Milburn Morgan HON 300- HOO1 PDF

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Junior level required honors course...

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Abstract I will be conducting research about a Public Service Announcement aimed at getting more adults reading to children. I will either look at the ideal physical elements of the ad, or I will look at the general strategy required to create a successful PSA. Elements of public relations will also be worked into the campaign, meaning it will not merely focus on advertisements. I. Introduction A.) I am researching the best way to conduct a Public Service Announcement that gets more adults reading to children. B.) Most working class and lower class children come into kindergarten already behind. It is almost impossible for these children to catch up. This can affect the rest of their time in school. Reading to children has been shown to dramatically increase their vocabularies, create a love of books and reading later in life, and overall help them to do better in school. If children are read to from an early age, they stand a much better chance of doing better in school and therefore staying in school. C. American society often claims to be a meritocracy, even though it really is not. Most children that are born in lower class families will stay there the rest of their lives, largely because these children lack the opportunities and benefits that middle and upper class children have. These working class children and parents are not necessarily lazy, they may work as hard as they possibly can but the cycle of poverty is an incredibly difficult one to break. D. This is where reading comes in, it as one of the few things that can potentially break the cycle of poverty. Library books are free, which means no cost to the parents. Small children also must always be supervised, even if it is not by the parent, which means there is always someone around that could read to them. Since many working class parents put their children in some sort of childcare, or have a parent or friend watch the child while they are at work, the PSA should not just be aimed at parents. E. The scope of my research will consist of one of two things. Either I will examine the physical elements that would make a PSA most effective, or I will look more at the general strategy; which mediums are most effective, who exactly would the ads be targeting, what is the best way to state the message, etc. F. My research will look at how to best go about creating a Public Service Announcement to get more adults reading to children.

Reading PSA

II. Research Background A. Since I am only in HON 300 I have not gone over any concepts or theoretical structures. I suppose one concept to keep in mind is that children react very differently to advertisements than adults do, so if I include children in my research I must keep that in mind. B. My thesis statement is only a sentence, since I am only in the very, very basic beginnings of my thesis project, so there are not really any major areas of it. One thing that is mentioned in the thesis is a Public Service Announcement. This is an advertisement aimed at improving the community. Other PR tactics might also be effective though. For example, if people see children being read to every night before bed on TV shows, even if it is only a brief snippet or reference to the fact, the community might start to think that that is something everyone does, and accept it into their own lives. C. Lots of research has been conducted on reading, as well as advertising to children. Public relations has also been researched a lot, so all the pieces are there for me to work with, I just have to put all of them together. D. It is generally known that reading is beneficial to people, especially children in many aspects of their lives. Reading to young children effects vocabulary, attention span, and can help them once they start school. E. I hypothesize that the best way to reach the children of working class families is to look at where the children spend most of their time, likely a childcare provider, and aim the ads at these people as well as the parents of the children. III. Proposed Research Design A. Either get data from children to see what they best react to, or interview working class parents, or survey working class parents, or survey what forms of media they use, or survey where their children spend most of their time, or look at preexisting research of where working class children spend most of their time, or collect data to see what media working class parents are likely to use, or maybe none of the above. Since I only got an advisor three weeks ago I am still very uncertain as to what exactly I will be researching. I am looking forward to finding out this spring in HON 301 though. B. Since I am uncertain of what I will be studying it is a bit difficult to say how I am going to measure my research, but I will lively be doing some sort of survey at some point. C. I will likely be surveying people. D. I will need to get IRB approval before doing any research on humans, which would include a survey. E. There are some great ways to create surveys, that can be found online, so I will likely use one of those to conduct any surveys that I do. If I require data from college students I might have an email sent out asking people to conduct the survey. F. I would like to use as many people as possible for my research, in order to create the most accurate data that I can. G. The first step would likely be narrowing down my topic, which will require meeting with my advisor. Before I do that though I will spend a large amount of time over my winter break reading as much relevant research as I possibly can. So I suppose that will actually be my first step. H. I will likely take all the time given me, in order to do as much as I possibly can.

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Reading PSA

I. I will collect data from the surveys and interviews I conduct. IV. Conclusion A. I might find out that children spend more time with their parents than I expected, or I might find out that grandparents are large part of the average working class child’s life. B. My biggest concern right now is that I am being too broad. I would prefer to focus on something small and go into a lot of detail, as opposed to being too broad and not getting any good details. C. I don’t actually know how one goes about getting IRB approval. I also do not know how one goes about recreating people for research. I know both these things are important and I am sure I will find them out next semester.

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