Question: Research Question Brainstorm

Background: During this week you will brainstorm a list of research questions you are interested in, which will help you work towards your Week 1 Assignment. You are working towards creating a list of at least 10 unique research questions that encompass a variety of topics and types of variables. Think about exploring relationships between variables, making predictions for one variable using one or more other variables, and determining differences between groups across one or two variables. In future weeks, you will pull questions from this list that might lend themselves to a particular statistical analysis, thus saving valuable time in not needing to brainstorm research ideas. During those weeks you will take the research question and create a mini-research proposal that will help you consider the application of a specific statistical analysis to that question.

Discussion Assignment Requirements

Initial Posting - To earn full participation points, include in your initial posting at least 5 potential research questions by Day 3. Have fun with these questions and choose topics you are truly interested in, whether they are leadership, training, sports, social media, politics, movies, or food. This will make the research design process much more enjoyable. If you need help coming up with ideas, ask your instructor for examples. Also, feel free to post more than 5 research questions as it would be useful to get feedback on as many questions as possible.

For each of the questions, provide the following:

• List the research question (be sure to phrase as a measurable question)

• Identify the variables presented in the question

• Provide an operational definition for each variable

• Describe each variable's scale of measurement (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio) and characteristics (i.e., discrete vs. continuous, numerical vs. categorical, etc.)

Replies - Though you may respond to your peers multiple times during the week to provide support or feedback, students are required to respond substantively to at least two of their classmates' postings by Day 7.

Introduction: Basic Concepts

The focus of this course is on understanding and properly using the concepts and language of descriptive and inferential statistics in the context of research. During this course, you will develop important critical thinking skills as you interpret and critique data analyses in various research designs. Mastery in these areas will improve your ability to effectively communicate and report statistical reasoning and results using professional language and APA formatting.

The first week of the course provides a foundation of the study of statistics in the behavioral sciences. We will explore the basic concepts, characteristics, and types of statistics, variables, and distributions. In addition, you will explore the different ways of describing data using measures of central tendency, variability, and the normal distribution.

You should consider the following questions before and during the readings and assignments this week:

1. What is the purpose of studying and understanding statistics, both descriptive and inferential?

2. What are the differences between the following concepts: descriptive and inferential statistics; populations and samples; parameters and statistics; independent and dependent variables; and scales of measurement (i.e., nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio)?

3. How are frequency distributions used to organize and graphically represent data? What can the shape of the frequency distribution tell us about the data?

4. What are the different measures of central tendency and variability? How are they calculated or determined?

5. What are the characteristics of a normal distribution?

6. When and why would we use z scores and means?