Explain why and how these articles are significant and related to your research.

Single parent Households: How the single parent and Child affected by it
Final Proposal Guide Soc. 110 Research Methods Dr. Gilmore Part I. (3-4 pages) Remember to use what you know from your class project, but a proposal is just what it sounds. You are proposing an idea for a project that you have not actually done yet. You are trying to say that your idea is good for a project by showing how others have looked at the project, how you will look at it, and how you will go about doing it. Proposals are exploratory so your tone throughout the entire proposal should be what you hope to find/examine/analyze, not what you have found/examined/analyzed. Depending on your project, some things in this outline may not be necessary for every student. Point values subject to change. A. Introduction (5 points) This section should state the research question/problem. You should have some discussion of a concept/indicator/variable you will use and then present what the proposal is going to be about. Remember to mention why this project is important, linking it to a larger issue in society. Example: If your project is about campus activity building self-esteem you can say this is important because self-esteem will be beneficial not only when one is a student, but in the future for jobs and personal relationships. High self-esteem may help fight against mental disorders and would generally lead to engaging in a better lifestyle. Campus activity too is important. Active students can make connections that cross cultures, races, and social classes, providing a greater awareness of our uniqueness and similarities. B. Literature Review and Theoretical Overview (40 points) These two sections can be combined. For most of you, this will be similar to the previous literature review from earlier in the year. You should refer to at least two more articles than you previously did (5 or 6 total). Summarize the articles in a couple of sentences. Explain why and how these articles are significant and related to your research. Then, speculate as to why the patterns you are researching exist, why they are important and related to the research. The literature review represents how others see it and the theoretical part theorizes about what is happening in your project as it relates to past literature. Try to refrain from using the first person in this section (i.e. I or my). C. Hypothesis (5 points) End this section with two or three hypotheses in the (IfThen) format. You can also add a research question(s). Research questions are more for qualitative work, while hypotheses are usually used in quantitative work. Even though you guys are doing mixed-method proposals you dont need to present both, but you can. Example: Research Question: Why do some students have higher levels of self-esteem than others? Your dependent variable is self-esteem, which you measure by how often someone feels depressed, among other indicators. You decided to look at students that are involved on campus (IV) to see how their self-esteem compares with students that are not involved. When you conducted your surveys/interviews though, you found that many students with high self-esteem, whether they were involved on campus or not, also had friends (peers) that had high self-esteem. Now there is another IV, peer groups. To conduct two bivariate analyses, you would look at how peer groups and how campus activity influence self-esteem. Here are two bivariate analyses: 1. peer groups????self-esteem 2. campus activity????self-esteem Your hypothesis could be: (1) If you have friends that have high self-esteem, then you will have high self-esteem. (2) If you are involved on campus, then you will have high self-esteem. But you also want to conduct a multivariate analysis. So you will use peer groups as an intermediate variable. This now becomes: campus activity????peer groups????self-esteem Hypothesis: If you are active on campus, then you will meet other students that have high self-esteem, which will give you high self-esteem. Sometimes your original independent variable can become the intermediate variable: peer groups????campus activity????self-esteem Now the kinds of friends you have impacts whether you are involved on campus. These variables are unique because you could argue that any could be an IV or a DV. But this does not work for all variables. Example: self-esteem????campus activity????peer groups The point is to use your sociological imagination to think about what might be happening with your project. You may also have an intermediate variable that is not apart of your original bivariate analysis, but the same DV. You should comment on how your one or two bivariate and multivariate diagrams work for your specific project. You should elaborate in an exploratory way on your hypotheses/research question(s) in the literature review/theoretical overview section and then state your hypotheses. No need to actually draw it out with the arrows. Part II (2-3 pages) A. Research Design (20 points) This section will focus on how you will go about conducting your research, not how you have collected your research. Everyone should perform mixed-method and you should give the strengths and weaknesses of both. Who and how will you sample for your project (students, immigrants, women, etc.. snowball, theoretical, accidental). B. Data Collection (20 points) Explain the wording of questions (levels of measurement) and how they relate to the indicators/variables in the proposed study. How will they measure the concept? Present the variables to be used and the statistical test (chi-square/cross-tab) to be used. What social types you think you will find. Explain your multivariate model and/or a controlling variable. This refers to more than one independent variable that may affect the outcome. For the qualitative portion you can discuss possible social types and the characteristics that may be used to create them. The research design and data collection sections are for the most part what both exams covered. Part III. Conclusion (5 points) A short paragraph that reiterates your introduction and again addresses the larger issues at play. References/In-Text Citations (5 points) Stick to one formatMLA, APA, ASA, Chicago