Instrument Research

COMM400---Guidelines for Final Research Proposal

Overview of the assignment:

The final proposal should consist of six parts: title page, introduction, literature review, method, references, and study instrument. The length of your final report should be between 8-10 pages, excluding the title page, references, and the appendix (study instrument). You should include at least ten sources related to your research topic. Among these sources, there should be no more than two Web sources. Journal articles retrieved from the Web are not considered Web sources.

Everything that goes in your research report should follow APA style (7th edition). Here is the link to the

guidelines again: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Title page

A title page includes the title of your research proposal, your name(s), the class you write the paper for, and the date.

Introduction

The introduction part should not exceed one page in length. The purpose of having an introduction is to put your research topic in perspective. This is the place you use background information on the issue you are interested in. For instance, if you are interested in the effects of television on body image, you can introduce some statistics on eating disorders. The introduction usually ends with the central issue you are going o discuss in your paper.

Literature review

Literature review serves two purposes: to summarize what is known about the research in the area that interests you; and to use past research as evidence for the arguments that you are going to make by posing a research question or hypothesis. To reiterate, literature review is NOT to support your hypothesis but to help you formulate your hypothesis. It lays the foundation for your predictions, so I will know how you come up with your current predictions.

I am looking for a good and coherent story about your research topic. After reading your literature review, I hope I will be able to say that I now know what has been done in the past on your research topic and what you propose to test is a logical next step to advance the knowledge in the area. Remember, you are to apply a communication theory to a real-world problem. A summary of the theory is needed in the literature review as well as its relation to your topic.

· When you write a literature review, you are not only summarizing what has been done in the area but also arguing for your case, i.e., your hypothesis. There are a few ways you can organize your literature review. First, use chronological order to organize the articles. What was found at the beginning, and what has been found after the initial study? Second, organize your literature by topic. You can cluster articles by their foci and summarize them. Third, organize by comparison and contrast. This is good when you have articles of conflicting results. Review articles of similar findings and then review the other bunch, which has contrary findings. You may side with one and disagree with the other. But you have to provide reasons for the position you take. Whichever the way you choose to organize your literature review, you need to point out the contribution of your own hypothesis in light of the past findings.

· The last sentence of your literature part must be your hypothesis or research question.

Method

The method section details the data collection process. If you use a survey, you need to specify: who your respondents are; how you locate them; and the key variables included in the survey. If you conduct an experiment, you need to include a description of your experiment procedure, subjects, experiment conditions, stimuli, and key variables examined. If you conduct an interview study, you need to specify how you select your respondents and how the interview is conducted and what questions are asked. If you do a content analysis, you need to detail the population of your study, sample selection process, and variables examined.

Reference

References must be in APA style (7th edition).

Study instrument

Please include a revised questionnaire/coding instrument at the end of the paper.

A few helpful reminders or hints

· Please do not list all your articles one by one in the literature review. I need you to integrate the findings of each article into coherent writing, not just a pile of article summaries. Read the literature reviews of your articles, and you will have an idea of how to organize them and raise your own hypothesis.

· To check if your lit review is on the right track, you need to see if all variables in your hypothesis are discussed in your literature review section.

· In terms of following APA style, you need to pay attention to both the in-text citation format as well as reference citation.

Grading Rubric for Final Proposal

	Novice (0-1)	Competent (2-3)	Proficient (4-5)	Score
Introduction	--no evidence cited to support the topic --personal experience oriented writing --fail to introduce the topic in light of a big picture	--some evidence cited --introduce the topic --provide some big picture view of the topic	--cite right evidence to illustrate the significance of the topic --situate the topic in a big picture --point out the potential gap this study fills
Theory	--no theory is mentioned --a theory is introduced but with little explanation --the theory introduced is not a good fit	--introduce a theory --provides some summary of the theory --no linkage of the theory with the topic	--introduce a theory --provides a good summary of the theory --review empirical studies of the theory --link the theory with the topic
Relevance of literature	--all or most of the studies reviewed are off the topic	---some of the literature reviewed is off the topic --the studies reviewed are not capturing the key variables	--all or almost all studies reviewed are relevant --all key variables in the study are sufficiently reviewed
Organization of literature review	--studies are piled up with no identification of connections --one study one paragraph	--some identification of common themes across studies	--all studies reviewed are grouped by themes
RQ and hypothesis	--RQ or hypothesis is not present at the end of the literature review --no indication of the “gap” filled by the RQ or hypothesis	--raise the RQ or hypothesis at the end of the literature --no indication of the gap filled by the RQ or hypothesis	--raise the RQ or hypothesis at the end of the literature review --indicate the gap or potential contribution of the RQ or hypothesis
Method	--sketchy plan on the data collection --no identification of methods, procedure, or participants --no introduction of key variables measured	--some plan of the data collection --incomplete picture of the methods, such as missing one or two elements -- little or no introduction of key variables measured	--a clear plan for data collection --method, participants, and procedure are in place --key variables measured are introduced
Grammar	--consistent grammatical errors present --use of wrong voice for academic papers	--some grammatical errors present --inconsistent voices at times	--free of grammatical errors --consistent use of voices
APA format	--inconsistent use of APA in-text citation --more than half of the articles in the references have mistakes	--some in-text citation mistakes --some APA errors in references	--perfect/near perfection citations, both in text and in references
Timeliness and elements	--more than 3 days late --instrument or method section is missing	--a day or two late --all elements present	--on-time submission --all required elements present