The assignments related to your research projects for this class build on each other. Before starting this post, look back at what you posted in last week’s discussion. You will be choosing ONE of those topics to move forward with.
Make sure you also check the submission comments for last week’s discussion. Ideally, moving forward, one of the research questions you include in this post will be what you refine into your class research project (again, pending approval from the instructor).
Initial Post (6 points)
Post by Wednesday in order to receive full credit.
What specific research questions do you have?
For each research question, you need to get specific enough to name the predictor and outcome variables that you want to measure, and give brief, rough operational definitions of each variable explaining how you might ask about that variable on a survey.
Requirements
Please phrase your research questions in one of the following ways (but using the actual variable names instead of [predictor] and [outcome]. If you can’t find a way to make your question fit into one of the following two frameworks, you should check in with me about whether it’s an acceptable question
Are [predictor/independent variable] and [outcome/dependent variable] related?
Does [outcome/dependent variable] differ depending on [predictor/independent variable]?
Your research questions are allowed to be similar since they should be both on the same general topic. It’s okay if one of your variables is the same for two questions–for example, you could have the same predictor variable for both but propose looking at two different outcomes.
Make sure your research question/topic fits the following parameters:
You must be able to measure both of your variables using survey questions
You must be able to use a between-subjects design, meaning you measure the outcome variable once for each person
Your research question must name the two variables you are interested in measuring and comparing
Your outcome variable MUST be something that can be measured using numerical or scale data
examples of numerical data: height, age, amounts of time spent on different activities
examples of scale data: questions that you answer on a scale such as 1-6 with 1 meaning strongly disagree and 6 meaning strongly agree
You may not include variables that would require your participants to answer questions about illegal activity, violence, or abuse of any sort.
Your research questions must make sense to ask of a population you have access to, and you may not select a vulnerable/at-risk population.
