Describe clearly the methodology to be used for your research: eg what data you might gather, from whom, where and how or what linguistic, statistical or computational techniques might be involved

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Choosing a subject is one thing, but writing a research proposal is another. A good research proposal will generally:
• Focus clearly on some specific question(s) that the research will answer, or on hypotheses to be tested
• Demonstrate some familiarity with key current work in the relevant area by citing recent literature
• Show awareness of descriptive frameworks or theories in the relevant area, and also of research methods that have been used there
• Describe clearly the methodology to be used for your research: eg what data you might gather, from whom, where and how or what linguistic, statistical or computational techniques might be involved
• Where relevant, indicate clearly the possible implications for real-world practical activities (eg for language teaching, business, speech therapy etc)
• Be written using a professional layout and conventions, eg subheadings, references properly made in the text and listed at the end etc
• Be clearly aimed at the interests of some member(s) of staff that we have here.

A good proposal will not:
• Provide an overview of an area (eg English for specific purposes, corpus linguistics, optimality theory or language teaching methods) without showing precisely what your study will be focused on
• Mention only very old sources, and/or propose to research something that was popular 20 years ago, from which researchers have now moved forward
• Propose to research questions that are too broad and un-researchable
• Propose an unimaginative duplication of research already done many times
• Fail to give proper details of the proposed method of answering the research questions (eg exactly how and where the data would be gathered, and why)
• Be too short (less than a page)
• Be too long (e.g. ten pages) – aim for 750 words
• Be incoherent
• Relate to an area in which we have no members of staff working/supervising

The following questions are designed to test your ability to apply the concepts and techniques covered in the course. Answer them as fully as possible, identifying each by number. Each answer should be 3-4 pages in length. Every question counts equally toward the exam grade.

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The following questions are designed to test your ability to apply the concepts and techniques covered in the course. Answer them as fully as possible, identifying each by number. Each answer should be 3-4 pages in length. Every question counts equally toward the exam grade.

Once you have completed the exam, submit it to your instructor using the Assignment Submission Form on the course homepage.

What would you do in the following situations?

  1. You walk into a new job and find that there are hundreds of accounts payable checks sitting in drawers. At this point you have no idea how much cash is available and you must meet a payroll of $100,000 in 2 days. Where would you start? What would you do?
  1. You are faced with the last days of a computer conversion and you are receiving calls that people have paid their bills, yet were not being credited for the payments. You later find no copies of receipts, yet the patients sent you copies of theirs. You know there was theft. How do you address it? How do you prove it? There were 4 people who had signed receipts. The total stolen was $10,000. Do you report it? Do you handle it yourself?
  1. Imagine that you are the administrator of a nonprofit community hospital. You have been approached by medical staff from two different departments (for example, pediatrics and radiation therapy) who are equally convinced that their respective areas of specialty need major new pieces of high technology capital equipment that will greatly enhance patient care in each department. Knowing your hospital has limited resources for capital expenditures, what information do you need to gather? Once you have gathered this information, how will you go about deciding which department, if either, should get the equipment?
  1. You are the nursing supervisor responsible for general medical/surgical units consisting of 50 beds. For the first time the chief financial officer has asked you to prepare a budget for your area of responsibility. Describe the process you will use to accomplish this task, including the information you will need, and the important steps in the process.

Do men tend to marry women who are younger than themselves?

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Question 1

Do men tend to marry women who are younger than themselves?

We can use the information about age of mother and age of father to address this question. Produce a paired samples t-test using these two variables.

In your sample what is the average difference in age between mothers and fathers? SPSS may give a positive or a negative difference. Remove any negative sign before entering the answer. (Give your answer correct to two decimal places.)

Mean (difference) =

1 points

Question 2

What is the standard deviation of the difference scores? (Give your answer correct to two decimal places.)

sd =

1 points

Question 3

Give the value of the t  statistic (Note: possible answers for t may be positive or negative. Remove any negative sign before entering the answer. Give your answer correct to two decimal places.)

t =

Question 4

The degrees of freedom is

df =

1 points

Question 5

The p-value for this test should be reported as:

p < 0.05
p > 0.05
p = 0.001
p < 0.001
p = 0.000
p > 0.001

1 points

Question 6

Select one of the following statements:

The p-value is less than 0.050
The p-value is equal to 0.050
The p-value is greater than 0.050

1 points

Question 7

Is the following statement true or false?

The t-test shows a significant difference between the means.

True

False

2 points

Question 8

What can we conclude from this paired samples t-test?

Select one of the following statements:

In the population, men on average marry women who are older than themselves.
In the population, men on average marry women who are the same age as themselves.
In the population, on average, men marry women who are younger than themselves.
We can’t draw any conclusion about whether men on average marry younger or older women

2 points

Question 9

Complete the following sentence, giving the answers correct to 2 decimal places.

We can be 95% confident that on average men marry women who are between Blank 1 years and Blank 2 years younger than themselves.

2 points

Question 10

The Australian National Health Organisation conducted a study to investigate whether a physiotherapy program reduces pain in people with chronic shoulder pain. A sample of 67 people with chronic shoulder pain undertook 10 weeks of physiotherapy treatment. The level of pain was recorded before the physiotherapy program commenced, and again at the end of the 10 week program. A paired samples t-test was conducted on the data. Using the attached SPSS output, complete the following report.

It was hypothesised that a 10 week physiotherapy program would reduce the level of pain in people suffering from chronic shoulder pain.
In a random sample of Term 1 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 people suffering from chronic shoulder pain, on average the pain level after the physiotherapy program was Term 2 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 ( = Term 3 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 , s = Term 4 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 ) than before the program ( = 5.79, s = 1.58). A paired samples t-test shows that this difference in mean pain level ( d = Term 5 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 , sd = Term 6 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 ) is Term 7 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 , t(Term 8 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 )= Term 9 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 , p = Term 10 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 . The 95% confidence interval indicates that the mean pain level is between 0.21 and Term 11 lower higher significant not significant 5.15 67 1.29 0.16 0.27 0.026 0.64 1.75 0.21 1.07 2.99 66 0.004 0.002 lower after the physiotherapy program.
As expected, the physiotherapy program reduces the level of pain in people with chronic shoulder pain.

4 points

Question 11

A large retail chain are concerned about the number of customer complaints they receive about their staff. They engage a personnel consultant to train their staff in customer relations. They randomly selected 80 staff and recorded how many complaints each member of staff had received in the previous week. In the week after the training program was completed, the number of complaints was again recorded.   It was hypothesised the number of complaints would be lower after the training program. Use the drop down menus to complete the following report:

It was hypothesised that the number of customer complaints made against staff in a large retail chain would be lower after a training program was introduced.

In a random sample of 80 staff, on average the number of complaints in the week after the training program was Term 1 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 ( = Term 2 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 , s = 7.05 ) than before the program ( = 27.60, s = 5.14. A paired samples t-test shows that this difference in mean number of complaints ( d = Term 3 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 , sd = Term 4 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 ) is Term 5 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 , t(79)= Term 6 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 , p = Term 7 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 .  The 95% confidence interval indicates that on average the number of complaints is between Term 8 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 less and Term 9 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 more after the training program.

There is Term 10 lower higher significant not significant sufficient insufficient 27.60 26.74 0.57 0.39 0.86 5.63 1.37 2.12 0.001 0.327 0.174 0.087 evidence to suggest that the training reduces the number of complaints.

4 points

Explain your observations through the use of sociological theoretical perspectives.

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Your paper for this course should focus on one family. This family can be your own or someone else’s. If you choose to focus on a family outside of your own, be prepared to spend some time interviewing at least one member of the family who is well informed about its members.
Your paper should be an examination of a family guided by one (or more) of the theories discussed in your texts or in class (these will not be mutually exclusive). You are free to look at one generation of your family or more than one. For example, theories of stratification may explain your family history two generations in the past, but you may find that political theories explain your family better in the present. Or, you can focus on individual family members whose life experiences have been shaped by a particular theoretical viewpoint in your opinion.
Remember, in your interpretation of family dynamics, there is no right or wrong. What you are trying to explain as a sociologist is the present state of your family. What do you think have been the most powerful influences? Were these influences the people or the historical circumstances? What theories best explain the single parent household that you grew up in? What theory explained your parents ‘ lives? How did these influences clash? How did they complement each other? Is your family an extended family? Why or why not? These are just a few of the questions you may want to explore.
Keep in mind that is a sociology course, and not a family therapy course. Try to explain your observations through the use of sociological theoretical perspectives. You are not required to write about any experience that makes you feel uncomfortable. Again, if writing about your own family does not appeal to you, you may write about another family.
Papers should be no longer than 2300 words, (typed, double-spaced, 11-12 pt. font, l” margins, approx.8 pages). Your “word count” should appear on the first page of your paper underneath your name. You do not need a title page but papers must contain a “Works Cited” page (aka, bibliography) that contains at least three citations, none of which can be your text or any encyclopedia, e.g. Wikipedia. Your paper’s grade will suffer if the appropriate citations do not accompany it.