Post your proposed research topic for our class survey here. When we meet in class on Thursday (2/15) we will discuss each proposal topic briefly as we decide what topics our survey will incorporate.
Keep in mind, we are going to be surveying the DU student body. Think about how your proposal might be best structured to be examined on a college campus.
For instance, you want to first select a topic you would like to study, but make sure it is sociological - i.e. having to do with people's interactions, behaviors, and attitudes. (For example, dinosaurs would not be a valid topic.) And it must be able to be studied with a survey. (For example, "does warming up before running reduce muscle cramping?" is hard to address with survey data.)
Once you have a topic, narrow it down to a single answerable question. This step is important, because we cannot proceed with only a topic and no question.
For example: "Student protest" is a topic, but it is not a research question. Rather, "Do student protests come from upper- or lower-class socioeconomic backgrounds?" is a research question, and it is one that would be ideal for a college campus population.
Next, identify your independent and dependent variables. Which is the cause and which is the outcome? In the example mentioned above, ‘class background' is the independent variable (cause) and ‘protest' is the dependent variable (outcome).
In your post be sure to include:
1. The research topic - what are you going to study?
2. Your rationale - why is this topic important?
3. The research question - what specific question do you hope to answer with our survey?
4. The independent and dependent variables - what is the cause and effect you are interested in?
You can post a bulleted list, you don't have to compose a structured paper/essay. This post should be answerable in ~150 words. I have set this post to hide all responses until you have posted your own reply.