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CA 700/701 Tentative Planning Page for Graduate Project (Dr. Aitken)
2-5 credit hours depending on your program. See the relevant graduate catalog or Dr. Cohn, Director of the Communication and Leadership Graduate Program.
Please talk to your advisor about any questions.
Dr. Joan E.
Aitken, Professor, Communication Arts,
Park University
Tutorials:
APA Style
Information -
Course
Expectations
& Guidelines for Students -
IRB Tutorial -
Fun -
Library Database Tutorial
Table of
Contents This Page
Select a topic and receive your advisor's approval. I recommend you select a project you already have studied in a previous course. The content must be related to communication.
PROJECT INSTEAD
OF THESIS? If you plan to do original
research, you'll want to complete a thesis.
If you have a different kind of idea, the project option can work well
for working students who have no plans to go on
for a doctoral degree. If you enroll for a
total of 2 hours, the project may be a
relatively short paper. If you enroll for
5 hours, the project will be a more complex one.
The Project is a flexible learning experience, which fits into one of multiple project options. These project choices should be based on your advisor's expertise for being able to guide students. If you want a different type of project, work it out with your advisor in advance of enrolling. So, select a practical topic you love, which perhaps you have been studying in the program so far. Topics typically relate to organizational communication or leadership communication. Here are example topics:
Write creative stories or cases about family communication. Create and upload a website about communication resources in the community. Prepare instructional training materials that can be used at work. Create a business plan for a home business you want to start. Write a booklet about text-messaging language. Learn about and set up a social networking account for more effective business communication (e.g., http://www.blogger.com/ , http://twitter.com/ ). The project may include synthesizing work for previous courses. Ideally, you reflect on your program so that you will actually use what you learned in a professional context. In other words, the project may be a pragmatic one, which you can use in your personal or professional life.
BE PRACTICAL. Because you are coming into this project having completed the majority of courses in the program, you should have a strong background in communication and leadership research-based theories. Select a project that will be useful to you in some way.
See Department Guidelines for Exact Project Requirements. Remember, the project is NOT a portfolio and NOT comprehensive exams. You still must take the comprehensive exams separately.
DEPT. & PARK RULES. The student has the responsibility of finding out and following departmental and Park University rules. You will find those in the graduate catalog. Your advisor cannot over-ride departmental or university rules. The department and university requirements supersede faculty requirements.
GRADUATE RECORD EXAM (GRE). Park University requires that you complete the GRE and submit your scores to the Graduate School. You cannot graduate from the program without completing this step. See http://www.ets.org/
COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS. The department or university requires separate comprehensive exams of students who complete a project. These need to be PASSED at least 8 weeks prior to graduation. Ask three faculty--probably your committee--to submit questions to Dr. Cohn. When you are ready to take the exam, you contact Dr. Cohn to schedule the test. You will have 24 hours to write. You can use any books or materials, but you canNOT use help from any person. Here is Dr. Aitken's information about comps http://onlineacademics.org/comps/
APPLICATION FOR GRADUATION. Go to the
Park website, find and complete the online form
(Application for Graduation), and pay fees for
graduation.
August Completion or December Commencement
Deadline: April 1
May Commencement Deadline: November 1
COMMITTEE. You will present your project and defend your project, either by telephone conference or in person.
You may want to talk with your advisor about your project, do advance planning, and receive oral approval IN ADVANCE. You will want to have a clear idea of the nature of your project BEFORE enrolling in the final term so you can complete the project well before the end of the one 8-week term.
No required textbook. This project should be a time when you review all relevant course materials you studied during the program, which may include books or peer-reviewed research articles from journals in communication. Because you are coming into this project with a strong background of the communication and leadership research-based theories, however, you may want to read a trade book from the popular press to see what is being said about the subject.
100% of the project grade is based on the advisor's evaluation of the project submitted by week 6 and revised according to committee requirements by Monday of week 8.
No incompletes.
August Completion or December Commencement: April 1
May Commencement: November 1
Available for purchase from allposters.com
You may want to talk with your advisor about your project, do advance planning, and receive oral approval IN ADVANCE. You will want to have a clear idea of the nature of your project BEFORE enrolling in the course so you can complete the project well before the end of the one 8-week term.
Thus, you will want to make sure you plan your project prior to enrolling and stay on schedule, while working with your advisor along the way.
APA Writing Style http://onlineacademics.org/APA.html eCollege Tutorial http://onlineacademics.org/eCollege/ IRB Tutorial http://onlineacademics.org/IRB/ Library Tutorial http://onlineacademics.org/LibraryTutorial/ MA Project Ideas http://onlineacademics.org/CA700/ Program Goals http://www.park.edu/grad/masters-cl-goals.aspx
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INFORMATION BELOW IS FROM POSSIBLE TEXTBOOKS, WHICH YOU MAY USE TO GUIDE YOUR PROJECT.
Textbook: Nardi, P. M. (2006). Doing survey research: A guide to quantitative methods. (2nd ed.) Boston: Pearson.
The Action Research Project is typically an applied study, which is short on library research and long on actual survey, focus group, or other active data collection and analysis. Talk with your advisor in advance, and submit your proposal to the faculty. You can use a proposal prepared in another course (e.g., CA 517).
Project Organization APA 1.06 Title Page Use a descriptive scholarly title, which clearly explains the paper’s content—NOT an attention-getter. Give your name, Park University, date. APA 1.07 Abstract (100 -150 word summary of the question, method, and results) APA 1.08 I. Introduction This is the background to the problem. A. Research question. 1. A brief history of interest in the area. 2. Specify unresolved issues, theoretical questions, and/or social concerns. 3. Rationale for the study. B. Review of Literature. A review of literature is an examination of key peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic. In an action research project, this might be a brief overview of theory building in the field. Group information according to ideas, NOT according to research articles. This section is NOT an annotated bibliography. Please use subheadings to generally describe each idea. 1. Paragraphs about first idea from review of literature. 2. Paragraphs about second idea from review of literature. 3. Paragraphs about third idea from review of literature. C. Problem Statement -- Drawing from the literature review of 20-50 sources, explain the ideas you plan to investigate. Include the following: 1. Identify variables (dependent and independent variables). 2. Delineate the research problem to explain the relationships expected among variables (research questions or hypotheses). APA 1.09 Method 1. Description of Method a. Describe why the research method (e.g., survey research) is used. 2. Instruments or measures a. Operational definitions of dependent and independent variables b. Instrument – rationale for the measure to be used (e.g., questionnaire, focus group, interview). 3. Participants and procedures a. Selection of subjects (i.e., who and how to get them -- sampling procedure). b. Explain how materials will be distributed. c. Describe how data will be collected. d. Describe how data will be analyzed. APA 1.10 Results APA 1.11 Discussion APA 1.13 References (emphasize peer-reviewed articles in the field of communication and leadership). Each reference listing needs to be cited in your final proposal and each citation in your final proposal will be in the reference list. APA 1.14 Appendix (e.g., text under study, measure or unpublished test and its validation, the printout of results from surveymonkey.com).
Outline 1. Why We Do Research.
2. Finding Ideas to Research.
3. Designing Research: Concepts, Hypotheses, and Measurement.
4. Developing a Questionnaire.
5. Sampling.
6. Presenting Data: Descriptive Statistics.
7. Analyzing Data: Bivariate Relationships.
8. Analyzing Data: Comparing Means.
9. Analyzing Data: Multiple Variables.
10. Presenting Results, Making Conclusions, and Writing Reports.
Learning Goals In this chapter, the differences between everyday thinking and scientific thinking are discussed. An argument is made about the advantages of doing survey research and understanding various kinds of research: exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, and evaluation. The chapter concludes with a comparison of quantitative and qualitative research methods. By the conclusion, you should be able to give examples of everyday thinking, discuss the components of scientific reasoning, list the different types of research methods, and describe them. The purpose of this chapter is to understand that the quantitative research method is one of many different ways people come to understand the world around them. Some argue that the social and behavioral sciences (such as sociology, psychology, political science, and anthropology) are not “real sciences” and that any attempts to mimic them just do not work. After all, social sciences deal with human behavior, that is, it is governed by free will and the vagaries of every day life. Science just won’t do. Engaging students in a debate about what is science and what is not is a good way to begin a course that emphasizes the more scientific, quantifiable, and statistical methods used to gather data. The outcome could be a solid understanding that the scientific method itself might also be a “social construction,” albeit one that has been verified over time and has withstood numerous attempts to change it. Equally productive is to help students arrive at an awareness of the many ways throughout a typical day they engage in both “scientific” methods and “everyday thinking” with its inaccurate generalizations and sampling techniques. This allows them to see that we manage to survive without scientific reasoning in many daily routines, yet for many important decisions we depend on a more structured and systematic method. This also gets students to see that they already know some quantitative methods and that the course will build on their strengths and develop the techniques in more depth. It goes without saying that many students are frightened, worried, and anxious about the quantitative methods or statistics course. This is often not an elective chosen to fill out their schedule, but a requirement for their major. Whatever can be done the first day to alleviate these concerns should be done. And one way is to engage them in a discussion of what they already know that could be helpful in learning the course’s material.
Chapter Two
Quoted directly or
closely adapted from
Nardi, P. M. (2006). Doing survey
research: A guide to quantitative
methods. (2nd ed.) Boston: Pearson.
For use by students who have enrolled in
the course and purchased this textbook.
This information is protected by the
publisher's copyright and is for use
only in this course.
Learning Goals
Discovering topics to study by
searching for research ideas and
finding existing studies is one of
the goals of this chapter. Learning
to write a good literature review is
discussed, especially in the context
of using theory to guide your
research. The chapter also raises
the ethical issues involved in doing
research. By the end of the chapter
you should be able to search for
topics in the library and in
computer databases, write a coherent
and focused review of the research
literature, and raise the ethical
concerns various kinds of research
topics might create.
Students
often
wonder where to begin a research
project. Too many times, they have a
very large topic that is virtually
impossible to study and they need to
learn how to narrow it to something
more manageable. Understanding how
to do a good library search and
literature review is an important
step in the research process. If
often
helps to bring in examples of literature reviews from journal articles
and show the students what goes into
writing them. Too
often
people begin by summarizing one
study
after
another without any attempt at
distilling key themes or organizing
them in any coherent way.
All research requires attention to ethics and ethical matters should be a major focus of the discussion. Ethical issues are easily illustrated with actual examples from research studies and by presenting situations that can result in different ethical dilemmas and interpretations. The key goal is to open students’ eyes to the impact of what they are doing, not just to have them come up with a definite solution to an ethical situation.
Learning Goals
Central to doing survey research is understanding the idea of operationalization and how to go from ideas to concepts to variables. Learning the various levels of measurement is also essential for analyzing data. This chapter discusses how to write hypotheses using independent and dependent variables and how to evaluate the reliability and validity of measures. By the end of the chapter you should be able to distinguish the different levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal, and interval/ratio; discuss the various kinds of reliability and validity; and write one-directional, twodirectional, and null hypotheses.
This chapter is central to the use of statistics later in the book. Decisions about which statistic to use are typically based on their levels of measurement, so it is crucial that you spend time working through the topics in Chapter 3. These ideas can be difficult ones to grasp initially, especially if you are unfamiliar with research. If you have questions, be sure to talk to your advisor.
Although many of the concepts have everyday meanings (such as reliable, valid, hypothesize, median) slightly different from the scientific usage, it does facilitate learning to think about how you use them in ordinary conversations. In so doing, the terms and concepts might seem less foreign to your.
It is also important to communicate that how researchers decide to measure a concept can affect the subsequent data analysis and interpretations. Think about “trade-offs” decisions and how no study can be perfectly designed, which helps to illustrate that some choices even at these early stages of research can have differing impacts later on.
This is also a good time to think about the “art” of doing research, that is, to think about the creative element in the design of research. When researchers have to construct their own measurements, to develop interesting and unique research questions or hypotheses, and to decide on which concepts to assess, they have the opportunity to create innovative work. The easy way is to simply do what everyone else has, but the imaginative route is to do something unique.
Learning Goals In this chapter you will read about the strengths and weaknesses of different types of survey methods. You will also learn how to design a questionnaire: How to write attitude, behavior, and demographic questions and format a survey. Coding responses and preparing data for computer analysis are important skills discussed as well. By the end of the chapter, you should be able to critique poorly written questionnaires, write a good questionnaire for distribution in a small study, and understand the different ways of designing questions and format for surveys.
Writing a questionnaire is a creative task that comes more easily to some than to others. Faced with a blank screen or piece of paper, many people have no idea where or how to begin. This chapter provides some guidelines about putting together a good survey for beginners.
Like any writing assignment, drafts should be reviewed and comments provided on early versions of any survey. It is important that enough time be planned to allow for rewrites and learning how to write a survey good enough to distribute. One useful task is to have other students in the course or friends be respondents for your survey. They can “take” the survey and provide feedback before a final version is printed or put on SurveyMonkey and distributed.
Sometimes it helps to think about and to talk out loud about what you want to know. Too often students have a very vague or broad idea about what to study. This makes it difficult to begin to write a clear and concise questionnaire. Carry on a conversation with a friend about the topic. How would you begin? What kinds of things would you like to know that you don’t know already? Talk with your advisor about your ideas.
As with all new skills, practice is important, so the more you can review published questionnaires, poor quality ones in magazines and junk mail, and items printed in academic articles, the more you will see what goes into operationalizing, formatting, and designing a questionnaire.
You may want to use a questionnaire that has been developed by a scholar or professional in the field of communication studies. That approach is fine too.
Learning Goals This chapter explains random probability sampling and describes different methods for obtaining samples. You will learn about longitudinal and cross-sectional research designs. By the end of the chapter you should be able to distinguish several types of probability and non-probability sampling, describe various kinds of longitudinal research designs, and explain the idea of sampling error.
There are many ways to generate a sample of respondents, but only a few methods allow researchers to make generalizations about a population with any accuracy and consistency. A key idea is to recognized that unless you use a probability sampling technique, your results can only be reported about those people completing the study. The results will not be generalizable.
Many people erroneously assume that going around and giving out surveys randomly results in an actual random sample. It’s important to distinguish the everyday use of the word “random” from the more scientific meaning it has when attached to sampling strategies.
Most assignments for a Master's project do not allow the time and do not have the funds to generate a large sample. Yet it is not impossible to attempt a random sample strategy. More than likely, however, the return rate for surveys, especially on a college campus, is too low to result in a representative or random sample. Understand the limitations of the sample you are likely to generate.
Critical thinking plays an important part in reading surveys and journal articles. Think about call-in or on-line computer surveys--e.g., SurveyMonkey.com.
As always, journal articles provide ample examples of sampling and the limitations of response rates in actual research.
Learning Goals Understanding how to describe your findings using graphs, tables, and statistics is the focus of this chapter. By the end of the chapter you should be able to decide how to use the mean, median, mode, standard deviation when presenting data. You should also understand the concept of the normal curve and z-scores. In addition, you will learn the idea of probability and statistical significance.
This is the first of four chapters devoted to explaining basic statistical analyses. And this information is the start of much anxiety for many students. If needed, your advisor can help you review some very basic mathematics and reassure you that the most important skill is thinking quantitatively, not calculating arithmetic. You can use calculators, online calculators, Excel, or SPSS, or whatever software you want that your advisor accepts.
What is crucial is your ability to make decisions about which statistics are most appropriate in different conditions and learning how to interpret statistical output and results. Knowing when to use particular statistics and knowing what they mean are the skills stressed in these chapters instead of how to calculate them by hand. Some faculty believe that students really learn statistics by having them work through problems and calculating formulas. Others feel that math anxiety overwhelms students’ abilities to understand the material when they are expected to learn the mathematics. For the purpose of your project, figure out what you want to know, what data you will collect, and how you will analyze that data. Students often relate well to data analysis when they see themselves in it. The statistics in Chapter 6 are the basic building blocks for later ideas.
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