sociology assignment

SOCIOLOGY 330

RESEARCH METHODS

Assignment 3: Questionnaire (25 points):

Due no later than 11:55p ET on Sunday of Week 7

Purpose: The purpose of exercise is to develop a short questionnaire containing both close-ended survey questions and open-ended questions.  Students will go through the research design process from research question, to survey construction, to analysis of survey results and theory building using a peer-reviewed article.

Requirements:

1.Research Question (2 points)

1)      Develop a clear, specific, sociological research question that will be used to investigate a topic of your choice

2. Conceptual and Operational Definitions ( 5 pts)

2)      Clearly identify the variables in your research question

3)      Identify which variable is your independent variable, and which variable is your dependent variable.

4)      Provide a conceptual definition for each variable. (i.e. similar to dictionary definition)

5)      Describe what ‘type’ of variable each variable is.

6)      Provide an operational definition for each variable.  (i.e. how the variable is going to be measured)

7)      Develop a hypothesis for your research question – a statement of what direction you believe the relationship between your two variables will be.

4. Questionnaire Construction ( 5 pts)

8)      Develop 5-10 closed-ended questions (*for groups: 10-15 questions)

a.       Some of these should measure basic socio-demographic characteristics (i.e. age, race/ethnicity, gender, SES)

b.      The rest should be indicators for your variables

c.       These should be constructed based on the ‘type’ of variable you are measuring.

9)      Develop 2-5 open-ended questions for to help measure your variables (* for groups: 3-7 questions)

a.       This is going to help provide some rich qualitative information and serve as a check for the internal validity of your close-ended questions

5. Sampling Design (5 pts)

10)  Describe your population, sampling frame, and method

11)   Describe your sample

6. Peer-Reviewed Article (5 pts)

19)  Find 1 peer-reviewed article that is related to your research question.

20)  Briefly describe the article (thesis/research question, hypothesis, methods, findings)

21) What are the strengths of this study?

24)  What are the weaknesses of this study?

25)  Discuss implications for future research on your research question

7. Reflection (3 pts)

26)  Briefly discuss what you learned about research methods through this assignment.