Overview
Your task is to propose a research study about an environmental social science topic, using survey methods.
So far you have learned a lot about environmental social science including:
how to search for and read scientific literature;
the variety of approaches to social science;
- the philosophical underpinnings of those different approaches;
- the role of theory in social science;
- the ethics of doing social science;
- how concepts are operationalized;
- the different ways of measuring variables in surveys;
- how to write surveys and survey questions;
- how to administer surveys, and;
- how to select participants for surveys
- This is the knowledge that you need to design your own survey research project!
- You will submit a written research proposal, and a recorded powerpoint presentation of your proposal.
Written research proposal (80 pts)
Introduction – the introduction is a review of the literature about the topic you are addressing. In this section, you will introduce the topic, review the state of the art of knowledge (including at least 10 citations from peer-reviewed journals, these can include your reaction paper and mini-review papers) on the topic, identify areas where further research is needed and propose 2 research questions or hypotheses that you will address in your proposed study. (40pts total – 20pts is for the first draft, see below under due dates)
Methods – the methods section is a description of the techniques used to obtain the data that will answer your research questions or hypotheses. In this section, you will identify the study population,describe the mode of data collection (on-site, mail, email, telephone survey), the data collection procedure, the sampling protocol and sample size, and how you will measure the concepts that are the subjects of your study using a questionnaire. (20pts)
Results – the results are a description of the findings from the study. Since you are only proposing a study, in this section you will describe your expected results if you were to conduct this study in real life. (10pts)
Questionnaire – a questionnaire is a tool to collect data using survey methods. You will create a professionally drafted questionnaire in paper format (word document) in the quality that you would distribute in a real study. It might not be super long but should follow the guidelines you learned for writing survey questions and creating surveys, and include all of the questions you would need to ask to address your research questions or hypotheses. (10pts)
Presentation (20 pts)
Your presentation will be no more than 5 minutes describing the elements of the proposal outlined above. Think of your presentation as a pitch to the folks that you are requesting fund the research you are proposing.
Your should create slides that contain details on the major elements of your proposal
Introduction – what is the topic and what problem does it address? What is already known about this question/topic? How does your proposed research address a problem, and what are your research questions hypotheses?
Methods – what is your study population? How will you collect data from them? What is your sampling design?
Expected results – what do you expect to find given previous research?
- These instructions on how to create a video of your powerpoint presentation from UW Eau Claire are very useful. https://www.uwec.edu/kb/article/how-to-add-audio-to-powerpoint-on-windows-10-and-mac/