Skills: The purpose of this assignment is to help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in this course, for the overall development of your research proposal, and for the development of college-level writing and critical thinking skills. These skills include:
Displaying your depth of knowledge on a topic or issue through writing,
Comparing, analyzing, and evaluating the scholarly writing of others,
Understanding of scholarly writing, debates, and competing arguments,
Beginning awareness of different research methodologies,
Ability to construct your own argument while citing the published work previously conducted in your field,
Taking responsibility for the direction of your learning by pursuing a topic area that is interesting to you.
The final product will consist of:
A cover sheet in APA format
A second page that includes your revised research question and hypothesis. Be clear about what your independent variables, and the dependent variable are. Please use subheadings on this page.
A 5-page literature review (between 5-7 pages- not including cover page or references!)
References (no limit on the number, but most include at least 10-15 different scholarly references)
Introduction:Identification of the problem, study objectives, research question(s) and/or hypothesis (es).
This section is typically be 3-5 pagraphs and should contain at least3 unique citations. Here you should define key concepts and provide critical background information to frame the problem (e.g. magnitude of problem, who and how it affects general and specific populations, key characteristics of populations, ect.). In this section your should address:
Clearly state your research questions/hypotheses (What is your research trying to find out?)
Why is this important research, what is its significance, and why should someone reading the proposal care about the outcomes of the proposed study?
Answer the “So What? question [i.e., why should anyone care].
Present the rationale of your research question and base that rationale in available evidence. Identify gaps that your research will ody:In the body of this paper, you will provide an assessment of your two interventions (independent variables in your hypothesis). You will accomplish this by selecting and critically examing one peer reviewd article for each intervention. This article must report the effects of the chosen intervention. (~3 pargraphs for each intervention article).
Examples:
CBT as a tx for depression (reported in article 1) versus MBSR as a treatment for depression (reported in article 2).
Group therapy as tx for anxiety disorders among youth (reported in article 1) versus individualized therapy as tx for anxiety disorders among youtaddress.
Conclusions:In this section, you will summarize the findings of your review and draw conclusions. Compare and contrast the strengths and weakness of the the articles under review. Make conclusions about limitations and relevant areas for future inquiry. This is where you demonstrate your critical reflection of the content and tie in key concepts from the course into your appraisal. Dig deeper by asking questions such as:
What were the key results and what conclusions did the authors draw?
Are these conclusions justified by the methods?
Were the research approaches comprehensive or did it leave you with questions?
Was there a better methodology that could have been undertaken to address the original research question proposed in the article(s)?
Were there flaws in the measures used?
Were there flaws in the research process or author conclusions?
Were ethical issues present?
Are results generalizable? To what extent?
What are the limitations and implications for future research and/ or social work practice? Include those that are reported in the article as well as those you suggest based on your critical review.
What are the next steps to continue to move the research understanding forward on this topic?
Note how your proposed study builds on previous assumptions about the research problem.
