As
a counselor, you will regularly use professional literature to inform
your work. Many of the important questions that you will have as your
career evolves will be answered by researchers conducting quantitative
studies. The quantitative designs help generate the knowledge base that
becomes the evidence behind our best practices.
For this assignment, you will create a mini research proposal for a
quantitative study. As you work through the activities relevant to
quantitative research concepts, think through a possible quantitative
study. Your work on this assignment will demonstrate that you understand
the importance of the alignment of the elements of a study and how they
work together.
Preparation
In preparation for this assignment, think about a problem in
counseling practice that could be researched using a quantitative
approach. Then, find three recent empirical sources that support your
study of the problem. You may also wish to find a non-empirical source.
The Counseling: Masters Research Guide
Links to an external site. can help you with your library search.
Instructions and Grading Criteria
Create a mini research proposal that addresses the problem you identified, using the Week 6 Assignment Template [DOCX].
Your proposal must include the elements listed below each numbered
grading criterion, so be sure to address each point. You may also want
to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion in the
assignment rubric to see how your work will be assessed.
Synthesize scholarly literature that supports the study of a research problem.
Write a mini literature review of three recent empirical sources (required) and one non-empirical source (optional).
Create a quantitative research question that is aligned to a research problem.
This specific question should be written in a way that it could be
answered through quantitative data; this is the main question that will
be answered by the proposed study. Identify any independent and
dependent variables.
Describe a research design for a quantitative study.
Describe the research design for the proposed study.
Choose from correlational, experimental, quasi-experimental, time-series, and survey.
Provide a rationale as to why this particular design is a good fit for your study.
Describe an appropriate sampling strategy for a quantitative study.
Describe your proposed sampling strategy, including the population
from which the sample would come and how many participants you would
include.
Detail data collection strategies and measurement instruments that address a research question.
Identify data collection strategies that you would use in your study and describe any instruments that you would use.
Explain how you would collect the quantitative data that would answer your research question.
Explain a quantitative data analysis strategy that aligns to the research problem.
Explain how you would analyze the data that you collected based upon
your research question and type of data that will be collected.
Describe ethical and cultural concerns in the proposed research study.
Describe at least one ethical and at least one cultural concern that may be present in the proposed study.
Describe how mixed methods might be applied to address the research problem.
Describe how the problem that you investigated might be addressed by using a mixed-methods approach.
Explain whether you believe that would be a stronger approach or not, in this particular situation.
Communicate effectively in appropriate form and style, using APA guidelines for grammar, punctuation, and mechanics
Additional Requirements
Template: Use the Week 6 Assignment Template [DOCX] to write your mini-proposal.
Written communication: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
Length: 4–6 pages, in addition to a cover page and reference page.
APA Style: Include a reference page in the current APA style at the end of your paper.
Number of references: Minimum of three peer-reviewed empirical journal articles that are no more than five years old.
Rubric & Template (Attached Below)
Resources
Balkin, R. S., & Kleist, D. M. (2017). Counseling research: A practitioner-scholar approach. American Counseling Association.
***6 pages not including references. Please feel free to ask if you need any clarification
