on the direction of the relationship in question or provides conflicting predictions on the relationship, you can just propose a non-directional research question instead of a hypothesis (e.g., is there any relationship between A and B?)
5. Next, include your Method section, where you describe the methodology used to conduct the study.
This section should be separated from the literature review with a heading that says “Method” (without the quotation marks). Begin with a brief statement that you have conducted a survey (or an experiment).
Describe the participants in your study, including how they were recruited and the total number of people who completed the survey. Also provide an overview that describes the participants in terms of gender, age, and other demographic information. You can get information about such demographic characteristics of your study participants by running some basic SPSS univariate analysis (e.g., frequency distribution or descriptive statistics) of your demographic questions using your team’s project SPSS dataset I shared with you.
Explain how dependent and independent variables in each of your hypotheses were measured, making sure to list every survey question that was used to measure those variables. [You do not need to describe survey questions that you did not use for your analysis.] If (and only if) you created a summary index variable by combining multiple questions in SPSS (e.g., compute index = item1+item2+item3), you need to report a Cronbach’s Alpha reliability statistic for such variables. Here are a couple of examples:
Example 1. We measured the variable of feelings toward ethnic minorities by asking, “How would you feel about these groups gaining more political influence in the U.S.?” This question was applied to four ethnic groups: Hispanic Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, and African Americans. The answer choice ranged from extremely negative (0) to extremely positive (10). The four responses were summed up to construct an index for feelings toward ethnic minorities (Cronbach’s α =.87).
Example 2. Civic participation, which refers to involvement in community service activities, was measured by asking how often respondents had: (a) volunteered in their community, (b) raised money for a charitable cause, and (c) worked together informally with someone or some group to solve a problem in the community in which they live. All these items were assessed on a four-point frequency scale ranging from “never” (1) to “very often” (4). We created an index of civic participation by adding together the scores on each of these three items (Cronbach’s α =.82).
In sum, you need to show in this method section how the independent and dependent variables were operationalized, providing enough information that another researcher could replicate your procedures if desired. [You are responsible for describing only those variables that were used for your hypothesis.]
6. Now, you include the Results section, where you summarize the results of your data analysis.
Be sure to include a heading that says “Results” (again, without the quotation marks).
Provide a short, straightforward description of the findings without any additional subjective interpretations or discussions. Be objective here!
Organize this section centering around your hypothesis. First, restate your hypothesis, and describe which statistical test was run. Then state the findings and indicate whether or not the hypothesis was supported. When you get to the part where you explain whether or not the data support the research hypotheses, please be sure to include the following three pieces of information for your statistical test: (a) the calculated test statistics (correlation r, t value, or Chi square χ2), (b) the degrees of freedom (df) for a Chi-square test or a t test, or the number of cases for a correlation test, and (c) the p value (or sig value from SPSS). When you have a p value less than 0.05, you can reject the null hypothesis. [One picky detail: Hypotheses are never “proven” to be true. You can say, for instance, that your hypothesis was supported by your data (your observations) and that your data were consistent with your hypothesis; however, you should NOT say that you proved it.]
IMPORTANT: Be sure to include all relevant SPSS output tables for your hypothesis test as an appendix at the end of your final paper (right after your reference page). In this appendix, provide a table heading for your tables (for example, Table 1. SPSS Correlation Test Results for Hypothesis 1).
It’s tempting to explain what your findings mean, but save that for the discussion section! This section should just describe the results that were found, with no subjective interpretations.
7. Conclude your paper with a discussion section that explains the significance of the results and addresses limitations.
Include a heading that says “Discussion” (without the quotation marks).
Interpret the results you reported in the previous section. Feel free to be subjective here! Explain what your findings mean and why they are important. Discuss whether your findings are consistent with previous research or offer new insights. Discuss whether people could use your findings to improve their own communication practices or patterns.
Be sure to revisit the theory/theories discussed in the lit review and to indicate whether your findings support or refute the theory.
Identify any problems or limitations of your study. Remember that research is never perfect, and explain what could have been done better or differently to improve the project.
Offer a few suggestions for research questions or ideas that still need to be addressed in future research.
8. include a “References” page (or work cited page). Make sure to follow the APA Guidelines (Once again, check out this Five Minute APA Guide for a quick reference). This references section should start on a new page.
See also these APA guidelines for a reference page:
Basic rules
How to list a journal article
9. Once again, don’t forget to include all relevant SPSS output tables for your hypothesis test as an “Appendix” at the end of your final paper. Include a heading that says “Appendix” (without the quotation marks). This appendix should start on a new page.
If you have ANY questions as you are working on this paper, please ask! I am happy to provide all the assistance and advice you need as you are writing up your final paper.
