SOC310 Social Research Methods
Paper Length: 3,000-3,500 words
Final Research Project
Due by 5 pm on WEDNESDAY, December 5th, 2022
Please submit an electronic copy through Blackboard.
I. For your assignment to be considered complete, you must turn in the following:
Your paper
Your Excel Tables (your analysis). This should include:
Frequencies/descriptive
Cross-tabs & summary statistics (means, medians, mode)
Hypothesis tests (chi-square)
Note: Make sure you have your own copy of your paper and output.
Note about numbers: as a general rule, when you start a sentence with a number, write it out (ex: “Fifty-four percent of respondents said…”). Otherwise, it is fine to use the actual number (ex: “In my sample, 54% of respondents said…”). Please follow this guideline.
II. Your final research paper must have the following sections. I recommend that you use these same headings (i.e., “Introduction,” “Literature Review,” “Methodology,” etc.) in organizing your paper.
Title: Capturing the content of the study.
Abstract: 100-250 word description of your study summarizing why it is important, what the data are and how they were collected, and what we learn from the project.
1. Introduction: The introduction should consist of a paragraph or two discussing what the general research topic is, as well as why it is interesting/relevant to social scientists.
2. Literature Review: In this section you are going through the conceptualization and operationalization process. State your research questions and their corresponding propositions. Here you should discuss how your research questions/propositions developed from previous research and/or theory. As before, refer to relevant scholarly sources. This section is your assignment 1, revised appropriately according to the comments you received.
Next, provide a discussion of how you conceptualized/operationalized the major concepts, including their level of measurement. Here again, you should refer to how other researchers measured some (or all) of your same concepts. This is your assignment 2, revised appropriately. Conclude this section by stating your testable hypotheses (you should have at least two, no more than three). Again, you should rely on what you did in assignment 2 corrected for any errors.
For the final paper, you will need to have a minimum of 5 references from scholarly journal articles or books.
3. Methodology: Begin by specifying your study population. Then, describe the sampling procedure used to collect the data (both in terms of probability/nonprobability, AND the specific type of technique). Why did the class use this particular procedure? Was this the best technique given your particular research interests? And, what are some potential advantages/disadvantages associated with the sampling procedure used as it relates to your project?
Limitations:
Discuss any issues relevant to writing the survey questions: Did you come across any other problems/errors when writing or conducting your survey? How did you handle this?
Discuss how representative our sample is compared to the target population (UAlbany students). Does our sample accurately represent UAlbany in basic demographic categories (gender, race, class rank, etc.)?
4. Results: In this section you are analyzing and presenting the data. First, report the correct measure of central tendency for each of your independent and dependent variables (either median or mode). Also, for your nominal and ordinal level variables, be sure to report the substantive value rather than the numeric value. (For example, when reporting the mode for sex, do not say, “The mode for sex is 1.” Instead, report whether the mode was male or female. Reporting the numeric value is meaningless to the reader.) In addition, include the demographic variables (age, sex, and race/ethnicity) to describe your sample.
With regard to the frequency distributions, discuss issues such as: did you find any coding mistakes (people accidentally select an answer outside the realm of possible choices (this error can also occur due to typos)? Was there adequate range of responses all of your independent and dependent variables? Or, do you have any variables that don’t really “vary” in their responses? Also, is your sample fairly evenly distributed along variables such as sex, race, age, etc., or is it lop-sided? How might these issues affect your findings? Did you find anything interesting or surprising in terms of the frequency distributions?
Second, devoting at least one paragraph for each hypothesis, address the following issues: Report the results of your statistical analysis (cross-tab & chi-square test): Be sure to explain in detail what is found with respect to your cross-tab. In light of the findings, has your hypothesis been refuted or supported? For each hypothesis that has been supported, interpret the results. YOU MUST DISCUSS WHETHER THERE IS OR IS NOT A STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR VARIABLES (i.e., you must report the p-value and interpret it).
5. Discussion: In this section, you discuss your findings. Again, briefly mention whether each hypothesis was supported or refuted. If one or more of your hypotheses were refuted, speculate about the possible reasons (i.e., what went wrong? Is it something about the validity of your measures? Something about your sample? The theory upon which your hypotheses were formulated? What?). Also, if you tested a hypothesis two different ways (i.e., with different measures of the same variable), what happened? If the results were different, what might be the reason?
Note: You will not be penalized if you do not find support for one or more of your hypotheses. The important part is to provide insight into the possible reason(s) this happened.
6. Conclusion: Provide a brief summary of your paper. Based on what you found, do your results have any “real world” implications? And, how could/should you or other researchers follow up on your study? What are some limitations of this study? What should you or future researchers do differently? What potential contributions (to the field of sociology and/or in general) has your study made?
7. Reference Page: As always, all sources which are cited in the text must be included in the reference page at the end of your paper, and vice versa. Again, follow the ASA format.
8. Tables and Figures: Include all tables and figures after the reference page. Do not have them within the paper; they should be kept separate from the text. You should include at least 1 Table and 1 Figure and talk about them in the results section.
III. Style: Be sure to re-read your paper and demand a high standard of style. This is a formal social scientific paper. You can ALWAYS have peers, mentors, parents, partners, and so forth read your drafts and edit your paper.
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