23 Jun Submit the following in one document:? Revised Problem Statement (This should be revised based on changes to your topic and approach since the last draft was submitte
Submit the following in one document:
- Revised Problem Statement (This should be revised based on changes to your topic and approach since the last draft was submitted and based on feedback on the previous draft.)
- Proposed Methodology (See the Unit 5 Lecture for what material to include/topics to cover.)
This entire document should be typed, double spaced and stapled. It should be written in paragraph form and be 3-4 pages in total. All sources should be cited in APA-style
Running head: Research problem and statement assignment 1
Research problem and statement assignment
Kean University
Wendy Reina
June 13, 2022
Research problem and statement assignment 2
There has been a problem in determining the relationship between racism and ethnicity and
unemployment and crime rates in America. The study population entails all the people living in the
United States who do not have formal employment as well as people convicted of crimes in
America. In relation to unemployment includes people who are actively seeking for employment
opportunities but cannot secure any employment opportunities. The population can be refined
through setting inclusion and exclusion criteria to determine the eligible members of the population
for the study. It includes both the skilled employees who have already graduated from institutions
of higher learning or technical institutions as well as people with no skills but who can offer
assistive roles (Lavalley & Johnson, 2020). However, it excludes people who have resigned from
their employment jobs based on personal will. In relation to crime rates, the main focus is people
convicted of less-organized crimes such as carjacking, robbery with violence and murder.
The main aspect of understanding needed in the study is to determine the relationship
between racism and ethnicity and unemployment and crime rates. This entails developing a link
between racism or ethnicity and unemployment as well as developing a link between ethnicity or
racism and crime rates.
The research is relevant to the area of study as it addresses the prevailing societal problems
in the modern society. These issues affect business development and growth as it involves issues
that determine the opportunities necessary for business expansion and effective business and
customer management. This is through employment management through employment and
expansion which is affected by crime rates in the target area.
The source of motivation for the research is the increased concerns of racism and ethnic
inequalities as well as increased public concerns on unemployment trends and crime rates in the
country (Mesic et al, 2018). Other stakeholders should be interested in the chosen topic as it
Research problem and statement assignment 3
enhances deeper understanding of the problems faced in the community. The stake involved in not
addressing from my perspective is that there may be no links created between the variables
addressed in the research.
The concepts and issues to be studied include unemployment, ethnic diversity, racial
discrimination and bias as well as criminal justice system. There is enough time to carry out the
research as it relies more on the use of secondary sources of data. However, it is not obvious to
answer the research problem as it requires collection of data, analysis after which interpretation
and conclusions are made in answering the research problem.
Reference
Research problem and statement assignment 4
Lavalley, R., & Johnson, K. R. (2020). Occupation, injustice, and anti-Black racism in the United
States of America. Journal of Occupational Science, 1-13.
Mesic, A., Franklin, L., Cansever, A., Potter, F., Sharma, A., Knopov, A., & Siegel, M. (2018).
The relationship between structural racism and black-white disparities in fatal police
shootings at the state level. Journal of the National Medical Association, 110(2), 106-116.
,
GE2026 Unit 5
The Ethical Implications of Research & Data Collection Methods
Introduction
Unit 5 highlights a very important element of conducting research that sometimes can be overlooked by novice researchers: the ethical implications of completing research studies with human subjects. In this unit, you will be asked to critically evaluate the ethical considerations involved in research, in general, as well as in your individual research projects, in particular. The readings, resources, and assignments in this unit aim to help you understand the basic meaning of "ethical behavior," in a research study, as well as issues to consider regarding the ethical codes of conduct in your field. The CITI training about conducting research with human subjects will give you an opportunity to think carefully about working with human subjects in your studies. In the Research Proposal Assignment, you will be asked, among other things, to clearly articulate the ethical dimensions of you own project including risks and the steps you will take to protect the research participants.
Additionally, this unit asks you to think in specific terms about the method, design, and instrument you will use to collect data in your study and identify these in the Proposed Methods portion of the Research Proposal Assignment. In order to complete the assignment, please review the required readings and resources for this unit in order to gain a clear picture of the types of data collection instruments that may work well for your study and to fully understand the advantage and disadvantages of each of these research instruments. If you plan to collect data via interviews or online surveys, please be sure to include a list of interview or survey questions (with answer anchors for online surveys or questionnaires where appropriate).
Ethics in Research
As cited in the course textbook, from the Collins Dictionary, "ethical" is defined as "in accordance with the principles of conduct that are considered correct, especially those of a given profession or group" (2015, p. 282). Nearly all professional organizations have their own set of mutually agreed upon ethical standards of behavior, and research organizations, regardless of the discipline, have these as well. Although ethical codes vary somewhat by discipline, there are basic principles of ethical behavior that act as guiding principles for your research studies in this course. These include avoiding harming participants in any way, protecting human subjects, avoiding bias, and using information appropriately (p. 283).
There are three key areas highlighted below that you should consider when you begin to think about the ethical implications of your research: (1) the sensitivity of the information being solicited or the topic, (2) the potential to harm participants and the steps involved in protecting your human subjects, and (3) the commitment to maintaining confidentiality. Although there are additional dimensions of ethical conduct that are elaborated upon in the Required Readings for Unit 5, if you understand these three interrelated guiding principles, you will be on your way to constructing a study with a strong ethnical underpinning.
Sensitive Information
· Be aware that even if you do not think that your topic addresses a sensitive issue your participants might think otherwise.
· Take measures to make sure that you do not cause anxiety, discomfort, stress, or embarrassment to your participants.
Do No Harm!
( 1 of 4 )
· One of the best ways to avoid causing anxiety to participants in a research study is to make sure that they complete an Informed Consent. This is a form that provides details on the study's topic and parameters and is signed by each participant. All students are required to use a consent form in their studies for this course, regardless of the type of method and design selected.
· Avoid causing harm to the participants by thinking about the risk involved in answering your survey questions and taking steps to minimizing those risks. For example, do not ask someone to admit to engaging in illegal activities. Also, be careful about how you ask questions and the language and wording you use: do not re- traumatize someone by asking insensitive questions. In some cases, this means avoiding direct questions.
Maintain Confidentiality
· Keep individual respondent's personal information confidential. (For example, if you send online surveys to participants via email, use the "BCC" function in your email.)
· Keep the information provided by respondents as anonymous as possible.
· There are additional stakeholders involved in research that should be included when thinking about the ethical dimensions of research studies. You can learn more about these by reading Chapter 14.
Data Collection Methods
Another important topic that is addressed in this unit, and discussed at greater length in the course readings, is data collection. At this stage in the semester, you should determine which particular type of data collection instrument will be most useful to you in reaching your research objectives. Descriptive Quantitative Survey research designs tend to be widely used in this course, in part, because, when carried out properly, they can be a very efficient methodology to use in a short timeframe. Many students use online surveys as the data collection instrument. Other instruments that may work well in this course include written questionnaires, observations, face- to-face interviews, or group interviews. There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of instrument (see Chapter 9 from our course textbook and Chapter 4 from Adams and Lawrence in the Unit 4 readings) and you should think critically about these pros and cons prior to identifying which method, design, and instrument you will use in your Research Proposal Assignment.
Guidelines for Writing a Questionnaire or Online Survey
Initial guidelines:
1. Keep it short. Keep the questions brief and to the point. Keep the questionnaire about 5 minutes in duration.
2. Include a consent form for all participants. Do not guarantee complete confidentiality to the participants.
3. Provide clear, specific instructions at the top of the questionnaire.
The questions:
1. Make the questions as clear as possible. Do not use confusing language or phrasing.
2. Be sure that questions contain only one idea. (Avoid questions like the following: Do you think the food served on campus is good and do you wish there were more options?)
3. Design questions that will provide you with answers to the questions you are studying.
4. Be sure questions are worded in such a way that they will not influence the answers or make assumptions. (Example: How many packs of cigarettes do you smoke per week? How badly does social media make you feel about your body?)
5. Questions should move from the least sensitive to the most sensitive; from facts to opinions; from the more
general to the more specific.
Thinking ahead to tabulating responses:
1. Determine if you want all questions to be "closed" (that is, all respondents select from provided answers) or open-ended (respondents use their own words and provide their own answers). Design the questionnaire or survey accordingly.
2. Make sure that you can measure the responses. Consider using rating scales as answer choices. Rating scales and yes/no questions are easy for participants to answer and researchers to tabulate in Quantitative Descriptive Survey Research.
Assignments Overview (The Research Proposal & CITI Training)
The Research Proposal
The readings and activities for the previous unit, Unit 4, discussed research designs in detail. As described previously, a research design is the complete plan for operationalizing your study. The Research Proposal, one assignment due for Unit 5, is your research design. In the Research Proposal you will present a detailed plan, or "road map," for conducting your study. Then, the instructor will evaluate it and must approve it in order for you to move ahead with data collection and implementation.
Specific guidelines for writing a research proposal may vary according to discipline. In this course, the Research Proposal includes two parts: (1) the Revised Problem Statement and (2) Proposed Methodology for your study.
The Revised Problem Statement should include at least one in-text citation from source articles and be revised based on instructor feedback to the previous draft. The Proposed Methodology should provide well written answers to the following questions in paragraph form. It is suggested that you review and answer all of the following questions prior to drafting your Proposed Methodology. You may need to revisit the Required Readings and Resources for Unit 4 to help you answer these questions. Then, use your answers to these questions as the basis for writing the Proposed Methodology portion of your Research Proposal.
1. Briefly describe the objective and goals of your research project. What you hope to accomplish and why? What is your research question? What is the background of this project?
1. What are your goals?
2. What are you looking at?
3. What is your Research Question?
4. What is your hypothesis?
5. What do you want to do?
2. What method(s) of data collection are you using for this project?
Which approach or approaches (quantitative/qualitative/mixed-methods) do you intend to use for this project? What design will you use?
What scales or instruments are you using for this project? Specify whether you created them or not. If not, where did you find them? For those of you planning an online survey it is recommended that you use create an online survey through Qualtrics. Go to ku.qualtrics.com to create an account and submit a draft of your survey with the Research Proposal assignment. (Many students use the online survey system Qualtrics provided free through Kean University and create questions of their own based on a similar study in their field. If you base your questions on another study, the previous study must be cited in the Proposed Methodology.)
Who are your participants What type of sample population is it? Is it a convenience sample or random sample?
What will the participants be doing? How will recruitment work?
How will they be recruited? How long will the study last for? Where will it be done?
Describe the potential risks and benefits to the student. Describe in detail how confidentiality will be maintained. Where will you keep data?
How will it be kept? Where will it be kept? Describe the limitations of your study.
Describe your researcher's stance. (Who you are and how it affects your interests in your topic)
3. Describe the involvement of the human participants in this project. What will they be doing? Who are the participants? How many participants will be involved in the project? Specify how they will be recruited (e.g. advertisements, announcements in class, e-mail, internet, etc.), how long the research will last (the length of each session and the number of sessions) and where it will be conducted?
4. What are the expected risks and benefits associated with this study? If there are any risks, use the space below to describe how you will minimize or control them.
5. What are the limitations in your research and methods?
CITI Training
In addition to writing the Research Proposal Assignment (Assignment 1), Unit 5 also requires students to complete the CITI training (Assignment 2) on completing research with human subjects. Please follow the link provided in the Learning Activities and submit a copy of your Course Completion Report.
(CSLO 1, CSLO 1.3, CSLO 2, CSLO 2.1, and CSLO 8)
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Considering Ethical Issues in Data Collection
Kumar: Research Methodology
Chapter 14
Prepared by Stephanie Fleischer
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Topics covered
The concept of ethics
Stakeholders in research
Ethical issues to consider concerning research participants
Ethical issues to consider relating to the researcher
Ethical issues regarding the sponsoring organisation
Ethical issues in collecting data from secondary sources
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
The concept of ethics
Code of conduct on how to conduct research appropriately
Differs between disciplines and professions
What are these principles of conduct?
Who determines them?
In whose judgement must they be considered appropriate?
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Concept of ethics continued
Code of ethics addresses ethical practice to avoid:
Causing harm to individuals
Breaching confidentiality
Using information improperly
Introducing bias
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Stakeholders in research
Ethical issues need to be considered for all stakeholders involved in a research study:
The research participants or subjects
The researcher
The funding body
authored by Stephanie Fleisher © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Ethical issues to consider concerning research participants
Collecting information
Seeking informed consent
Providing incentives
Seeking sensitive information
The possibility of causing harm to participants
Maintaining confidentiality
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Ethical issues to consider relating to the researcher
Avoiding bias
Provision or deprivation of a treatment
Using inappropriate research methodology
Incorrect reporting
Inappropriate use of the information
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Ethical issues regarding the sponsoring organisation
Restrictions imposed by the sponsoring organisation
The misuse of information
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Ethical issues in collecting data from secondary data
Plagiarism
Informed consent
Mispresentation of data
Misinterpretation of data
Disclosing data source
Using data collected by covert means
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Summary
Conducting research requires considering ethical issues
Researchers have to adhere to a code of conduct developed by professional practice
Ethical issues relate to participants, researchers and sponsoring organisation involved in the research study
Ethical issues need to be addressed in the research process to prevent harm
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
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Selecting Methods of Data Collection
Kumar: Research Methodology Chapter 9
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Prepared by Stephanie Fleischer
Topics covered
Differences in methods of collecting data
Major sources of information gathering
Collecting data using primary sources
Observation
The interview
The questionnaire
Advantages and disadvantages
Types of questions
Formulating effective questions
Constructing a research instrument in quantitative research
Methods of data collection in qualitative research
Collecting data using secondary sources
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Differences in methods of collecting data in quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research
Quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods classification depends on the answers to the following questions:
What philosophical approach is underpinning the research approach?
How was the information collected? Was the format structured or unstructured/flexible or a combination of the both?
Were the questions or issues discussed during data collection predetermined or developed during data collection?
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Differences in methods of collecting data in quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research continued
How was the information gathered recorded? Was it in a descriptive, narrative, categorical, quantitative form or on a scale?
How was the information analysed? Was it a descriptive, categorical or numerical analysis?
How will the findings be communicated? In a descriptive or analytical manner?
How many different methods were used in undertaking the study?
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Insert Figure 9.1 Methods of data collection
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Major sources of information gathering
Primary data: The researcher undertakes the data collection
Secondary data: The data is already available and can be reanalysed
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Observation
Watching and listening to interactions
Participant observation
Non-participant observation
Natural
Controlled
Recording of observations:
Narrative recording
Categorical recording
Recording on electronic devices
Effects that could affect observations:
Hawthorne effect: Participants are aware of the observation and change their behaviour
Elevation effect: Researcher over-uses a particular scale for recording
Halo effect: Researcher bias towards a particular participant
authored by Stephanie Fleisher © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
The interview
Questioning people
Unstructured interviews: Freedom in structure, content, wording and order of questions
Structured interviews: Interview schedule predetermines the questions, wording and order
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
The questionnaire
Written list of questions completed by the respondent
Mail or postal questionnaire (covering letter)
Collective administration
Online questionnaire
Administration in a public place
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Choose between interview schedule and questionnaire
Consider the following:
The nature of the investigation
The geographical distribution of the study population
The type of study population
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Strengths and weaknesses of questionnaires
Strengths
Convenience:
Saves time
Inexpensive:
Saves human and financial resources
Offer greater anonymity
No face-to-face action
Likelihood to obtain more accurate information on sensitive questions
Weaknesses
Limited application
Low response rate
Self-selecting bias
Lack of opportunity to clarify issues
No opportunity for spontaneous responses
Responses may be influenced by the response to other questions
Others can influence the answers
Responses cannot be supplemented with other information
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Advantages and disadvantages of interviews
Advantages
More appropriate for complex situations
Useful for collecting in-depth information
Information can be supplemented
Questions can be explained
Has a wider application
Disadvantages
Time consuming and expensive
Quality of data depends on
Quality of interaction
Quality of interviewer
Could vary when multiple researchers are involved
Possibility of researcher bias
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Types of questions
Open-ended questions
Advantages:
Provide in-depth information
Greater variety of information
No investigator bias
Disadvantages
Analysis is more difficult if answers need to be classified
Loss of information if respondents cannot express themselves
Possible interviewer bias
Closed questions
Advantages:
Easy to answer
Easy to analyse due to ready-made categories
Disadvantages:
Information lacks depths and variety
Greater possibility of investigator bias
Answers are selected from a list and may not reflect respondents opinion
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Formulating effective questions
Use easy and every day language
Avoid ambiguous questions
Avoid double-barrelled questions
Avoid leading questions
Avoid questions based on assumptions
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Constructing a research instrument in quantitative research
Personal and sensitive questions
The order of the questions
Pre-testing a research instrument
Pre-requisites for data collection:
Motivation to share required information
Clear understanding of the questions
Possession of the required information
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Methods of data collection in qualitative research
Unstructured interviews
In-depth interviews
Focus group interviews
Narratives
Oral histories
Observation
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
Collecting data using secondary sources
Government or corporate websites
Earlier research
Personal records
Mass media
Possible problems of secondary data:
Validity and reliability
Personal bias
Availability
Format
authored by Stephanie Fleischer © SAGE publications Ltd 2014
