Quantitative and Qualitative Research Proposal PDF

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Introduction to research design quant and qual research design proposal semester 1 first year...

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Quantitative Research Design Proposal Does listening to classical music during studying improve academic performance? I am going to use an experimental approach to address this question. I will enlist 200 students at the start of the semester who are studying the same module at the same university, the students must have an exam in the semester to be able to participate. There are no demographic restrictions in this experiment. Students who already listen to classical music whilst they study will not be able to participate in the study as they will have already been studying with classical music and it will not give us an accurate result, and they will already have an advantage over the other students. The students will have to be enrolled on the same module, as I need each participants performance on the same exam. Recruiting from the same module also eliminates any confounding variables, as students will have been designated the same subject resources to study with, this also ensures that no student has an advantage, if they were on another subject, eg. more resources provided. Another reason is that exams on any other modules could be longer or shorter, etc. This would make it much harder to compare students results. Participants will either listen to classical music for 6 weeks ahead of their exam, whilst studying for their exam, or they will not listen to any music at all whilst they are studying for their exam. They will be randomly allocated to study with classical music or without. This way, I can compare the results of the students who studied for the exam with classical music, and those who didn’t. The students will be given the same classical music to listen to each time they study for the exam. I would collect exam performance data from the 200 participants. I will also provide every participant with an information sheet, this will either describe the classical music (the instructions) or it will be a general information sheet (for participants without the classical music) that explains the study’s aim and that they will be using their exam performance for an experiment. They will either give us their consent, or their withdrawal. I will compare both groups exam results by using the mean values. Participation in this study could cause distress for some participants, for a variety of reasons (if they suffer from mental health issues, for example). For this reason, participants are advised to read the information sheets. This will summarise what is being studied, if they do begin to feel distressed, there are relevant support services available, including the University’s counselling service, and the Mind support service number. The data of participants will become anonymous once they have submitted their responses, this means that they will not be able to withdraw their data, but they will be informed of this on the debriefing sheets. I will also provide participants with a questionnaire of how they felt during the study, for wellbeing purposes. ‘1’ being I enjoyed participating in the study and I feel good after participating. ‘5’ being I didn’t enjoy participating in this study and I don’t feel okay after participating. The participants who answered 5 will be able to access services which are stated on the information sheet. This study complies with the BPS code of ethics. References: BPS (2018) Code of Ethics and Conduct. Retrieved from: https://www.bps.org.uk/news-andpolicy/bps-code-ethics-and-conduct Accessed: 27th November 2020. Word count: 550 (excluding references). Qualitative Research Design Proposal

How do adolescents/youths who live with their parents during the COVID-19 Pandemic feel about being indoors with their parents for an extended period of time? I will be using a qualitative approach for this research question. I will recruit directly from Keele University. I will enlist 20 participants. Students in any year from any subject may be able to participate, restrictions for the study include students living with their parents currently, and they must be between the ages of 18-24. (Index Mundi, 2020), (UCAS, 2019). I will advertise the study on social media and include my email address to any interested students. Interested students can email me and I will send them an information sheet with detailed information describing what the study is about and also what I will be researching. Once the participants have stated their interest, they will be provided with a consent form and will be provided with a diary to document their days. As well as a link to an app which will send them daily reminders, they can also record videos and audio on this app. For the research method, I will be using diary accounts (self-report) for 1 month. More specifically the participants can use videos, diary accounts or voice recordings to document their day. Participants will be reminded every day through a specific software to upload a description about their day. This is so they do not forget, and we will get more valid data. This way of collecting data is more ecologically valid as you are not intruding in the participants' lives, however, there could be a confounding variable of social desirability as they may not share every aspect of their everyday lives and only share information that they feel comfortable with. This is why I will ensure that participants feel comfortable and can use various ways to share information about their days. This method will hopefully reduce any social desirability confounding variables. I will provide the participants with clear guidelines on what they need to be writing about, such as: ‘what did you do today?’, ‘did you spend time with your parents today?’ etc. I will inform the participants that they can withdraw from the study at any time. Additionally, they can contact me at any time if they have any questions. The data of the individuals will be stored by following the British Psychological Societies (2018) ethical conduct. Once the diaries have been completed for 1 month. If participants have used videos or audio to document their days, I will transcribe these. I will store the data anonymously. I will also transcribe diary entries. To analyse the transcripts, I will use a thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke (2006). This data could then be published in newspapers, journal articles, etc to highlight individual experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. References: BPS (2018) Code of Ethics and Conduct. Retrieved from: https://www.bps.org.uk/news-andpolicy/bps-code-ethics-and-conduct Accessed: 30th November 2020. Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3:2, 77-101, DOI: 10.1191/1478088706qp063oa. Accessed: 30th November 2020

Index Mundi (2020) United Kingdom Age Structure. Retrieved from: https://www.indexmundi.com/united_kingdom/age_structure.html. Accessed: 30th November 2020. UCAS (2019) UCAS End of Cycle Report 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.ucas.com/file/286231/download?token=45Rkz9AD. Accessed: 30th November 2020. Word count: 467 (excluding references)....