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Unit 6: Research Design (Plan) for your Research Question

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Unit 6: Research Design (Plan) for your Research Question

Think back to what you learned about the nature of research and social work practice; impact of assumptions about knowledge on research; characteristics of a “productive” or “good” research question and/or hypothesis; methodology and methods, along with what you learned from your reviews of research reports and the wiki work on program needs assessment and evaluation.   Bring that learning to developing a plan (Research Design) for your research question

 

We are in a very interesting part of research as we applied research methodology and methods to needs assessment and evaluation and now move to working on developing a plan for research (research design), based on your question and/or hypothesis.  In Assignment 2  you will provide a draft plan to address either the research question you identified in Unit 2 and revisited and revised in the other Units or you may use a different question based on what you learned during the process of working with the information in the previous Units.  Your question/hypothesis may take you to a needs assessment or program evaluation strategy but it does not need to, it may lead you to a type of exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory research that is not connected to a needs assessment or evaluative research.

 

Objectives

 

  • Develop a research design covering the key areas identified for the assignment
  • Identify key ethical considerations that need to be taken into account to carry out research as planned
  • Describe a plan for ensuring informed consent to carry out research as planned

 

Unit 6:   Assignment #2 Instructions

 

Development of Research Design to Address your Question(s)

 

One to two page double space (word document)

 

 

 

Directions:

 

In a one to two page double space Word Document using the research question you developed previously or a new one and using what you learned about research design, methodology and methods from the work in the previous Units and the readings/resources provided below, identify how you think you would go about gathering information to address your question and/or hypothesis, responding to the following:

 

  • Identify your area of interest and research question
  • Identify whether you would use quantitative or qualitative methodology or a mixed approach with the reasons for your choice(s). Also if you think you may be using a needs assessment and/or program evaluation explain why you think one or both comes from your research question/interest.
  • Identify the type of methods you would use: For example, interviews, surveys and/or observational methods for data collection can be used in a quantitative or qualitative approach or could be used in a design that was a combination of qualitative and quantitative depending on the types of questions that are asked and how structured the observations are.
  • Role of participants: Those involved in the research could be sources of information, participants in developing the research design, sampling and/or creating the data gathering instruments and/or gathering and analyzing the data. Different participants could be involved in different roles depending on their expertise and/or position in the community.
  • Identify how you would select participants, e.g., type of random sample, such as simple, stratified, cluster or combination or non random sample, such as purposive, convenience, quote, snowball or combination
  • Identify ethical considerations that would be important to address
  • What would Informed Consent look like in your research?
  • Be sure and provide reasons for your decisions with references to the resources for this week and if appropriate from previous Units as well as any additional resources that you found helpful.

 

 

 

(Research Question from last unit-2)

 

Does perfectionism exist, and can Social Work Research studies, using various distinct research methodologies and constitutive methods, be of any contributive significance if applied to contemplate perfectionism, relative to how it affect social cognition in typically developing individuals?

 

 

 

Take notes:

Please take note, it’s for the same course as the one you have been working on. please reference to the teacher has said about using big words. she wants it simple and easy to understand as it’s an undergrad course. please make use of ‘I’ as in personalizing it: since it’s a social work course, you are allowed to use “ I think” , “i believe” and so on. Please keep this work to one or two pages. nothing more than that please. i have added a list of references to be used and articles as well. Thanks again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Readings and articles

 

Wadsworth, Yolanda. (2011). Chapter 5: How to Go About Finding Out:  Part A Research Design. Do It Yourself Social Research.  Australia: Allen & Unwin.  pp 44-58.

 

Online Survey Tools. at

http://www.idealware.org/articles/fgt_online_surveys.php

 

Data Center—good overview of online survey options but be sure and also look at Fluid Survey, not included on the list on this site but the Canadian version of Survey Monkey.  Click here to go to Fluid Survey

 

Community Asset Mapping

http://www.brighterfuturestogether.co.uk/brighter-futures-together-toolkit/map-assets-in-your-community/

 

Trochim’s Online Text has some information about options for data gathering methods (look through Table of Contents)  http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/contents.php

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