Ch 12 Assignment

Part I – The Question (Critical Thinking)
When developing your question, please note that there is a difference between exploring an association or potential relationship between two constructs versus implying a relationship (how does this impact that). When you are implying a relationship, you are making assumption of causality. This is VERY important when you come up with your research question. Are you exploring how the concepts relate to each other or do you have reason to believe one effects the other? For this assignment, you will exploring how an intervention impacts an area of interest in your future social work practice.

Select your topic and population. Then, formulate a research question.
Does this research question meet the three basic criteria of causation in scientific research? Why or why not?

Part II – The Search (Critical Analysis)

Examine the literature.

Identify your search terms/Boolean phrase.
Find an article related to your question. It should be either an experiment or a quasi-experiment (think quantitative). It should be from the past 10 years. You should select it from an appropriate database from FIU Library website. Document the following information from each study:
Purpose of the study—Research aims (typically located at the end of the background right before the methodology OR the first part of the methodology)
All of these are located in the methodology
Setting/ location
Sample
Outcome variable/ assessment instruments
Key findings
List the Reference in APA format. (Hint – it’s not the link from the database.)
Describe the study design.
What type of design was it?
Draw out the X/O/R’s
Was there randomization in the study?
What was the attrition like?
Did they explain why they chose the study design that they implemented?
Was this the right study design? How would you have improved it? Or, why was it the correct design?

Part III – The Integration (Critical Application)

How did the article’s findings relate to your research question?