Research Design & Analysis Made Easy!
Brainstorming Worksheet
1) Choose a Topic a) What are you passionate about?
b) What are your library’s strengths?
c) What are your library’s weaknesses?
d) What is a “hot topic” in the field right now that you would enjoy pursuing?
e) Where are the gaps? What is not being discussed in the library science field that you could potentially research?
Prospective Topic:
1 Research Design & Analysis Made Easy! e) Focus your topic into a research question(s):
f) What type of research question(s) are you asking (e.g. descriptive, relational, causal, solution-focused, etc.)?
1) If descriptive or relational, what are your categories (e.g. academic department and number of IL instruction sessions)?
2) If causal or solution-focused, what are your independent and dependent variable(s)?
3) If solution-focused, does your question fit the PICO model?
Population:
Intervention:
Comparison:
Outcome:
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2) Determine Your Goals and Objectives
a) Why is this topic worth investigating?
b) What will you gain by completing this research project?
c) What are your goals for performing this study?
Short-term (6 months to a year):
Medium-range (within 2 years):
Long-term (within 3-5 years):
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3) Conduct a Literature Review
a) Where will you search for resources on your topic (e.g. specific databases, institutional data, etc.)?
b) What keywords will you use to search for resources on your topic?
4) Design Your Study
a) What type of study will you conduct (circle all that apply)?
Survey
Focus Group
Interview
Experiment
Quasi-Experiment/Case Control Study
Naturalistic Observation
Ethnography
Cohort/Case Study
Longitudinal Study
Retrospective study (e.g. meta-analysis, historical research)
Other ______
4 Research Design & Analysis Made Easy! b) What population will you focus on (e.g. sophomores, graduate students, library patrons, etc.)?
c) How will you recruit participants?
d) Will you offer incentives for participating? If so, what?
e) How will you ensure confidentiality?
f) Where will you store the data?
5 Research Design & Analysis Made Easy! g) What are your hypotheses?
Null:
Alternative:
Null:
Alternative:
h) What data will you need to prove or disprove your hypotheses?
i) Are you collecting any descriptive or “extra” data? If so, what do you plan on doing with this data?
j) Are you designing your measures from scratch or will you use an existing scale?
k) If designing your own measures, how will you evaluate them for reliability and validity (check all that apply)?
Reliability:
o Internal consistency o Inter-rater o Test-retest o Parallel forms
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Validity:
o Construct o Content o Face o Concurrent o Predictive o Criterion l) Does your design have any factors that threaten its validity (check all that apply)?
o Ambiguous temporal precedence (a.k.a. the chicken & the egg) o Confounding variables o Selection bias o Repeated testing o Experimenter bias o Multiple treatment interference o Hawthorn effect o Experimenter effect o Novelty or disruption effect
m) If you checked any of the threats above, what will you do to minimize its impact?
n) Will you ask open-ended questions? If so, how will you analyze them?
o) Will you be taking observational notes? If so, how will you code them?
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5) Get Approval
a) Do you know when proposals can be submitted to the institutional review board and the turn-around time for answers? If not, where can you find this information?
b) What will your consent form say?
Explanation of study:
Requirements:
Rights of participants:
Contact information:
c) Will your research involve deception? If so, why? How will you debrief your participants?
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6) Conduct a Pilot Study
a) Who will be involved in your pilot study?
b) How will you recruit them?
c) What will you have them do?
7) Collect Data/Implement Your Study
a) When do you wish to implement the study (e.g. fall semester)?
b) How will you collect the data (e.g. Survey Monkey)?
c) Will anyone else be involved in collecting data besides you? If so, what will they need to be trained on?
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8) Analyze Your Data
a) What program will you use to analyze the data (e.g. Excel, SPSS, etc.)?
b) What types of questions will you need to design (check all that apply)? o Nominal (e.g. gender, race) o Ordinal (e.g. academic status) o Ratio (e.g. age, money) o Interval (e.g. temperature)
c) What types of analysis will you perform (check all that apply)? Descriptive Statistics (summarizing data): o Count (e.g. frequency and percentage) o Central tendency (e.g. median, mean, mode) o Dispersion (e.g. standard deviation, range, quartiles)
Inferential Statistics (drawing conclusions): o Associations (e.g. correlation or chi-square) o Relationships and predictions (e.g. regression analysis) o Differences between groups (e.g. Anova or t-Test)
Additional Analysis: o Identifying patterns, themes, and connections
d) How will you display your statistical data (check all that apply)? o Histogram o Box plot o Scatterplot o Line graph o Bar chart o Pie chart o Pictogram o Table o Quotes o Other ______
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9) Prepare and Submit a Proposal a) How will you present your findings (e.g. poster presentation, PowerPoint presentation, journal article, etc.)?
b) Where do you wish to present your findings (e.g. local workshop, annual conference, webinar, etc.)?
10) Share Your Findings a) If applicable, how will you secure funding to attend the conference or workshop where you will be presenting?
b) How could you expand on this research (e.g. follow-up study)?
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Potential Timeline
1) Choose a Topic:
2) Determine Your Goals and Objectives:
3) Conduct a Literature Review:
4) Design Your Study:
5) Get Approval:
6) Conduct a Pilot Study:
7) Collect Data/Implement Study:
8) Analyze Your Data:
9) Prepare and Submit a Proposal:
10) Share Your Findings:
Created by Christine Iannicelli (2015) 12