Assignment 2

Due: April 22

1. Present a research question. Identify the phenomenon (concept) you want to explain. (E.g., television watching.)

2. Identify two causes that may explain this phenomenon. (E.g., one could be the person's education.)

3. Present an explanation (theory) that links these concepts.

4. Present your dependent and two independent variables. 

5. How would you measure them?

6. What is your unit of analysis?

7. Present at least two hypotheses.

8. Reverse the predictions of those two hypotheses.   Explain why or why not these new hypotheses might be plausible.

(Careful!! A common mistake is to make the same prediction but expressed differently.

E.g.: if your original hypothesis and prediction is that

better educated people watch less television than people with less education

then the reverse prediction is that

better educated people watch more television than less educated people.

To say that

less educated people watch more television than more educated people

is the same as the original prediction.)

9.  Can you reverse the causal order, so now the cause is the effect and the effect is the cause? (E.g., if your original theory stated that education is the cause of television watching habits, you would say, your television watching habit is the cause of how much education you end up getting.) Explain why or why not these new hypotheses might be plausible.

10. Create a bibliography of at least 5 relevant, scholarly items using the resources from the library.

Of course, you may not use the phenomenon I gave you as an example (television watching).

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS:

Please be sure to present your responses in an organized, clear, grammatically correct, paragraph format (i.e. no sentence fragments, bullets, etc.). Be sure to proof read, spell check, and make appropriate paragraph breaks when necessary.

All homework must be handed in typewritten and stapled. Please use an 11-12 point font, double-space and number each page.