Assignment: The Logic of Social Inquiry Fall

OBJECTIVE& OVERVIEW:The purpose of this assignment is to apply the skills learned throughout the semester to a social science research topic of interest to you. For this assignment, you will propose a research project you have designed yourself. You must choose your own research topic, devise a researchable research question, and then use the latter to structure your research proposal. The study you propose can be either quantitative or qualitative (but not both), and you must propose to collect your own data and design your own measures (rather than using available data, like the Canadian census, or established measures, like a standard depression inventory). Assume for the purposes of the research proposal that you have a period of up to three years in which to conduct your study.You are required to consult the literature for this proposal but you are not required to actually collect or analyze any data.

EVALUATION:Your project will be graded according to the specification of the research question(s) and the appropriateness, quality, and clarity of the proposed research methodology. Be as detailed and precise as possible, in line with the guidelines. As you design your study, ask yourself: If this study were undertaken, how successfully would it answer the research question(s) it poses? How well does it meet the standards for valid social science research?

PART 1 & PART 2: The research proposal assignment will be divided into two parts. Details regarding Part 1 (5% of your final grade) are provided below. Details for Part 2(15% of your final grade) will be provided closer to the due date. As you draft Part 2, you must follow any instructions and implement any corrections suggested by the TA who has marked Part 1.

SUBMISSION & DEADLINE FOR PART 1: Part 1 is due as an electronic copy to be submitted on Turnitin.comby 2pm on Nov. 12th. To submit your assignment on Turnitin, you will need our course's class number (10652395) and enrollment password (socb05). Please be sure to turn in your assignment as a Word document in the folder for Second Assignment - Part 1. In the "title" field in Turnitin, please enter your information in the following format: TUT#___ Last Name, First Name.In the "title" field in Turnitin, please enter the same information contained in the file name.

The late penalty is 5% if you submit after 2pm on Nov. 12th, and a further 5% will be deducted for every 24 hours late after that. The last day on which late assignments will be considered is Nov. 19th.

FORMAT FOR PART 1:Please include the following sections in your assignment, which should be 4-5 double-spaced pages in length, with page numbers clearly labelled. Before drafting each section, review the relevant textbook and lecture materials. You may order the sections as you wish, but please use bold headers for each section.

Part 1 must include the following sections:

1) Research Topic and Research Question
2) Justification of Research Question
3) Literature Review
4) Conceptualization
5) Operationalization
6) Sampling Plan
7) Citation List

Instructions for each section:

1) Clearly Defined Research Topic and Research Question(s)

• You must develop your own uniqueresearch question(s)(no more than 1-2 research questions are advisable) on a social science research topic that youfind interesting.

o Do not replicate examples from Assignment 1, the textbook, lectures, or other published sources.
o Ideas can come from other Social Science classes or the conclusions sections of existing studies.
o If you do model your research on an existing example, you must convincingly demonstrate that your project is making a new contribution in the justification and literature review sections. You can do this by:

- Proposing a different sample than previous studies
- Proposing revised variables or concepts
- Proposing a different methodology from previous studies

• Take the time to develop meaningful research question(s).

o Avoid simplistic or obvious questions, or questions which we can already guess the answer to with a fair degree of confidence.
o Make sure your research question is neither too narrow nor too broad.
o Be specific - what social group, what geographic area, and what historic time period does your research question pertain to?

• Explain your research question to the reader.

• If you are following the deductive model, list the hypotheses (up to three) that you will be testing

2) Justification of Research Question

• In this section you are required to explain to your reader why your research question is important and why it requires sociological explanationbased on both your opinions andexisting literature on the topic.

• The justification section should be based on what you found in the literature, but should not repeat the same arguments and findings as your literature review (see below). You need to apply what you learn from the literature to show why your proposed study is important, interesting and worthy of attention.

• Be sure to use appropriate in-text citations using the ASA format (more under section 7 below).

3) Literature Review of at Least 4 Academic Sources

• Consult at least4academic sources(articles from peer-reviewed journals or books published by a university press) that have clear relevance to your research question.

• Your 4 sources should be social science publications that report the findings of empirical research related to your research question(s). The geographic area and time period should be relevant to those you intend to focus on in your study.

• Do not describe each of the 4 sources separately. Your literature review should weave the four sources together, with each paragraph discussing one cross-cuttingtheme found in the sources.

• Be sure to describe the empirical findings of the 4 sources, as well as the methodologies they used.

• Based on these sources, discuss how your study will refine, revise or extend existing research on your research question.

• Be sure to use appropriate in-text citations using the ASA format (more under section 7 below).

4) Conceptualization of 1-3 Key Concepts

• Conceptualize (ie. define) between 1 and 3key conceptsyou will use in your study.At least one of these1-3 concepts must be abstract.

• Define possible dimensions of your abstract concept(s) that are relevant to your research question.

• If you have independent and dependent variables that are not socio-demographic variables (see the point below), these must be included in the 1-3 concepts.

• If answering your research question requires standard socio-demographic information such as gender, age, race, or ethnicity, you may simply list these. However, these are not considered key concepts and you do not need to specify how you will define them.

5) Operationalization of your Key Concepts

• Describe, in detail, how you plan to measure or observeeach of the key concepts from the previous section, as well as any relevant dimensions.

• If you need to use more than one measure (indicator) to adequately capture a concept or dimension, describe these indicators.

• Explain howeach indicator will be measured and, if appropriate, at what level it will be measured.

• If appropriate, identify the dependent and independent variables.

• Assess howreliable(how repeatable) you believe your measures or observations will be, and explain why.

• Assess howvalid(how well aligned with the definition of the concept) you believe your measures or observations will be, and explain why.

6) Sampling Plan

• Discuss what type of sampling you will be carrying out (probability or non-probability) as well as the specificsampling design you will utilize.

• Explain the rationale (why you are using this approach) and limitations (the disadvantages of this approach) associated with your choice.

• Describe how generalizable your study's findings will be, and how important the issue of generalizability is, given your research question and the sampling plan you propose.