WORTH: Up to 20 points
DUE: No later than Thursday, September 13
LENGTH: About 800-1,000 words (4 to 5 pages)
Drawing from lecture and chapter two of Kendall, design a research project
(don't actually DO research, just design it).
1) Select a research question that you think is interesting (Draw from Chapter
Two as a way to carve out such a question).
2) Explain:
a) why is this important (as if it were the intro to a paper on the
topic)
b) What the issues are (that is, what will your research contribute
to our knowledge)
3) How would you design the research? (see lecture and Kendall (chapter 2)
4) What theoretical perspective do you see as closest to how your are
proceeding?
5) What are the strengths and weaknesses of your design? (that is,
what questions does it ignore; what other approaches might also be useful?
Does your own design omit some questions or some types of data that would
be useful? If you're doing macro analysis, would micro give a different
perspective (or, if micro, would macro give a different view of what
you're looking at?)
The goal of this exercise is to get you thinking empirically (designing
research, identifying data gathering/analysis issues, and thinking
theoretically)
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