Touchstone 1: Developing a Research Plan

SCENARIO: Imagine that you work for a nonprofit organization that is focused on increasing diversity in community groups in your area. Your supervisor asks you to develop a sociological study concerning topics of diversity and collaboration in a specific community group of your choice. Eventually you will prepare to share your research with colleagues.

ASSIGNMENT: For this Touchstone, you will begin by formulating a question about diversity in a community group that you have access to. Then you will use the steps of the scientific method to prepare a research plan, including a bibliography for a literature review. As you learned, sociologists follow the scientific method so that their results are both scientifically valid and useful to the greater sociological community. A literature review allows researchers to learn from completed studies and to build upon their conclusions.

Use the following Touchstone template to fill in your research plan as you develop it. When you have finished, submit this template to move on to the next unit.

Touchstone 1 Template

A. Directions

Step 1: Pick a Topic

Select a community group to study. Some examples of community groups you might explore include:

An activity-based group like a book club, a soccer team, or a community choir

A religious or ideological community such as a church congregation or a local political party

A community organization like a Parent Teacher Association (PTA), a neighborhood association, or the volunteer committee at a local soup kitchen

It should be a group in which membership is voluntary and recreational. Avoid:

Families

Workplaces

Ethnic or racial categories

• Friend groups
• You might wish to choose a group that you are a part of, or you might not. You can use your personal experience with the group to form the basis of your research question. Or you can ask members of the group about their experiences, which will help you develop your research question.
• In the template, write a paragraph (approximately 6-8 sentences) describing the community group you have chosen. In particular, be sure to answer the following questions:
• What is the community group?

What are the attributes or characteristics of this community group? (e.g. What activities does this group do together? What element of the members' interests or identities brings them together? How is membership in the group defined, if at all?)

What kind of experience with or access to this community group do you have?

• Step 2: Ask a Question
• Next, you will formulate a question related to this group, and to topics related to diversity and/or collaboration. You might think about diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic status, or along multiple intersecting identities. Be sure to use what you learned in Unit 1 about the ways sociologists ask questions.
• Examples:
• What are the challenges of a mom’s community organization in appealing to moms with children of different ages?

How does a group of car enthusiasts reach out to the surrounding community to get support for their events?

How has the Boy Scouts accepting girls impacted their mission and programs?

Do gender segregated sports teams for kids help maintain traditional gender roles?

In the template, write the question you have formulated for your study. Be sure to identify the Independent and Dependent variables and identify them correctly. (HINT: Refer back to Lesson 1.3.3: Asking Questions and Lesson 1.3.5: Formulating a Hypothesis for help.)

• Step 3: Prepare a Bibliography
• Finally, you will begin developing a bibliography for a review of the existing literature that relates to your question. Before conducting a full literature review, a sociologist will build a bibliography, or a list of potential sources that they will read and study in greater depth in the review.

Collect 4-6 articles, books, or other resources that relate to your question and list them in your template. You don’t have to look into these materials in depth right now! You’ll review this literature more closely in a later Touchstone, and you will also be exposed to additional relevant research and frameworks in Unit 3. You’ll also be able to add to or amend your bibliography before your Touchstone in Unit 3.

• Attributes of good readings for your literature review:

They should have been published in the last 10 years—unless they are a landmark work on the topic and provide important background or as a comparison.

They look at different sides of the argument and a variety of perspectives.

Where to find readings: More than likely you will use a major search engine like Google. Start your search by asking the question you want to answer and identifying key search terms to generate relevant results. You can limit your Google search to works that have been published in the last 10 years. You can also use a search engine like Google Scholar that specifically searches scholarly literature. However, keep in mind that much of this literature may have limited or paid access. Another good place to search is in a public or university library catalog or database. Whichever way you choose to search, make sure that you are selecting credible sources.

What makes a source credible? Credible sources are written by authors who are well known in their field. They are based on scientific data—not opinions or with biased observations. Sources should be from reliable outlets, like major publishers, universities, think tanks, and credentialed current practitioners. (HINT: Refer back to Lesson 1.3.4: Researching Existing Sources for more guidance.)

How to format sources in your bibliography: Sociologists use American Psychological Association (APA) format for their research. However, you will use a more simplified method to format sources for your bibliography. You will include five key elements for each source, with each element separated by a period:

• Author’s name(s)
• Publication date
• Title of the source
• Page numbers (if applicable)

Source's location for web-based texts (URL)

EXAMPLE

Alireza Behtoui. 2015. Beyond social ties: The impact of social capital on labour market outcomes for young Swedish people. p. 711-724. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1440783315581217

SCENARIO: Your supervisor has approved your research question and plan for studying some aspect of diversity and/or collaboration in a community group. Now it is time to conduct your literature review and develop your hypothesis and research plan.ASSIGNMENT: In the first Touchstone, you developed a research question and prepared a preliminary bibliography for your literature review. You will now conduct your literature review, formulate your hypothesis and research plan, and develop a set of notecards that summarize your work.REQUIREMENTS: You must create 8-11 notecards using the touchstone template below. Your notecards will include:introduction card
research question card
literature review (4–6 cards)
hypothesis card
operational definitions card (if needed)
research method card
Touchstone 3 TemplateTouchstone 3 SampleWhen you have finished, submit the Touchstone template. Before you get started, let’s look at how you’ll build your notecards, step by step.
A. Directions
Step 1: Revise Touchstone 1
First, return to the community group description, research question, and proposed bibliography that you submitted in Touchstone 1, and make any necessary changes based on feedback from the grader. You will likely want to refine your reading list based on the feedback you received and what you learned about diversity and collaboration in Unit 3.
Step 2: Conduct a Literature Review
Next, complete your reading for your literature review.
Reminder of attributes of good readings for your literature review:
They are academic, scholarly works about research findings or they are reliable journalistic reporting based on scientifically credible and reliable data.
They should have been published in the last 10 years—unless they are a landmark work on the topic and provide important background or as a comparison.
They look at different sides of the argument and a variety of perspectives.
As you complete each reading, take notes. Questions you should answer about each reading include:
Who wrote this article? Is it the researchers themselves, or is it a journalist writing about their findings?
Where was it published? Is it a scholarly publication like an academic journal, or is it for a popular audience? If the publication is for a popular audience, how would you characterize the audience?
Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?
When was the research conducted?
What question were the researchers attempting to answer?
How does this question/topic relate to my question/topic?
What methods did they use to study their question?
What conclusions did they draw from their results?
How do their conclusions impact my research question, hypothesis, or research plan?
As you did for your first Touchstone, you will include five key elements for each source, with each element separated by a period:
Author’s name(s)
Publication date
Title of the source
Page numbers (if applicable)
Source's location for web-based texts (URL)
EXAMPLE
Alireza Behtoui. 2015. Beyond social ties: The impact of social capital on labour market outcomes for young Swedish people. p. 711-724. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1440783315581217
Step 3: Formulate a Hypothesis, State Your Operational Definitions, and Choose a Research Method
HypothesisNext, formulate a hypothesis for your research question and choose a sociological research method appropriate for testing your hypothesis. While you won’t be conducting the research, you will write up a description of how you plan to conduct your research. (HINT: Refer back to Lesson 1.3.5: Formulating a Hypothesis, Lesson 1.3.6: Collecting Data: Quantitative Approaches , and Lesson 1.3.6: Collecting Data: Quantitative Approaches for help.)
A formal hypothesis states the relationship between two variables—one is independent (IV) and one is dependent (DV). It must also be formatted as an If/Then statement, for instance:
If people eat chocolate (IV), then they will get pimples (DV).
If people go to the gym (IV), then they will be fit (DV).
Operational DefinitionsOperational definitions identify important concepts related to the research. For example, If your community organization includes students, are they K-12? College? Medical? Or are students defined as: young adults between the ages of 18-21 who are attending a particular college or university?
Research MethodDeciding on a research method will also take some thought and planning:
Will you use qualitative or quantitative research or a combination?
How will you engage subjects or find your data?
What kinds of tools and assessments will be used to gather the data?
Step 4: Prepare Your Notecards
Finally, incorporate Steps 1-4 to prepare a set of notecards for your proposed research study. Use the template provided to create 8-11 notecards that present the work you completed in Steps 1-4.
NotecardComponentIntroduction
Your introduction notecard should introduce your audience to the community group being studied.
Research question
Your second notecard will state your research question.
Literature Review (4-6 cards)
Now that you’ve introduced your community group and research question, it’s time to add information to your literature review notecards. Each source should have one notecard. The notecard should describe the information and analysis you performed in Step 2.
Hypothesis
Your hypothesis notecard should describe your hypothesis.
Operational definitions
Your operational definitions notecard should include and explain any operational definitions you developed for your study. You may skip this card if you have none.
Research method
Your research method notecard should introduce your proposed research method and explain how you propose to conduct your research.

C. Requirements