INSTRUCTIONS/GUIDELINES for approaching selecting your research topic, submitting the proposal, writing the outline, conducting your study methods:
(i) Make sure you find and cite (in APA format) at least four research papers published in peer reviewed journals. Make sure you read, study, and understand the data sources used, data variables used, and the data analyses performed so much so that you can reproduce/replicate the analyses on your own. This is where you can borrow the data analyses you are going to perform for your study. If you want, you can simply propose to replicate/reproduce a previosly published study (published at least five/six years back) with the latest data in your paper (at least till the end of 2021).
(ii) Make sure you understand what data sources you are going to use – do not simply state you will use ABI Inform/various sources online! You MUST exactly know where you can find the specific data you need (Wharton Research Data Services – WRDS – database is one of the most widely used in research – our library should have access to it – it has CRSP and COMPUSTAT databases which give almost anything you need on publicly traded companies’ financial statement data; St Louis Fed’s website is one of the most reliable data sources for various economic data, which may also be available on WRDS).
You need to also know what variables you need. You must confirm to yourself and on the Final Topic Proposal that you have access to the data you need.
Many research projects fail due to failure to anticipate the difficulty in gathering the data. Failure is NOT an option for you in this course’s work – you will NOT pass this course if you can not complete your paper. So, make sure you take everything very seriously and before it is too late!
(iii) Data evaluation plans: This is where you need to understand at least a few data analyses techniques used in some prior literature – and be able to reproduce the analyses on your own. It is NOT in the scope of this course to teach you any specific statistical/research methods – you all are capable of teaching yourself any given statistical analysis/method by googling and finding very useful tutorials on any topic you might need. Since every student’s topic is different and will use different analysis techniques, it is not practically feasible for me to teach you such techniques/methods for your own paper in the given limited amount of time of one semester or less.
So, make sure you identify one or more published papers from where you are going to borrow and apply the data analyses methods on your own data. Make sure you learn that method(s) and be able to reproduce them on your own data. Allocate enough time to find material and teach yourself the statistical techniques/methods.
(iv) Please go back and check what you have included in your FINAL topic submission. If your FINAL topic submission does not adhere to the above instructions or lack the necessary details mentioned above, please re-submit your final topic submission sooner than later. If you wait for me to get to your submission and give feedback, which will ask you to resubmit anyway, you will be losing valuable time.