Module 4: Methods
50 POINTS
Total pages: 2-3
Your paper should build upon your literature review. Specifically, you will describe how you will test the hypothesis proposed in the second paper. Your paper should have all of the sections described herein.
Method Description:
Describe your research method using the appropriate terms such as experiment or survey (questionnaire or interview). Also explain why this type of method is being used (i.e., why the specific method is appropriate for this topic in terms of why exploratory or descriptive research is more appropriate than correlational or experimental – or vice-versa. You must use a quantitative method for this project. make sure to write in future tense as you will not actually conduct the study.
Procedures
Participants. The section describes, in detail, how the participants will be sampled, the characteristics of the sample which will be relevant to the study, the desired size of the sample, and a logical rationale that justifies this sample choice and size.
Procedures. Include your description of how your research will proceed (remember- we may want to actually conduct this study).
Discuss where your participants will be studied, what will happen to them when they immediately arrive, the instructions you will give participants, etc.
Describe how the data will be gathered, including specific procedures to be followed.
Provide a brief rationale for why these procedures and measures are appropriate for the study, including how reliability and validity will be determined.
Instrumentation
Describe how you will operationalize the independent and dependent variables. That is, explain how the variables will be observed, measured, and/or manipulated in relation to all questionnaires, physical observations, and any other applicable measures.
You must use pre-existing measures or procedures. If the instruments that you will use have been previously validated, report that information here, long with the reliability coefficient that other researchers have found that instrument to have.
Be sure to include examples here. If you are using any kind of instrument (if you are doing a survey), include the instrument in the appendix (at the end of the paper). If the actual instrument has not been published, then include the examples of the items that other researchers have described when they used that instrument.
If you are using a pre-existing procedure (doing an experiment) then please thoroughly explain the experiment.
Limitations and Conclusion
Discuss some potential threats to internal and external validity, and these threats will be (a) thwarted by your procedures, or (b) may impact the conclusions. It should not be difficult to be specific and accurate here, since your book discusses all of these issues in chapters that we have read. Conclude with a brief summary of your report.
References (add any new articles used in your methods paper)
Appendix
Include all relevant study materials here. This could include survey instruments, experimental manipulation, coding sheets, etc.
