Questions 3:
After several years working as lead teacher at a preschool in your local community, and after many hours of observing fathers interact with their young children during drop off and pick up times, you have decided to pursue a PhD. And want to choose your dissertation topic related to these father-child experiences that you have observed. Specifically, you want to study the impact that father involvement has on young children's development. You are considering following families overtime to see if/how children are impacted by their fathers' involvement between the ages of 2 and 5 years.
a. First, please (i) briefly discuss (1-2 paragraphs) current and relevant empirical research findings related to this topic of interest, father involvement and young children's development across multiple domains. Then, (iii) identify your research questions and hypothesis and make sure to specifically define the variables in your study.
b. Second, (i) identify both the independent variable and dependent variables of your study. In particular, make sure to clearly define both the independent variable IV and the dependent variable DV being included in your study and (iii) how each will be operationalized. In other words, how will you specifically be measuring these variables and why did you choose that measurement strategy?
c. Third, identify your target sample. Make sure to discuss how you will go about recruiting/collecting your target sample, and to whom you will be able to generalize your findings.
d. Fourth, explain the design of your study. Be sure to justify your research design choices.
e. Fifth, outline your plan for data analysis.
f. Lastly, explain 3-4 limitations of your current study and corresponding ways in which you could address EACH of those limitations in future research endeavors.
Question # 3 explanation
- The limitations of previous research on the topic
- Suggestions for future research on the topic
Also, students should be able to design a research study that investigates the relationship between individual and family variables. The student should be able to explain the following:
- Sampling frame of the study and generalizability of the sample to the population
- Research design
- Data collection procedures and measurement
- Threats to internal and external validity
- Strengths and limitations of their approach