Research question

The question I was most was interested was in was the one
About sign language and verbal communication becuause
I have been around children who do both and I do agree because they use both sign language and verbal communication and I think you can’t have one without the other as long as they aren’t deaf. Teaching children both sign language and verbal communication makes the communication stronger with both verbal and sign language.

Discussion Four

Question: How does the loss of a parent/guardian (via divorce, death, etc.) affect the child’s/children's relationship with the remaining parent/guardian?

Hypothesis: After the loss of a parent/guardian (via divorce, death, etc.), the relationship between the child/children and the remaining parent/guardian grows stronger.

Sample: The age, gender, and date of loss would not be taken into consideration for this study because I think that the ways that the stated question affects the person differently by age is a whole separate question. So because this study has so many potential participants, I would filter my sample down to people of Montana that have lost a parent/guardian.

Research Method: I would choose to utilize the clinical review type of interview mixed with a survey for my research method. I would make a different survey for the parent/guardian than I would for the child/children, as well personalized questions particular to each party.

Research Design: Since the loss of a parent/guardian can happen at any point in life, I would use a cross-sectional design with this study. That way I can have people from all ages, all backgrounds, all situations involved in the study versus focusing on one specific age group.

Individual Interest Study

·      Research Question:

Why are current young adults (16-30) in the United States experiencing higher rates of anxiety, depression, & mental disorders in comparison to previous generations?

·      Hypothesis:

A majority of young adults’ stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses are largely related to social media platforms engraining “grass is greener” syndrome involving: dating, economic status, peer groups, pop culture, and politics. 

·      Research Design: 

Randomly selected schools will obtain 18 male and 18 female student volunteers. Half of each gender will then be placed in two groups with altered news feeds. One control group will continuously receive mundane news feed information for a month; the other group’s news feeds will present inequality, war, famine, a randomly selected political echo-chamber, and other people obtaining their goals/dreams. Overall mood of each participant will be watched day-to-day with the first recording being prior to news feed algorithm changes.  

·      Sample:

Randomly select three high schools, and three college universities; both education facilities from the West Coast, East Coast, and Midwest to better validate information obtained.    

·      Research Method:

Experiment-Control Groups & Structured Interviews  

·      Explain why chosen research method is best suited method:

Clinical Interviews with young adults would gather mostly “I don’t know” responses wasting research resources, structured interviews will give more definitive data through yes/no responces. Distinct differences in viewed content on social media being manipulated into control groups should also show differences in the data collected over the month of the study. 

Although social media isn't the only factor contibuting to rise in diagnoses it plays a big role. Other notable factors are parenting styles changed with the previous generation focused on "achieving your dreams", but less emphasis on life lessons such as inequality or unfairness across all societies. Mental heath also is still stigmatized though less each day, there may have been similar rates of depression but there would have been more likelihood in past generations to "suck it up". 

A question I would like to ask: Do children learn languages better at younger ages? My hypothesis is that younger children will learn a new language faster than older children. To test this, I would use an experimental method, then a cross-section design. To conduct this experiment, I would take a sample of children from 2 years old to 8 years old. The youngest the children could be for this experiment is 2 years old because this is when they are speaking well and forming sentences. The children will be brought into a lab setting and taught another language, such as Spanish. To measure the results, the children will be verbally tested on their vocabulary of foreign words after a certain period of time, for example a month. The results of the different age groups will be compared using a cross-section design to determine which age group learned the most words the fastest.

Discussion #4 Research Question

Research Question: What motivates prosocial behavior? And at what age does this particular development occur? 

Hypothesis: I would hypothesize that these behaviors are in fact dependent on how one was raised and on what behaviors were encouraged in the home and which were not. Psychologist typically agree that there are many things that could promote and motivate both prosocial and antisocial behaviors within the individual whereas sociologists typically believe that the surroundings of the individual and other people play a larger part. There are also situational influences to consider.  I would be interested to see exactly how each effects an individual’s social behavior.

Sample: I would use a sample group of children ages 1-12 because this is the age that I would assume prosocial behavior would be most prominent. So, preschoolers through about 6^thgrade.

Research Method(s): My research method would be observational. I would look for positive inter-social attributes among the children’s interactions with other students. 

Research Design: The natural observational study would be the best way to go about this because survey wouldn’t be as effective with children of these ages. You could compose an experimental study as well but it would be more expensive and prone to bias. 

My research question would be "Does sitting in the same seat while taking notes throughout the semester and sitting in the same seat for every test correlate to a better test grade?" For this research I would do an experiment. I would take twenty people from an Anatomy class at Montana Tech. Ten of them would sit in the same seat all semester when taking notes and their test, while the other ten people would sit in a different seat every time they're taking notes and theirs tests. My hypothesis is that sitting in the same seat when taking notes and a test does not correlate to a better test score. This topic really interests me because I hear people talk about how all these superstitions for taking a test really work. I think that if my hypothesis were to be incorrect, it would be really cool knowing that this superstition really works.

Individual Research Interests

Research Question:
Does chewing the same gum while studying and taking the test help with memorization skills for the test?

Hypothesis:
Chewing the same gum while studying and taking the test benefits to the memorization skills of the person during the test.

Research Method: 
I would use and experiment for my research method.  I chose this method because I would be controlling whether the person uses gum or not.  I would choose 50 random students in the Anatomy & Physiology course at Montana Tech.  25 of them would not use gum at all in both studying and during the test.  The other 25 would be given instructions on what kind of gum to be chewing while studying for the test and while taking the test.  After the test has been taken, I would compare the 25 students that didn't chew gum test score's to the 25 students who did chew gum test score's.  This would give me the results needed, whether chewing gum helps on a test or doesn't effect it.

Research Design
I would be using experimental design.  I chose a random group of participants that some will be chewing gum and some will be not.    

Individual Research

            Are teenagers who have been abused in their childhood acting different than those who hadn’t been abused as children?  Are they showing signs of being abused; acting out or even replicating the abusive behavior on their peers, significant other as they mature?

            The research design I would use is Longitudinal and I would use observations and interviews with their teachers, friends, and others that are relatively close to the teenagers and who actually know them to see whether or not they are acting out irrationally and seeing if it is a direct cause of being abused as children.  I would look at teenagers who are sophomores and juniors in high school. Examining teenagers who are acting out, and try to find out if they have been abused in the past, or are still being abused, whether it is emotionally, physically, or both.

Individual Interest-Do children in grade school need cell phones??

I have a ten-year-old daughter that we have been arguing with about whether or not she could have a cell phone/mobile device.  The desire to have a cell phone, in my observation as a parent is to be able to stay in contact with friends via social media.  My daughter does have an iPod, but it only connects where WiFi is available.  We have dabbled in social media, only to have to have some very tough discussions about what others are doing (vaping in 5^th) or bullying via social media apps.    In talking to the counselors at Hillcrest School, about 75% of the children in my daughters 5^th grade class have mobile devices that are brought to school-is that good or bad? 

The overall research design would be correlational and the methods used would be primarily surveys, data gathering and a structured interviews with the kiddos.  I would like to get a better understanding on how many kids have cell phones at school and why parents believe they need to provide their children with a cell phone.  Is it because it’s just easier to give into the children because they want them and justify that it is easier to get in contact with them? Do grades have any correlation to having a cell phone. I would use would create a survey that could be handed out at school (with the approval from the Principal) for parents from Kindergarten through 6^th grade at Hillcrest Elementary here in Butte to answer.  Questions would include whether or not they send a cell phone to school with their child and why they feel they need to.  I would also ask if there are any restrictions, such as leaving phone in common area for the night.  For those that do have a cell phone, I would want to see if they have access to social media via a personal account, or through a parent account.  If so, which apps do they use (Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Musically, etc.) as well as estimate how much time the child spends with the phone.  Does the parent monitor conversations?  

I would then ask permission of the family to see the last semester report cards for grades 3 through 6^th.  (They don’t receive letter grades until 3^rd.)   This data would be used to correlate those that have cell phones with grades.  Do kids without cell phones/mobile devices get better grades? 

Finally, I’d like to conduct interviews with the children to get their take on cell phones.  Questions asked would be about being left out if they do not have access to social media or have a cell phone.  How long do they think they spend on their devices?   I think getting a base understanding of where access to social media and mobile devices are with grade school children today could spin research into other areas. 

Prompt for January 28 - Individual Research Interests

You have all been thinking about research recently, but have been "forced" to think about particular research questions as groups. If you could pick your own, what variables or phenomena would you have studied? Once you have picked a topic, which of the research methods and designs would you use?