Research Project Exercises - Part 1

These research project exercises are about determining the objective of a study, identifying the study variables (dependent and independent) and suggesting search instruments.

Exercise 1           

         
I. An educational researcher is interested in the relationship between students’ participation in two after school programs and academic achievement. She states the following hypothesis in the description of her study :

H.1. Children who participate in an after school program that emphasizes critical thinking skills score will score higher on measures of academic achievement and self-esteem than students who participate in a program that emphasizes rote memorization.

1. What are the variables in this study?

2. Identify the independent variable(s) and dependent variable(s). Explain the roles of each type of variables in the study.

3. Suggest an appropriate research design that would allow the educational researcher to verify the hypothesis she stated.

4. Referring to the proposed topic and research hypothesis, suggest research instruments that are likely to capture the information necessary for the verification of the stated hypothesis (detail the theme of the research instrument and describe how each theme and/or instrument relates to the independent variable(s) and dependent variable(s) you identified).

5. Propose an appropriate method for selecting participants in the proposed research study in a way consistent with the stated study objective(s) and hypothesis.

II. A researcher is interested in the relationship between the use of games in language classroom and increased proficiency levels in learners. Nothing a positive correlation proficiency. What error is he making?

Exercise 2             

        
I. Read the description below and decide what type of sample selection has taken place.

A survey of attitudes of drug users to rehabilitation services. Method: drug users are recruited by advertising in the local newspaper for potential respondents.

II. Representation: Read the scenario and determine if the sample is a representative sample or not representative, explain

For a survey of student opinions about school athletic programs, a member of school board obtains a sample of students by listing all students in the school and using a random digit number table to select 30 of them. Six of the students say that they don’t have time to participate, and they are eliminated from the sample.

III. Identify the participants, variables, and research goal in the following scenario:

kumar, N., Keyan, V.S., Anwar, S., Sistla, S. C., & Katen, V. (2013). Clear liquid diet vs soft diet as the initial meal in patients with mild acute pancreatitis: A randomized interventional trial. Nutrition in critical Practice, 28,365-370.

1. What is the objective of the study?

2. What are the independent variable and dependent variables?

3. What does “publishable research” mean?

4. What are the reasons for plagiarism?

Exercise 3                     

I. States if the following statement has ‘Bias (Yes)’ or ‘No bias (No)’

A company is interested in opening a gym on its premises for all employees. They ask all 3 shift workers (11 pm - 7 am) if they would use the gym; and what hours they would like the gym to be open.

II. Sampling: Does this sampling method produce a simple random sample from a class of 30 students? Explain.

Assign each student a number from 1 to 30. The girls get the numbers 1 to 15 and the boys the numbers from 16 to 30. Use a random digit number table to select six two-digit numbers between 1 and 30, and select the corresponding students in the sample.

III. Researchers conducted an independent measures design experiment in a total coffee place, investigating whether receiving physical contact from someone increases their rating on friendliness. The experiment took place between 10 am and 1 pm on a Saturday. As people left the coffee place after paying, some were touched lightly on the upper arm by the server, whereas others were not. Outside the coffee place, people were asked how friendly they thought the server was on a scale of 1 (‘not very friendly’) to 10 (‘extremely friendly’).

1. Identify the independent variable(s) and dependent variable(s).

2. Identify the sampling technique used to obtain participants for this study.

3. Suggest one weakness with the sampling method used in this study.

4. Describe how you would control one variable in this study.