Posted: June 19th, 2015
Research Rationale and Method Paper
230 Points
ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW
First, identify a specific and narrow topic for research that focuses on some aspect of communication behavior, and formulate a question that you have about that particular communication phenomenon. You may have a question in mind, or you may find a question by examining the literature and identifying gaps. Please make sure that your topic is, in fact, related to the communication discipline. Hopefully, you’ve already accomplished this with your Topic Proposal assignment.
Then, read relevant, primary sources (peer-reviewed research studies and articles published in scholarly journals, NOT in books, popular media, and web-based articles) on your topic and related issues. Make notes as you read that identify key ideas, variables, and definitions. Avoid recording direct quotations from the journal articles. Instead, paraphrase and summarize ideas from original sources in your own words – explain these ideas in plain language. You are limited to using ONLY 5 direct quotations in this paper. You will need to read more material than you will end up citing in your paper in order to find useful and topic-relevant sources. You should have a minimum of 10 sources cited and referenced in the final draft of your paper. Additionally, a minimum of seven of these sources must be from Communication journals (as identified in Chapter 3, p. 53 of your textbook). Please make sure that you are submitting your own original work for this course. Submitting any work that has been submitted for another class (including COM 207) is considered plagiarism.
This culminating course assignment is to be comprised of the following components (all properly formatted according to APA style requirements). Instructions for composing each section are detailed below. Please carefully read and heed those instructions AND watch the video posted online under “Assignments”.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INTRODUCTION SECTION (1-2 pages)
The introductory section follows your properly APA-formatted title page. This section is to be a re-composed draft (i.e., edit your paper using instructor/T.A. feedback given on your topic proposal) of the overview section of your Topic Proposal, including each of the following components (please note the differences between these instructions and those provided for the Topic Proposal assignment):
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE LITERATURE REVIEW SECTION (4-6 pages)
The primary purpose of a literature review is to provide a rationale for a proposed research question or hypothesis. A review of literature should represent a synthesis of existing theory and research studies that argues for the need to explore a research question or hypothesis. The process of constructing a literature review acquaints the researcher with scholarly thought and studies already accomplished in a particular area, and allows the researcher to build on and extend the existing knowledge by identifying a need for further research.
A written review of current scholarly literature on a topic begins generally (often with a theory or theoretical perspective), and gradually becomes more and more specific until you propose your specific research question or hypothesis. You will incorporate all relevant theories and previous research findings into your review. Remember that this should serve as an argument creating the need to explore your research question or hypothesis. Please do not incorporate information in your literature review that does not deal directly with your research question or hypothesis. On the other hand, make sure that you incorporate enough evidence from reviewed literature to create a strong argument for exploring your research question or hypothesis (from at least 10 journals articles, with a minimum of seven articles from communication journals). The key to writing a good literature review is synthesis. The following questions may help to guide your reading and organization process:
The literature review should begin by conceptually defining each of the concepts that you are interested in. You will give a broad conceptual definition so that the reader understands the focus of your paper. For example, if you have ever taken a conflict management class, you know that a multitude of definitions exist for the notion of conflict. So, it is important to tell your reader how you are defining conflict. Each paragraph of the literature review should have a topic sentence, and the body of the paragraph should work on supporting the topic sentence. All of your topic sentences should fit together as a cohesive argument for exploring your research question or hypothesis. When you are constructing your outline for the literature review section, keep in mind the argument you need to construct in order to justify your research question or hypothesis.
Please do NOT provide a study-by-study summary of the literature (an annotated bibliography). The purpose of a focused literature review is to synthesize what scholars know about your topic. Therefore, you should have multiple citations per paragraph and oftentimes per sentence. All constructs, variables, and theory components (if you choose to incorporate theories into your paper) that are relevant to your study should be defined and explained using scholarly sources (with citations). When completed, your literature review should resemble the content and structure of relevant published journal articles. This means that you should cite scholarly sources whenever an idea is not your own. Please compose the literature review section in past tense, since you are reviewing research that has already been completed.
Conclude the literature review section of your paper by proposing a clear and concise research question or hypothesis that emerges logically and clearly from your literature review. That, is the variables/constructs you write about in your literature review should be found in your H/RQ. Conversely, do not include variables in your H/RQ that are not discussed in your literature review. Remember, the research question or hypothesis you develop MUST be written appropriately as a test of differences or a test of associations. You should have a lead-in paragraph that ties the research together and summarizes the argument for your research question or hypothesis. You need to have at least one research question or hypothesis, but you may propose more than that. However, multiple research questions and hypotheses will ordinarily require a more complex study method design, complicating your task. Any research question or hypothesis should be set apart in the text of your paper as per APA formatting requirements.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE METHOD SECTION (2-3 pages)
Compose a detailed description of a quantitative study design that can be employed to effectively investigate your research question or research hypothesis. Please compose the methods section in future tense, since this section is a research study proposal (you will not actually collect data). The method section of your study proposal should adequately address each of the following components:
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS SECTION (1-2 paragraphs)
Discuss any limitations to your proposed study. That is, discuss possible threats to the internal and external validity of your study results that could be posed by the methods, the participants, and the researcher. Explain why any threat stands as a possibility. It should not be difficult to be specific and clear here, since the textbook describes all of these threat possibilities in detail.
Finally, conclude with a brief summary of your paper. The summary should review the main components of the paper, and close with important reasons to explore your research question or hypothesis through your research study proposal.
COMPOSITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Be sure to submit your paper online via Dropbox by 11:59 p.m. on the due date (do not email your paper to me). NO late assignments will be accepted.
Tips
Grading Rubric for Research Rationale and Method Paper (230 points)
APA Title Page ____/5 points
Revised Topic Proposal and Bibliography based on instructor comments ____/10 points
Introduction _____/27 points
_____ Includes an appropriate attention-getter, and introduction is grounded in scholarly
literature (6 points)
_____ Clearly introduces variables and/or theory (7 points)
_____ Provides a quality and convincing rationale for exploring the topic of study (6 points)
_____ Includes an effective thesis statement (4 points)
_____ Includes an effective preview of main points (4 points)
Literature Review/Hypotheses/RQ’s _____/65 points
_____ Literature review contains a logical flow (good/logical organizational structure) (8 points)
_____ Synthesizes scholarship together logically (in themes) (10 points)
_____ Follows a Ñ format (information is broad to narrow) (5 points)
_____ Includes appropriate literature (for the variables explored) (15 points)
_____ Uses unambiguous and descriptive headings throughout paper (5 points)
_____ Defines and explains relevant concepts (10 points)
_____ Clear connection among research, theory (when applicable), and proposed hypotheses and/or research questions (i.e., argument provided) (6 points)
_____ Presents at least one logical research question/hypothesis (in proper format) (6 points)
Method Section (83 points total)
Study Method Overview_____/15 points
_____ Rationale for method choice provided (7 points)
_____ Provides a brief and accurate description of the proposed method
Study Method Procedures_____/55 points (8 points)
_____ Method appropriately answers research questions and/or tests hypotheses (20 points)
_____ Description of the participants, measures, and procedures/instruments is complete and information is in the correct sections (24 points)
_____ Justification is provided for choosing the particular sample, measures, and procedures (11 points)
Limitations and Conclusions Section_____/13 points
_____ Discusses threats to internal and external validity (9 points)
_____ Includes brief summary of research proposal (4 points)
Overall Paper Quality_____/40 points
_____ Grammar, spelling, and writing quality (10 points)
_____ APA Formatting (references/in-text citations, title page) (15 points)
_____ Follows formatting requirements (1-inch margins, Times New Roman 12pt. font,
double-spaced, etc.) (8 points)
_____ Appropriate material included in Appendix section (scales/measures/questions used for
data collection) (7 points)
Possible Deductions
_____ The methods section is not written in future tense (minus up to 10 points)
_____ Research participant demographics do not make sense (minus up to 5 points)
_____ Operational definitions do not correspond with conceptual definitions (minus up to 10 points)
_____ Topic is inappropriate for the assignment (i.e., it is not a communication topic and/or does not focus on communication variables) (up to 15 point deduction)
_____ Inappropriate number of and/or type of references (minus 5 points per infraction)
_____ Overuse of direct quotations (5 quotations allowed; 5 point deduction per infraction)
_______ /230 Total Score
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