Research

Research Assignment

Auguste Comte “The highest form of knowledge is careful observation”

This assignment will allow you to become a researcher and try your skills with observation. This assignment is broken into 4 parts so you can try doing different types of research and come up with your own research question and test it.

PLEASE NOTE: ANY use of AI, will result in failure for this assignment and class. This assignment will go through plagiarism checker and AI checker.

Part #1: (25 points) Above are 13 photos of famous people. You will select ANY 5 of the above and give a detailed description of the photo WITHOUT mentioning ANY job, movie, partner or skill. You must ONLY describe the physical characteristics (without using subjective terms like beautiful, ugly etc). After completing your 5 descriptions, look back at your descriptions and see what ways you could have improved on them. These descriptions should be detailed enough that a person should be able to draw a picture from your description.

**5 points per description

Qualitative Research

Part #2: 25 Points For this second portion of the research paper, you are to come up with a hypothesis and then test the hypothesis in the real world. You can be an active participant in the research process or you can simply observe.

“If you have a research design that calls for the investigation of a very specific hunch, you might formulate a hypothesis.” (p 54) For example, you can do something as simple as, “If I were to watch a specific show on television, there will be more words used by males in the show as opposed to females.” Then you would select a show and watch for 15 minutes to see if your hypothesis was supported or rejected. You could also use social media to see a reaction to a post. For example, post a unhappy emoji for 24 hours and see how many people react to ask what is wrong? Again, make sure you state a clear hypothesis (educated guess) You could also test how someone reacts to you. For this, you could walk down the street and each person you see, you would simply say “how is your day going?” and take note of their responses.

You will need to set up your research process as follows:

1st- come up with your idea

2nd-create a hypothesis (make sure you are clear with this)

3rd-Set up a time frame for testing your hypothesis

4th Do the actual research and take detailed notes on your results

5th Analyze the research and state whether your hypothesis was supported or rejected

6th Reflect on your research and how you could improve upon it

PART #3, (25 points): For this part of the paper, you must be a covert participant observer for a thirty-minute period. You will be doing this observation in a familiar setting where you live or work (or with your friends). You will be taking detailed notes of your family, friends or co-workers. Make sure you are as detailed as in part 1. Your notes should be very detailed. Look at the space relations between those you are observing. For the first part of the observation (15 minutes) you will be taking DETAILED notes without your subjects being aware of what you are doing. After 15 minutes, you will then tell your subjects that you will be observing them for your Sociology class. Take notice if their behavior changes. If it did, please make notes on what changes occurred. Usually in the beginning when people are being observed, their behavior will change but after a short time, they forget and go back to their normal behaviors. You can scan/take picture of your notes and upload them for this part. Please note that you need to observe actual people and not animals (as even though your pets are part of your family and life, they will not be able to be observed after telling them you are observing them 🙂

The Write-Up:

Part #4: 25 points For each section, write a brief summary of your experiences as a researcher.

Part 1: Looking over your notes, would an artist be able to sketch a rough idea of them person you described? Do you think you are an observant person in general? Did your description change if you knew of the person? Why did you select the 5 people you did?

Part 2: Was it difficult to come up with a research question? If so, why or why not? Did you do “passive” research or “active” (taking an active role in the research)? Hindsight is 20/20 and people do not realize how difficult research is until they do it. Did you think it would be easy to do research? Why or why not?

Part 3: What surprised you the most about each of the observations? Did you notice anything that you had not before? What roles were individuals playing? Did you feel awkward doing research on your friends/co-workers/family without them knowing? Looking at the descriptions from part one and part three, which part was more detailed? Which one was easier for you to complete? Looking back over your notes, was there anything that you missed with your descriptions?

Finally, If you were to do a major research project in the future, which would you use and why? What would be the pros and cons of each types of research? After reading over chapter 3, how might you design a study to research a specific issue? Give specific examples.

• Your write-up should be no less than 2 pages and no more than 5 pages in length (the write up page length DOES NOT include your notes).

YOU MUST SUPPLY ALL YOUR NOTES FROM YOUR OBSERVATIONS (these can be scanned in and included- You do not need to re-type the notes) … A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF YOUR GRADE WILL DEPEND ON YOUR NOTES FROM YOUR OBSERVATIONS! IF YOU DO NOT SUPPLY YOUR NOTES YOU WILL RECEIVE A FAILING GRADE FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT! MAKE SURE YOUR NOTES ARE DETAILED AND HAVE FUN WITH THE ASSIGNMENT! INCLUDE ALL NOTES FOR EACH SECTION! Make sure you include notes for each part (Please label all of your notes. For example: Part #1 Notes, Part #2 Notes and Part#3 Notes

Research Rubric (4)

Research Rubric (4)

CriteriaRatingsPointsPart ONE

view longer description

Full Marks

Completed 5 detailed descriptions with great details

25 pts

Good

Good job with describing 5 different famous people

20 pts

Fair

Did a decent job but lacked the necessary depth to describe the 5 people

15 pts

Poor

Needed much more depth

10 pts

No Marks

0 pts

/25 pts

Part Two

view longer description

Full Marks

Did a great job with testing the hypothesis

25 pts

Good job

Good job with creating the hypothesis and testing but more depth was needed

20 pts

Fair job

Lacked the necessary depth

15 pts

Poor

Much more was needed on this section

10 pts

No Marks

0 pts

/25 pts

Part Three

view longer description

Full Marks

Did a great job with giving detailed examples

25 pts

Good job

Good job with giving detailed examples

20 pts

Fair job

Lacked the necessary depth

15 pts

Poor

Much more was needed on this section

10 pts

No Marks

0 pts

/25 pts

Part Four- Write up

view longer description

Full Marks

Did a great job with the write up on the research

25 pts

Good job

Good job with the write up on the research

20 pts

Fair job

Lacked the necessary depth

15 pts

Poor

Much more was needed on this section

10 pts

No Marks

0 pts

/25 pts