Select a problem/topic of interest associated with your workplace or in an industry in which you would like to work (e.g., reducing transportation costs for a fleet of delivery trucks or determining best policies and practices in implementing an employee exit system or identifying options to reduce the time in a known product development process bottleneck).
Read Section 5 in the APA 6th Edition, if you haven't already, and scan through Chapters 7 & 10 in your textbook, Understanding Research, to gain a general understanding of the differences between quantitative and qualitative data. Using the CSU-Global Library, find two research articles associated with your problem or topic of interest. One of the two articles should contain qualitative data and the other quantitative data.
Your Critical Thinking assignment consists of the following components:
First you will create two tables; one will display qualitative data and the second will display quantitative data. This activity is designed for you to glean data from research reports and present them in a table format using APA standards.
- Tables
- From the article that contains qualitative data, use the conceptualresultsof the research article and create your ownqualitativetable similar to Table 5.16 in the APA Manual 6th Edition.
- From the article that contains quantitative data, use data found in the research articles and create aquantitativetable such as Table 5.3 in the APA Manual 6th Edition.
- Be sure to number and title the tables according to APA formatting standards.
Then, evaluate each article using the table provided in Handout 2 and Handout 3 (also accessible from the Course Information page, and linked here). This activity is designed for you to read and understand the parts of a research report and to critique whether it meets the standards of a quality research process.
- Write a narrative to discuss the articles and research findings.
- The qualitative and quantitative data tables that you created should be integrated and synthesized with the narrative.You will introduce the table, display it immediately following the introduction, and then explain the table following the graphical display. Be sure to only submit one Word document in response to this assignment.