Research Question: Does age affect how well people remember advertisements?
Hypothesis:
Write the RESEARCH (i.e., alternative) hypothesis (DO NOT WRITE THE NULL!)
Section 1: METHOD: Explain which method you would use to examine the question (e.g., experiment or a survey), and why that method is most appropriate for the specific question. Your explanation should specify the advantages of using the method you choose over others, and/or specific constraints (e.g., feasibility) that compel you to use one method instead of another. Consider the ethical implications of your research. Acknowledge any limitations. Max: 300 words.
For all topics, your method choice should be either an experiment or a survey. As I've discussed in class, there are many ways one might legitimately design a study for a given topic--the point is for you to justify your choice. Note that under no circumstances should you propose a content/interaction analysis or some version of a qualitative study!
Section 2: SAMPLING: Explain who or what will be examined - people (Who? Where from? How many? How selected?), or other items like organizational units (e.g., groups), and so on (How many? How selected? Where from?). Define the population of interest (e.g., all people in the United States of a specific age or characteristic, all newspaper articles from the last 50 years), and the specific sample (e.g., a convenience sample of University of Arizona undergraduates). Explain why the sample is appropriate (e.g., is it representative of the population to which you want to generalize?) and what constraints make it less than perfect. Acknowledge limitations in the sample. Max: 200 words.
Section 3: KEY VARIABLES: Say explicitly which variables are being examined-each student's research question contains two variables so you must describe both in this section. Provide conceptual and operational definitions of each (and you can find these explained in Chapter 4 of your text) and why you think the variables should be related in the manner stated in your hypothesis. These definitions should be clear and explicit. Providing materials like an exact replica of questionnaire items or experimental stimuli will be rewarded (e.g., describe the specifics of experimental stimuli, and so on, if applicable). You are encouraged to do some research to find out if others have already measured your variable, and you may use an existing measure in your paper if it fits your research question and hypothesis. Materials like questionnaire items are additional to this word limit and should be included as an Appendix (labeled and referred to in your narrative, e.g., "See Appendix A"). Your goal is to help the reader understand exactly how you generate NUMBERS in order to do the statistical analysis. Max: 400 words.
Section 4: ANALYSIS: Describe which statistical test(s) would be used, and provide example data (e.g., means, correlations, a graph, a table, etc.) that reflect your expectation of what you would find assuming you reject the null hypothesis. It is not necessary to show complete calculations with fake raw data-the goal here is to demonstrate your understanding of what the data would look like, how the data would be analyzed, and what the analysis might show. For example, if your hypothesis were "Communication undergraduates have higher intelligence than the general population," you would provide two means (with a higher mean for the undergrads), confidence interval, degrees of freedom, and so on. Again, you do not need to supply fake raw data (i.e., scores for each fictional person in your study). Max 200 words (plus possibly graphs/tables of numbers).