The following Reflection is for Group A to post to. Those in Groups B and C are eligible to comment to Group A’s Reflections- see the bottom of this post for the Commenters’ instructions.  For more on the guidelines to receiving Extra Credit for participation, click here.

Background Information

Think back to the lecture on research design. During that class, we conducted a mock experiment. We tried to see how different genres of music affected memory recall. Half the class read and tried to memorize a story while listening to Mozart and the half to Eminem. Music choice was manipulated and so that became the independent variable and since we were exploring its effect upon memory; memory was our dependent variable. We hypothesized that students would have better recall under the Mozart condition, but we were wrong. Somewhat surprisingly, the students performed slightly better on the memory task under the Eminem condition. We then identified all of the confounding variables that helped to explain this curious finding: only calling on students who raised their hand for answers, students having more exposure to Eminem than Mozart (sad but true), etc. So, we created an experiment, tested it out, matched our findings up against our hypotheses and created some conclusions about what happened and how the experiment could be improved. That’s how research works. The only step we missed was communicating our findings with the world. Guess what? Now you can think about a research experiment and communicate your thoughts and ideas with the rest of the class.

Let’s get started!

Instructions for Reflection (Group A)

In this Reflection, we’d like you to propose a research design exploring a question of personal interest. In a sense, this is a thought experiment. You won’t be actually carrying out this experiment. The purpose of this exercise is to get you thinking like a researcher and see what kinds of cool and exciting stuff you can come up with. Be sure to review your course readings, class notes, and Connect resources as needed to help you develop your Reflection post.

Please answer the following questions in your post:

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?
• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

Instructions for Commenters (Groups B & C)

• What would be your hypothesis of the study’s outcome?
• What suggestions do you have for the researcher on how to improve or adjust the proposed study?
• Are there any drawbacks or potential harmful impacts of this research design (or results?)
• What would be the NEXT STEP after this hypothetical research study were conducted and presented to the public? Can you propose a replication with a good twist? That’s often how research works and how the field is able to advance. Maybe you can think up a great Follow Up study!

I went to bar with some friends the other and they were telling me stories of being under the influence and how it influenced their test taking. Also I was reminded of Professor Sitt’s story about his friend who studied whilst under the influence.

I would like to see how people the same age who have never gotten drunk before do on the SAT’s while drunk compared to when they are sober. I think the results might be interesting.

This would be an experimental research project where we have two combined groups of people randomly selected. For the first group we have those that will take this exam both times while sober BOTH times. The other group of people would then take the test once while sober and then another time while under the influence. The main challenge here is how to get the test group the alcoholic beverages without confusing the other people. As was showcased by our professor, some people tend to act drunk even when they are not. That is something that I haven’t really quite figured out yet. For this kind of experiment, how it would be conducted depends on the way in which the alcohol would be given to the group of students participating. I would say naturalistic observation if there is some way to add chemicals to alcohol to make it taste like water. In which case I would have the study in two different parts. One where they take the SAT the first day sober. However, before the test we have two different colored cups, both containing water that they drink not knowing what they are supposed to be drinking (blind study). One the next day one of those cups would have the alcohol in it, if there is a way to make alcohol taste like water. The others will get a placebo. My dependent variable would be the SAT test. Independent variable would be cups with alcohol in them.

I think I may find out different things depending on the kind of alcohol used. Mostly, I’ll probably see that the kids with alcohol doing worse on the SAT. The people that would gain from a study like this are people who drink all the time who are in posiitons to take exams. Form this they can deduce whether it would be smart to possibly take an exam while under the influence.

Coming up this was really really really really hard. I couldn’t think of anything I was particular interested in to use for this reflection. I don’t think I’ll be becoming a psychology scientist any time soon. This was much harder than I expected.

One area of interest that I would like to explore is whether the amount of sleep a person gets affects their grade on a psychology test. The variable that I am looking to observe in this study is amount of sleep. The independent variable in this experiment would be the amount of sleep, and the dependent variable would be the grade on the test. A correlational design would best suit this study because I want to observe whether amount of sleep is correlated with grades on a psychology test. The research method I would use to conduct my experiment is a survey. In the survey, I would ask each student in the class the average time they sleep each night and then I would ask them their average grade on the four psychology tests taken during the semester. My hypothesis would be that the students who sleep longer than ten hours on average will have lower average grades on their psychology tests, the students that sleep fewer than six hours on average will have lower average grades on their psychology tests, and the students who sleep between six and ten hours will have the highest average grades on their psychology tests. This is because the students who sleep very long on average will have less time to study and the students who sleep very little on average will be too tired to focus on tests. Therefore, I hypothesize that there will be a strong “n-shaped” correlation between amount of average sleep and grades. The benefits of this study are it will provide evidence as to how sleep affects grades. All the students would benefit from this study because the study could provide them with more effective and efficient ways to study. Heath psychologists would also benefit from this study because they would see how sleep affects grades. This experiment has many flaws. First, there are many confounding variables that affect grades on tests, such as time spent studying and natural intelligence. Also, it would be very challenging to collect the data from all 500 students and ensure that the students responded honestly. Overall, however, this study would be very easy to carry out and creating a graph for the data would be painless. Designing this experiment was very easy. I did not face many challenges and it was less difficult than I expected because the idea for the experiment instantaneously came into my head.

The research question for the study design: To ascertain the credibility of
the students given academic judgments of their professors.

The variables and concepts to observe and what to manipulate in the design:
The independent variables will be the students and the dependent variables will
be the results or the grades.

The research method for this research: The best methods would be interviews
and surveys.    Interviews can be done on the phone and the
questionnaires are done by creating fill in questions and / or answers of agree
or disagree or not sure and more.

The hypothesis: Mature and serious students would judge more fairly as
compared to students who just want to walk through the walls of the school
building.

Who benefits and implication of this study?

Both students and professors are the benefactors because the students will
have a fair share to express their sincere concerns of the teaching strategy of
professors. The weakness of the professors can be amended to strengthen
the class as humans are not perfect.

The challenges of this experiment: The method of using phones can be
difficult to know who is behind the line you are speaking to, his education background
and others may ignore the request, and also the ages of the participants. The
questionnaires too depend on the mood of participants and their maturity. The
more this studies are done in different times of the day to get majority to
represent the sample to reflect the population would be better.

This research study design will be based on why we are mostly biased in our daily life.

-i will be looking for correlation between one own interest and his view on any subject matter.
-I will be using mostly case studie1( why minorities who always blame white for Racism are exhibiting racism among themselve(black vs spanish, or black vs Asian) or to some extent xenophobia( black born American vs black asians or Black from africa) or (puerto ricans vs mexicans vs dominicans) or (chinese vs japanese vs koreans) (Possible answer: is it because each group see themselve better than the other?)
– case study 2 . If 99% of black vote for a black canditate,people assume there is no racism involved but when 99% of white vote for a white canditate we see racism.( is it because of slavery?)
-case study 3. Why most men see women as inferior(is it because they want to dominate?)
-My independent variable in this research could be race,gender,ect and The dependent variables will be how our own interest guide us.

– I believe that only few data point in this sample will act objectively with 95 percent confidence interval.we are mostly biased because we looking after ourself first then the rest comes.In the book the jungle,the strong man didnt want to join the union since he could easily find a job,so why pay money for membership but when he became sick and his interest is at stake,things changed.

    What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

• Will a student earn better grades by putting all their focus on listening to what the professor is saying, or by splitting that attention between what the professor says and writing down notes?

    What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

• I would like to observe the concept of focus/attention and how beneficial it would be to fully focus on a lecture rather than splitting the attention between listening AND writing.

    What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

• The best design would be correlational to see what kind of effect one variable has on the other.

    What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

• I would survey students who take notes and those that don’t. Once grades are received, I will see if there is any connection between variables.

    If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

• The dependent variable is the grade received by the student and the independent variable is whether or not the student was taking notes or not.

    Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

• Splitting focus on writing notes while listening is beneficial and will lead to better grades.

    What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

• Students will gain from it because they will see the benefits of taking notes.

 Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

I think the main challenge is the fact that students may not want to provide their actual grade if it is too low out of embarrassment or fear of being judged. The best solution of course is to ensure anonymity.

• Today with technology, students are starting to use ipads, laptops, smart phones and other tablet devices to take notes for all of their classes. SO the question is which one can help you improve, new technology or “old fashion” writing with a pen to paper. What I am looking to observe is the laptop versus a notebook. I want to conduct an experimental research to see if technology can boost, lower or keep grades of the students the same. The research method I would use is a case study. I would take a handful of students and give them laptops to do classwork and study with, then test them 2 weeks later. Then I would give another group of students notebooks for classwork and studying and also test them 2weeks later. The students would be the dependent variable and the laptop and notebook as the independent variable. I feel that the students writing would obtain higher grades because all senses are being used. With the laptop everything is more visual than anything. The students would benefit in terms of them having and understanding of what method can improve there grades. I thought that I wouldnt get any data that would answer my hypothesis. I think that being the tests alternately for each group would also show if the group with the laptops get tested with the notebook method it would show if they made an improvement with grades or not.

My Hypothesis is that students who will eat breakfast will perform better not just on tests but in school in general because they will be more focused.

Experiment would consist of 2 groups, each with 3 boys and 2 girls so the the playing ground is equal for each group, then group A will be tested with out having breakfast earlier in the day.Then group B will also be tested given breakfast earlier in the day.

I would use surveys as a way to question people on their breakfast eating habits and daily routine.(to see how their scores came out and how the day went)

Everyone that will read this will benefit from it because its not just for students, its for everyone that thinks breakfast is not an important meal, it will prove to everyone how vital breakfast actually is and for those of you who already knew this it will simply re assure you that you were right.

I did not experiment any difficulties in getting people to participate in my experience because i forced to family to do it.

I’ve always loved breakfast but sometimes I don’t really know if it should really be considered the “most important meal of the day.” I want to know if having breakfast or correlates with the attention span a student has throughout the day until the next time he/she consumes food. The variables that I would be looking to observe and manipulate would be breakfast and a person’s attention span. The independent variable would be breakfast and the dependent variable would be the attention span of a student. I believe that the correlation design would best suit my research question because I want to see if there is any correlation between those two variables. To conduct my experiment I would do a lab experiment with a placebo to see the effects of breakfast on a student’s attention span in class. My hypothesis would be that the students attention span in class will increase with breakfast and decrease without breakfast. The benefits of this study would be for students and their grades because; if you know that breakfast affects your attention in class then you would eat breakfast so that you can be focused in class. The process had of designing this experiment wasn’t as hard or as easy as I expected it to be because, there were so many things that you had to take into consideration. There weren’t really any challenges but if I had to name one it would be choosing the topic.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design? I would like to study a group of people, where half would drink standard caffeine coffee, while the other half drank decaffeinated coffee without knowing (single blind study), and see if the mind can trick itself into reacting differently then it is expected.

• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate? I would like to observe the differences between the group ingesting caffeine vs the one that is not, and survey their responses to it.

• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc) It would be a single-blind study where the experimental group would receive the regular coffee, and the placebo control group would receive the decaffeinated coffee

• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.) Originally, I would have thought a lab experiment, however with a person knowing there is a possibility they have a placebo, an environment would be best suited to disguise the study.

• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? The independent variable would be the caffeine. The dependent variable would be who “appears” to have the affects of caffeine in their system.

• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find. I think if the entire group was told they are drinking standard caffeinated coffee, some may appear that they are more energetic even though they drank the decaffeinated coffee

• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it? I think coffee drinkers could benefit from it. If they are told afterwards they were drinking decaffeinated coffee the entire time, and did not feel sluggish, they may realize that they can substitute the caffeine for something else (non decaf tea)

• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How? I think the hardest part would be switching people’s coffee without them knowing. If we did so in their house, I am sure there is some kind of law I would be breaking. If done at a coffee shop, it would be an issue on them paying for something, and not receiving it. Also, having to notify them of the study ahead of time would be difficult, because some people would always be on the lookout for the placebo.

        What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design

–   I would like to test my assumption on coffee consumption before a test can boost a persons test scores

What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?     

-The concept i would observe is to see if coffee consumed by a person right before a test will boost that persons test scores

What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc) -An experimental design would suit the question

What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)  —  i would use a lab experiment for this question
If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? 

–the independent variable would be the amount of coffee a person drank, the dependent variable would be the persons test score grade.
Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

–A person who consumes coffee before a test will have higher test scores than the person who did not drink coffee
What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?   —  students can gain from this experiment because if the hypothesis is true coffee can help a student on tests 
Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

— the process of designing this experiment wasn’t so difficult because this idea was floating around in my mind for sometime because i have seen it with myself. If i drink coffee before a test i generally get higher grades than if i don’t drink coffee before a test.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

Do the elementary boys think differently than elementary girls?

• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

I observed if boys going to elementary school think differently than the girls going to elementary school.

• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

My research work is  best described as experimental.

• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

Naturalistic observation is the best suit of the experiment.

• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

N/A

• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

Elementary boys think differently than elementary girls.

• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

There is not much benefit of this study other than the fact that I, as a researcher, had my question answered.

• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

For this experiment I randomly selected 5 girls and 5 boys at a park. All of them go to elementary school. I gave each of them a sheet of paper with the letters A-Z but the letters were not in order. Then I told them to make 5 words using the letters. The words that most frequently appeared in boys list were car, DSI, ipod, ball, and computer while the words from girl’s list were Barbie, dress, ice-cream, book, and shoe.

There was not much challenge except for the fact that I had to talk to parents before I started the conversations with each child to make sure that I don’t get in trouble for interacting with the children. It was less difficult than I thought it would be because the kids were highly co-operative. Since I did the experiment in a natural setting I think I got the best result as kids just wrote me whatever they had in their minds.

My research study design will consist of observing the assessment of class warfare by different group.

-I will be looking to observe how each group sees class warfare and if there is a correlation of being in a specify group with the view of class warfare.

-I will use a case study in this research. I would also use a questionnaire to gather additional informations.

-The specific group will be the independent variable. The dependent variables will be the view or conclusion on class warfare.

– I believe that the rich will respond that he worked hard for his money and success and that the poor will blame the rich for all the problem in society.

My case study is the movement of social darwinism in the 1870. Most people thought that the homeless and the poor were lazy and deserved their conditions But when the great depression came and many who thought they were hardworkers,not throught their fault lost everything,found out to be in the same position as the ones they were criticizing.

Questionnaire facts;

1)40% of middle class and poor dont pay income taxes and are beneficiary of tax cy mmmmmmmmmmm
2) The rich use tax deductions to lower his share of taxable income.

– The reasearch cannot definitely suggest who is right or wrong. But when the poor becomes rich ,his view on class warfare changes most of the time so is the rich.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

As the amount of coffee a person consumes daily increases, does dependence happen faster?

• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

The variables would be the number of ounces of coffee a person drinks in one day and if the number increases or decreases each day.

• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

This would be best suited by an experimentally designed research study.

• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

Both a lab experiment and case survey could be used to conduct the experiment

• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

The independent variables would be the genders and ages of the participants.

The dependent variable would be the different ounces of coffee consumed

• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

My hypothesis would be that the more ounces of coffee consumed per day would lead to a physical dependence much faster.

• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

The benefits would be showing that coffee in fact can cause physical dependence if not used in moderation and the more a person drinks, the easier and faster dependence can set in.

• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

Challenges would be trying to control any possible confounding variables. Its possible to be more difficult than expected because everything would have to be strictly monitored and consistent.

As an international student, I realize that American families are now spending less time together for dinner; rather each member eats out on his/her own. Being far away from home for almost 2 year, I am more aware of the importance and meaning of eating at home in both physical and emotional sense. Today I’d want to conduct a correlational study researching the relationship of two variables: eating dinner at home and relationship between parents and children.

In order to find the above correlation, I use questionnaires report. I will collect data from 2 different groups: 1 group from 10- 18 representing for children and 1 group from 30-50 representing for parents. Attendants will be asked about average time to eat dinner at home together per week. Then some basic background of parents and children are given to see how much they know each other such as how old’ re your parents/ children? What do your parents do now? Do you know how many credits does your kid take per semester? and etc. The rating scale will be from 1 “I don’t know” 3 “I’m not sure” and 5 “I surely know”. Some more questions about relationship including love, respect, beliefs to parents or children are given to see how close the relationships are like “Do you love your parents?” “Do you share everything for your parents”, “Do you believe in their advice?” or “Do you believe in your kid’s decisions?” … And how do they think about dinner and relationship of parents and children.

Measuring this study by self-report questionnaires also faces with many challenges. The most obvious pitfall is social desirability bias. It is not easy for all attendants to reveal what they are really thinking or feeling to theirs for fear of looking bad. Or some do not seriously answer questions because of lacking of time. Thus the outcome might be not perfectly accurate.

I hypothesize that eating dinner at home regularly boosts closer relationship between parents and children from these above surveys. This will positively prove the benefits of having dinner at home on better family relationship. This research maybe helps to change a habit of eating out of many American families in busy life if they pay lot attention to their kids or their parents and these relationships.

•  In this Reflection, my thought experiment will focus on a research design exploring the very early stages of human development. I remember being three years old when I first watched a scary movie, and I was indeed terrified of sleeping that night. Would flashing a scary doll such as “Chucky”, or a “Scream Mask”, in front of a toddler scare it and cause it to cry?
• The variables or concepts I will be looking to observe would be the baby`s immediate reaction to the “Chucky” doll. In this experiment, I would also be trying to manipulate the baby`s behavior and emotions.
• An experimental design would best suit this research question because it is the only way to actually get an answer for your hypothesis. This would include independent and dependent variables and random assignments of participants to control and experimental groups.
• I would use naturalistic observation to conduct this experiment. I would observe and record the behavior of the baby.
• Independent Variable: Chucky Doll
• Dependent Variable: Baby`s behavior
• Confounding Variable: Baby may be crying due to separation anxiety from its mother.
• My hypothesis is the baby would cry and be frightened of a scary doll because it is at a Preoperational Stage. ( around age 2) It has developed animistic thinking and believes inanimate objects are alive. This would cause the amygalda in the babys brain to make it scared.
• Behavioral psychologists as well as biological psychologists, and mothers would benefit from this study.
• The challenges faced in this experiment would be the vast amounts of confounding variables and experimenter expectancy effects. By expecting the baby to be scared and cry, I would assume its because the scary doll.

One area of interest I would like to study is the different study techniques students use to prepare for an exam. I am looking to observe a group of students and an individual student to see if people perform better while working as a team or while working separately and at his or her own pace; I also want to see if it changes depending on the subject material on hand. The variables and concepts used are the forms of studying and the subject material needed to be study. The research design I would use to conduct my experiment is correlational; I am testing to see if studies perform better by working in groups, or by working individually. If people worked better in groups, then does the subject material matter (would it be easier to study math in a group or study psychology)? I would mainly use questionnaires and ask the people who worked in groups how they felt working with other students and find out the test grade received by each student. I would also ask what subject they were being tested on to see if certain subject materials could change an individual’s technique of study. Perhaps people can study well in a group when studying for history, and not work well in a group when studying for math or science. The dependent variable in my experiment is the test grades received by the one group of students who studied together as a team and the grade received by the individual student, who studied independently. I personally believe that a student’s form of studying varies depending of the subject. Studying for history in a group composed of five or six people might result in high test results; while on the other hand, studying for math is much more difficult to study in a group because each individual has his or her pace, where one student might solve questions faster.

One of the benefits that this study provides is that it helps determine if individual or collective forms of studying are suitable for certain students and for particular subjects. Lastly, I believe there were many challenges when trying to decide on an area of interest and when I finally did, I didn’t know what I wanted to experiment it on. This was much more difficult than I had expected because I didn’t know what type of design I should use for my research question and whether the design I choose was appropriate and applicable. I could have probably used an experimental design and manipulate the type of material the students had to study.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

I want to find out if immigrant students perform better academically than U.S born students.

• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

I want to observe the academic performance by the two groups. For example: the weighted grade point average (GPA) of the groups.

• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

I believe, correlational study would be best suited.

• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

I would use case study or survey to experiment the two groups.

• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

I believe, immigrant students perform better in school than U.S born. Immigrant students are more focused and determined because they realize the opportunity they have been given to study in U.S.Therefore, immigrant students are more mentally strong and focused in school to performance with higher potential than U.S born students.

• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

The benefit of this case would acknowledge U.S born students that they have been also, given an opportunity to study in one of the most advance country in the world. Not many people in the world get that opportunity. Hopefully, it will make U.S born students more serious at school and performance better academically.

• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

I did not find it difficult at all. I compared the GPA of friends, those who were U.S born vs. Immigrant. Then, I calculated the mean of GPA of the both groups. I found out that my Immigrant friends had a higher mean.   school than U.S born students?

So I’ve heard many people say things like, “I always fall asleep listening to my ipod,” or “I can’t fall asleep without listening to music.”  Therefore my question is, “Does it really help people fall asleep better/faster or does it actually put them into a more tranquil mood/state of mind which allows people to fall asleep more easily?”

I’m sort of having a hard time which category this “experiment” would fall into, I don’t know whether it would be experimental or correlational because my idea is two take two groups of 10 from lets say this psych class and bring them into a lab setting set up with a bed and night time lighting in which the experimental group would have their ipod and would attempt to fall asleep as they normally would, while the control group would simply lie down with no ipod and fall asleep on their own.  From the moment each person would lie down I would starting recording how long it takes for them to actually fall asleep, and once they have I’d record the amount of time it takes for them to fall asleep.  Here the independent variable would be the ipod and minutes it takes to fall asleep would be dependent on whether or not they have the ipod so that would make it the dependent variable.  My reason as to why I think it may be a correlational study is because this study is finding trying to find whether there is a correlation between listening to music and falling asleep faster.

My hypothesis would be that the group with no ipods would fall asleep faster, I have several reasons for my hypothesis: 1) because most music will stimulate your brain and get you into the music to the point where you become awake and excited because of the beat for example, and 2) because everyone knows that when they are listening to their ipod on shuffle, you always end up skipping and skipping songs so that definitely would disturb the process of trying to fall asleep.

As far as who would gain from it probably everyone who makes it a habit of listening to music before going to sleep.  However no matter what the results are people, may continue this habit simply because they have become accustomed to it.

Something that may affect the outcome of this experiment would be a confounding variable.  Certain types of music even if it’s upbeat may actually prove to tranquilize and put someone at ease simply because they may listen to that music so often.  If this is the case, then someone listening to music may fall asleep at the same time as someone who is in the control group (the group with no ipods).

So I think thats about it, I’d definitely like feedback on this especially because I want to figure out what group this would fall in correlational vs. experimental.

The practice of graffiti has become a popular way for people from anywhere to act out in opposition to the authoritative structure that restricts them. It has become a way for young people to outwardly express their inner struggle for identity through a creative outlet.

Definitely, language is the crucial key to our own identity and freedom. It also provides the path to become equal in this social world structure. Unfortunately, language can also be used as an instrument of oppression against minority groups.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

If marijuana has an effect on memory while studying. Whether it increases the amount of information you recollect the day of the exam or decreases it.

• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

The variable looking to be manipulated is memory recollection.

• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

A Correlational study would best suit the research question

• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

In order to gather as much as information as possible this would be a two part research experiment. Firstly there would be a Survey on people that smoke marijuana before studying and their thoughts on whether it helps or not. The second part of the experiment would be a lab experiment where experienced marijuana users would first read a brief story and write as much as possible on the topic the day after. A week later the same people would read a similar story while on the influence of marijuana and write on it again the day after.

• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

The independent variable would be the marijuana used and the dependent variable would be the amount of information recollected.

• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

I believe that a low to moderate dosage of marijuana will help when studying or reading. All though know to kill short-term memory cells, marijuana has also been known to raise focus.

• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

The legalization of Marijuana is a hot-topic because of its failure to have killed anyone since its discovery and its long history in many cultures. This study would be another notch in the belt of those who would want to see this drug legalized.

• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

Firstly, the greatest challenge of all is finding people of the same age that have similar study habits. To be most effective, this experiment needs to be done with people that study the best while reading since that is what the experiment is based on. Secondly, the Survey part of the experiment could lead to different results than the hypothesis which would lead to inconclusive experimental results. For example if the survey concludes it does not help and the experiment says it does, who is to say that just because it helped the amount of people in the experiment it will help everyone.  In reality, this would be a very hard experiment to follow through with because there are a lot of variable outside the scientist’s control. Regardless it would be a fun little experiment to try out.

What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

I would like to explore the effects of a single parent environment. Does single-parent child will be more likely to be a single parent later?

What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

I will be looking at two types of family’s children.

What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

I think it’s both Experimental and Correlational.

What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

I will choose case study and naturalistic observation

If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

I don’t think it apply to my study.  I think I just need to compare regular family’s children and single-parent’s children.

Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

I might find that single-parent’s children will be more likely to be a single parent later.

What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

I think society will gain from it. Be responsible for our behavior. What we do will affect our next generation.

Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

I need to study not only one case but more and the people I study need to diverse. It’s more difficult than I expected that I need to study a lot of people to make the result more accurate. I did not consider that there will me other factors or variables  or confounding variables that would affect the results.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design? Does eating breakfast affect a students ability to learn?
• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate? The amount of students who eat breakfast before going to school.
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)Experimental 
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.) naturalistic observation
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? Breakfast vs no breakfast in the morning would be independent and progress in school would be dependent.
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find. I believe that students who eat breakfast will perform better in school than students who don’t. 
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it? I think students who do not eat breakfast will benefit because they will see that eating breakfast in the morning will help them do better in school?
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How? It was more difficult because most students do not eat breakfast in the morning due to their lack of time in the morning before going to school. 

It’s something students think about a lot. Is the education worth all the stress we go through? Due to the homework and other work that we receive from professors, most students sleep less than 8 hours on average (less than the recommended amount). I would like to conduct a study on how much a student’s health is affected by school.

I believe a correlational study would be best suited for this type of experiment because it goes against standard ethics to control a human’s life style. A simple case study or survey would be used to gather information about this interesting subject. The things I would observe would be a person’s health, which would include factors such as amount of times in the hospital, amount of times sick, amount of hours per week spent studying, etc. The correlation would be between the the amount of times sick or in the hospital against the amount of hours spent studying. I would also focus on the amount of time spent sleeping as well.

I hypothesize that people who spend less time studying will experience less health issues because not only does studying reduce your hours of sleep, but also causes stress.

However, while conducting the experiment, some subjects might lie in their case studies or surveys. So the results might be false.

In my research am making the hypothesis that students who are more involved with doing sports are usually more alert and do better in their studies.

In my research i will test students who are involved with other activities like: sports and other clubs and ask them to show their grades in all their subjects. Then I would do a one or two  week study to show how their performance in school is either different or same to those who have no activities.

The dependent variable in my research would be the  exercise and activities which is the one that will affect the  score in learning which then will become the  independent variable is the

In this study I will show that exercise is an important factor to help student memorize and keeping their minds active from other factors that usually keep other students from getting into trouble such as: taking drugs, pregnancy and alcohol. An example is that students who usually get the scholarships and better collage school are those who are involved in school activities. Those who are not in activities will prove that their scores might not be horrible but not close to those who are more involved in activities.

My study will prove that  this assumption is true I will then communicate it to other students.

The purpose of my Research design is to see how family income will affect a student’s grades.

The variables I am dealing with are family income, student’s grades, genes, and background influences.

The independent variable is the student grades while the dependant variable is the family’s income. The confounding variables are genetic intelligence and background influences.

I would conduct my study using Correlational Design and for my research method I would give tests to students with high family incomes and give tests to students with low family incomes.

My hypothesis is that students with higher family incomes will score higher on tests than students with low family incomes.

The benefit from this study could be do provide financial aid to families with lower family incomes in order to allow their children to do better in school. If they receive the same education as the students with higher family incomes than they will have a better oppurtunity to score higher on tests.

The most difficult part of this experiment is to get people to take the test considering the fact that people do not take enjoy taking tests if they don’t have to.

  Through my research, I want to find what impact do playing video games have on students’ exam grades.

  I’ll have to find students’ time of playing games and their grades for my research.

  To make it easy for a beginner researcher like me, I want to use a descriptive research design using surveys.

  In my research, the dependant variable is the exam grades that students get; the independent variable is the number of hours of computer gaming.

My hypothesis is that playing moderate amount of game could actually improve a student’s exam grades, and will have a negative impact when the student plays excessively.

  By doing this research, I hope to help the students manage the right amount of time they spend playing games.

  I might find difficult even just to get enough students to complete my survey. I might have to compare different classes, different students, different gender, different games etc to get a reasonable comprehensive conclusion.

  In designing this research, I did not find any difficulty, although my research can be faced with challenges in the process.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design？since i saw a lot of people usually going to gym and running in the central park. so i want to explore does workout sometimes helpful people’s performance.
• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?in this research. i want to manipulate it by choosing two group of people. group A (people who workout) group B(people who do not workout).
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc) correlational design would best suit my research question.
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.) the method that i want to use to conduct my experiment is survey and case study. first, i will do a general survey questionnaire on group A and B separately, and then choose one person from group A and B do a case study .
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? independent variable is group of people. dependent variable is performance in a day

• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find. i might find group A is more performance aggressive and have more energy in a day than group B
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?  i think workout somewhat could help our body and make our body more healthier. the benefits would be group A will set a good exemplary to group B.
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How? i think there do not have a challenges , the only barrier that might have where to find those two group of people as the volunteer.

I am interested in conducting a research on how different ways college students taking notes, by hand or by typing, will affect their memory of the lectures. My hypothesis is that taking notes by hand will have a much better effect on students’ memory of the lecture and therefore, they have more chance to perform better in the exam. The variables in this experiment are obviously taking note by hand and by typing into computers. If my hypothesis is proved correct, this study will provide students a better way to study and take note in class.

An Experimental design will best suit my topic since we are sure that students can get a better grade by taking good notes for review. What I want to know here, is what kind of note taking method will perform better in improving our grades. I would use a lab experiment. My independent variables are the two ways of taking note, by hand or by typing. And my dependent variable will be the memory level of a lecture. In a group of 30 college students, I would randomly assign them into two groups. One of them will be asked to keep notes with a pen and paper for a lecture and the other group will be asked to keep notes by typing into computers for the same lecture at the same time. After the class, I would provide a pop quiz, which is not notified to them before. The pop quiz tests the key points that are mentioned in the lecture in order for me to compare the average grades of the two groups.

The biggest challenge I faced during the process of designing this experiment is to find the psychological experiment idea. As college students, our biggest problem is to find a way to help up study efficiently. That is when I come up with this idea of note taking techniques. Once I decided my topic, the rest of the design is actually less difficult than I expected. In short, I answered the list of questions that were required in the post and arranged them when I wrote the post. During this process, I reread Chapter Two about the concepts of various research methods to find the one that fits the best in my experiment. It is also necessary to know the two characteristics of conducting an experimental study.

What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

How different types of drinks affect the ability to study? Do student drink coke study better than student who drink pepsi?

What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

Half of the class drink coke while they are studying, and the other half of the class drink pepsi while they are studying. I would like to observe which half of the class do better on the exam.

What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

Correlational. The scores of the exam will tell the differences of drinking coke/pepsi affect the ability to focus, or study.

What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

True experiment. 

If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

Independent: Drinking coke/pepsi while students are studying. Dependent: The scores of the exam.

Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

Students who drink coke while they’re studying tend to do better on exams.

What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

If my hypothesis is true, coca-cola global would gain from this study because more students will tend to buy coke if they want to do better on their exams.

Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

The challenge that I faced on the process of designing this experiment was to choose the drinks to compare. I was going to compare red bull/monster to coffee, but I think it wasn’t creative enough so I shut down this comparison. I believed that most people couldn’t tell the differences between a coke/pepsi, so I chose to use this comparison because coke and pepsi had a 99% identical taste.

I propose experimental type of design. I would use survey to conduct my experiment. The questionnaires may include questions on the advantages and disadvantages of the occupation choice based on the parents’ example.  I would ask the people how successful they are at carrying out their job responsibilities. Does the job fulfill their expectations? Do they regret about their choice?

I propose to choose the alumni of our College for this experiment. The students who are making a decision about their future career may benefit from that. They will have the information how people are satisfied with their choices based on parents’ example.

Hypothesis: The majority of students make the decision regarding the future occupation based on their parent’s example.

In this experiment, independent variable is parents’ occupation and dependent variable is your own choice of profession.

One of the challenges of the design would be to figure out why students change the decision regarding the future occupation during the learning process.

• How does the widespread pervasive use of technology affect our personal relationships?

We are increasingly becoming more “plugged in” as a society and our ability to access information is greater than ever before. Has human desire for omnipotence made us more susceptible to losing touch while being “plugged in”? Specifically, has the blackberry at our bedside or laptop in our Longchamp made us focus less on other people when there right in front of us? I have personally witnessed this new sort of absentmindedness in conversations with loved ones and also in strangers in their dealings with loved ones. One minute you’re having a conversation with your brother and he receives a text – the conversation all of a sudden loses it’s importance as he looks up at you, down at his phone screen all the while trying to talk and text. I don’t know about you, but it sure doesn’t make me feel good when I’m  talking to someone and they are fidgeting with their phone. What’s with the obsession around email? You would think average college students were’nt corresponding with the President or the Pope, but I don’t know sometimes. Perhaps they are and that’s why their constantly checking email.

I would conduct an experiment to see how much of an impact technology has on our personal relationships. I would use two groups of people of around 20 people each, all of them being married with children and keep their environments constant. I would keep the groups somewhat similar in terms of education levels, geographic region and knowledge/access to technology. The dependant variable in this experiment would be the experimental groups access to technology – there would be none. The control group would still have access to their cellphones, tablets, Skype, email while the experimental group would be deprived of all of these things for a period lasting one month.

Once these conditions have been set, I would have a survey of maybe 20 questions in which respondents would answer from 1 to 6, 1 being highly unlikely and 6 being very likely and the questions would consist of the types of behaviors of those in their households. The 20 or so questions would monitor how likely it would be that a household member would react to something in a certain way or would engage/abstain from something. How closely the answers of the respondents answers correlate with the actual behavior of the household members would indicate greater closeness in the household. Both the control and experimental group members would have to complete the survey at the end of each week for a total of 4 surveys at the end of the experiment. I would compare the correlations accessed of the control group and the experimental group to see if depriving the experimental group of technology actually enabled them to be aware of the present moment with their loved ones and increase the level of perceived closeness within the household. I would also have the respondents rate themselves to see if they believed they had become more close to their loved ones at the end of each week and note their self-reports.

I believe that the experiment would show that those in the control group at the end of the experiment have more understanding of their loved ones behavior and a therefore developed closeness than those who were not deprived of their access to technology.

This study could show, if my hypothesis proved correct, that limiting our use of technology outside of work actually improved our relations with other human beings. The study could also show that as a result of an increase in the quality of personal relationships, people also recorded higher levels of happiness. These results could maybe even persuade employers limit contact with employees after hours to increase overall quality of life for the employees and increase productivity.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design? I’m interested in the role sleep plays in our grades.
• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate? The number of hours a student slept would be manipulated.
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc) Experimental 
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.) Random assignment of participants in their natural environments.
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? The number of hours slept would be the independent variable while the final grade in the class would be the dependent variable. 
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find. I predict that students who sleep more will do better in the class.
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it? Everyone would benefit from this study.
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How? A challenge would be the differences in the student’s behaviors. Not all students are the same. This makes it more difficult than I expected because it’s almost impossible to find two or more students who are alike.

Have you come across a language you want to or need to learn? You might think of taking lessons for it, however, there is a faster way, that is watching movies, dramas from the language that you want to learn. This is not the best way to completely learn that language but an efficient way to pick up that language very quickly. English is my second language; but I picked it up quicker than people who came to America longer than me.  I have been a movie, drama and anime addict. I learned two other languages by watching movies, that is Japanese and Korean, I can understand a lot from a normal dialogue.

My question- Is watching movies an efficient way to language learning?

I will be conducting an experiment on people who are taking English lessons for second language learners.  I will assign one third of these people to a class that only watch English movies. Another one third of them will be watching movies and with lessons. The last third will be only taking lessons. My independent variable is watching movies and taking lessons, and my dependent variable is the results of their English listening, speaking and writing skills.

My hypothesis is that the group that watches movies with lessons will do better at all the skills tests, while the group with only watching movies will do well on the listening and speaking and the group with only lessons will do well in the writing.

The results of the experiment will benefit people who are trying to learn a language because one might think of taking lessons as the only way to learn a language, actually there is a more efficient and easy way for it, which is watching movies in the language that one wants to learn.

Watching movies would definitely have great impact on your listening skills. If you want to learn or understand the particular language, start with watching movies in that language, and then really try to learn the writing of that language.  Some recommendations, if you want to learn Japanese, watch   anime (cute); Korean, of course Korean drama (they are really good too); Chinese, for Cantonese, watch Hong Kong dramas and movies, for Mandarin, Taiwen or Chinese drama.  Good Luck!

The question to be explored is a link between exercising and memory. Hypothesis would be that students who get enough physical activity during the day would be able to perform better on memorizing tasks. Independent variable would be amount of exercise because it would be manipulated; memory would be dependent variable. Experimental design would be suitable for this research. Different research methods could be applied to this study. Surveys could be used for measuring students’ attitude towards their own progress or absence of such. Case study might be useful for research purposes as well by monitoring a selected individual while adding exercise to his or her daily routine and measuring memorizing ability during this process. If positive correlation would be found between increased physical activity and memory, it could be recommended for the students to include some extra exercises in their daily routine in order to boost their memory. Among the possible problems of this research could be other than physical activity variables such as amount of sleep, diet changes etc. that could have significant effect on memory. If such factors change during the conducting of the experiment and in case if they are not accounted for the results of the experiment might not be accurate. Also, if the research method used would be survey, there is a possibility of biased self-reports that  also could alter the results of a study.

1. How would you begin the process of recovering your memory? Who would you turn to, where would you search, and how would you proceed?

I would first start off by having family members explain to me as much as they can. Once I get the history of myself and family down I would ask friends if they could fill me in with the memory I have forgotten. Hopefully all will go well from the information I have received from family members and friends.

2. Please describe the emotional journey you imagine you would be going through as you attempt to reconstruct your life. Imagine the feelings you would have.

I feel as if the emotional journey would be very hard, the fact that you kind of don’t know who you are and what purpose is driving you. Also being fed memories that you don’t recall would be very hard to take in since you cant picture or ever think of it happening. In fact I think it would be most scariest part of my life if I had to reconstruct my life, but in another way it can be beneficial the the memories you always wanted to erase.

3. Suppose you were able to pick and choose the memories you wanted to recover from your life. What types of memories would you choose to retain and what types of memories might you decide to edit out of your remembered experience? Positive, negative, painful, happy, angry, frightened, etc. Please elaborate and explain some your decision making process.

I would definitely replace all the bad experiences I have had in my life. Especially relationships those will never disappear and most people tend to have troubles forgetting their memory of it. For myself i would cut out my past relationships because it was just a battle left and right they way I see it now continuous verbal arguments and etc. Memories I would retain are the memories with friends and families during the good times such as parties, gatherings, and just relaxing with them. Even stupid moments of myself or friends is a memory I feel everyone should keep. These are 2 types of memories I would erase and keep because negative things would just torment someones memory for ever, meanwhile positive memories will just bring happiness.

1. The way children’s nurture/upbringing effects their career accomplishments.
2. The way children are raised (disciplined, taught, etc) will be the variable and see how their career accomplishments change
3. I would use naturalistic observation
4. Independent all children, dependent is career accomplishments
5. Children who receive a moderate (not one extreme) of attention and discipline will have the most accomplished career goals
6. Parents will gain from the results of this experiment.
7. This was more difficult than I expected because parents and children are fluid humans who always change their behavior and therefore it is hard to expect results.

Who would have ever imagined what technology could do for us. With the technological advances in the twentieth century, technology has human interaction closer than anyone could have ever imagined. Phones- they are not capable of connecting multiple people from different parts of the world via phone, video chat, email, and text messages. No one can deny that cell phones have brought many luxuries to people. Also, no person can deny that cell phones have also brought many detrimental consequences. Specially while driving. Is driving while texting dangerous?

Iphones, Blackberries, HTC, LG, Motorola and many other phones have become a “hot trend.” Theis hot trend has brought many consequences on the road. Research shows that the usage of cell phones while driving is linked to a rapid increase in automobile accidents that have cause injuries and even unintended deaths. The usage of cell phone while behind the wheel has been linked to driver’s inattention while driving. In 2008, reports and research estimated that 16 percent of all fatal crashes resulted from the lack of driver’s attention while driving according to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (An estimated 5,800 people lost their lives and an estimated half-a-million people were injured.) Nearly fifty percent of teenagers admit to texting while driving, according to an article released by the American Automobile Association.

Yes, lets be honest. Who could live without an Iphone now days? But the consequences are too high. At the moment there is no national law that restricts or bans texting while driving or the usage of wireless phones while behind the wheel. Fortunately, some states have taken initiative towards banning texting and using cell phones while driving, or are requiring drivers to use hands-free devices.

Innocent lives are lost and thousands are injured due to the usage of cell phones while driving. Yes, cell phone are phenomenal, but they are also a huge hazard. Specially while driving. So remember to concentrate on driving safely instead of talking on the phone, texting, or playing a game.

People should receive a small electrical charge every time they attempt to use their phone while driving. Maybe, this will decrease the likelihood of accidents due to cell phone usage. THEY SHOULD HAVE AN APP FOR THAT.

Armando Aguilar

*If you are interested in this topic. Feel free to contact me and I can give you more information on regards to this issue.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always been one to write.  I do my best to write everything down, especially notes.  However, as technology developed I began to see more and more people use other devices to take notes, for example, computers.  We see it every day, we can go into any classroom and see that some are using their laptops, others are using their IPad, and some are using the good ole paper and pen.

Now, I’m completely set in my ways, I rarely take notes on any electronic devices, unless I am out of paper, because I’m convinced that I, and most people, do better on tests when the notes are physically written down.  But is this true, is it true for all?  To determine whether writing down the notes actually helps one do better on an exam, my experiment would be to have a lecture taught to two different groups, one taking notes on an electronic devices and the other taking notes with a paper and pen, which these would be the independent variables.  I would then give them an exam on the material, which the outcome of the tests would be the dependent variable.

I figure that there are two different ways that I can go about this experiment.  One way could be naturalistic observation.  This way might be beneficial for those who get shy or don’t do well under pressure.  However, I wouldn’t be able to control any outside variables.  For example, are there people in one group, or even both groups, putting in more studying time?  Are some conferring with each other?  Are they even taking notes?  Or are they simply “goofing around”?  I may not be able to get an even representation of both parties, which would throw off the results as well.  Nonetheless, there is a second option, which would be a lab experiment.  This might put a little more pressure on the participants, but I would have a lot more control on the outside variables.  But if I
decide to do it this way, then I need to decide whether I would want to separate the two groups or not; if I do decide to separate them, I need to make sure that the lectures are by the same teacher, that the lectures are exactly the same, word-for-word, which would be difficult to do.  However, as a resolution, maybe I could do a recording of a lecture or a video of one and play it for the groups.

Regardless of the results, whether they agree with my hypothesis that writing the notes helps one do better on an exam or not, the ending can be beneficial to anyone and everyone.  People would learn of the different studying techniques and which ones may be more beneficial.  They can now use the information, apply it to themselves and determine what works for them.

After taking some time to really think about this experiment, I realized that it could be
more difficult than I thought.  First I need to find people who qualify; which will be difficult because some may already be set in their ways, or have been conditioned to certain studying habits.  I would need to make sure that the note taking is the only variable, so that means no extra studying time, or the same amount and so on.  I also need
to figure out which way to conduct the study; I wouldn’t want anybody to be uncomfortable or have pressure put on them, so a naturalistic observation might be better, but then I wouldn’t be able to monitor what other variables are involved.  I need to take into consideration that the notes each person takes might be different, some students might find something more important than others but I cannot guarantee which parts a student will jot down.  Also, another variable might be there attentiveness; the students might not be paying attention at the same level, which would also affect the outcome.  Overall, being a researcher is not as easy as one may think.

What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

Are all children, who are raised by parents and sitters, acting differently and more difficult when they are with their parents, especially mothers, compared to how they behave with nannies or babysitters. If so, is there a way to find out why this is happening.

What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

Are children more easy going and manageable when they are with babysitters or nannies than they are with their parents or with their parents AND the sitter. Does it matter how much time the parents actually spend with the children? Is there a correlation between the parents giving in to their children’s wishes too easily to compensate their bad feeling about leaving them with a sitter and the children’s less independent and nagging behavior when they are with them?

What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

I choose the Experimental Method.

What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

Due to the fact that the experiment is conducted with children it seems to be the best to use naturalistic observation. In that case there are no other factors than the care giving grownup that influence the children’s behavior.

If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

The independent variables will be the grownups, which will take turns taking care of the children during daily activities. At some point there will be only the mother and/or father, then only the sitter, and at some point both, parent and sitter together.

The dependent variables are the children’s behavior toward the grownups. How are they listening to them, respecting them, interacting with them, etc.

Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

I  think (and I have noticed this behavior over the past five years many times) that children are behaving much more dependent and nagging when they are with their parents compared to when they are spending time with a sitter. Children are more independent and more easy-going when they are not with their parents.

What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

Parents, caregivers, and children could benefit from a study as the one I chose. Understanding that there is different behavior of children depending who they are surrounded with and why this occurs would make childcare much easier for each party involved.

Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

The most difficult choice for me was which type of design fits the best for my research. Besides that, I had a hard time formulating what I would like to research and test. The topic is very personal to me, so it is very difficult to stay objective. Other than that, there were no big problems creating the research, since I am very interested in this topic and I would love to know the results.

§  What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design? Who performs better on exams: students who study overnight or students who have a good night sleep before an exam?

§  What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate? Two groups of students of equal abilities and intelligence studying for the same exam. One group of students will sleep the night before the exam; the other group will study overnight.

§  What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc) Experimental

§  What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.) Survey

§  If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? independent variable: studying/sleeping the night before the exam; dependent variable: grades for the exam

§  Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find. Students who sleep the night before an exam get better grades than students who study overnight.

§  What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it? If the hypothesis is proven to be true than it will encourage students not to study overnight. 

§  Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How? One of the challenges would be to keep the level of students’ readiness for the exam at the same level. Even if the students rested the night before the exam they might be not as prepared as students who studied overnight.

– the question i have for my research study design is “Are students more likely to do better on exams if they ONLY study their own personal notes or the PPT slides handouts?”

-I’m looking to observe the final grades of the students who studied their own personal notes or the PPT slides handouts.

-the research method i would use is a case study. I would also do a survey to see how many students prefer to study their own notes or the PPT slide notes.

-the grades are the dependent variable. The independent variables are the notes.

– I think that students who only study their personal notes will do better on exam than those who only study ther PPT slide handouts.

-the benefits would be for both the students an teachers. It’s benefical to the students because they can choose which notes to study is more successful in passing final exams. It’s benefical to teachers because they can decide whether to hand out PPT slides printouts knowing that its more successful in students passing their final exams or to allow students to write their own notes based off their lecture and board notes.

– In the beginning it was hard to come up with an experiment. I wanted to design an experiment invovling deaf people but it was hard to come up with one, so i came up with this experiment because i thought it could benefit both the teachers and students. I personally study my own notes when it comes to exams rather than the PPT slides handouts for each chapter. I didnt really face any challenges. It was more or less what I expected

1. How would you begin the process of recovering your memory? Who would you turn to, where would you search, and how would you proceed?

-I would begin the process of recovering my memory from my closest friends. Both they and I probabaly have some shared experiences such as trips, restaurants, playing games, or even fighting. It would be hard to recover all the memories alone, but if my friends and I go to some places that we have visited before the accident, my unconsciousness would know some part of the shared experiences. They would be very helpful to recover my memory. Also I would ask for help from my family. My family are the ones who know me well and shared experiences when I was a child. The palces I grew up and played would be the key to recover my memories. I think it would be better to go somewhere I have been before than listening to recover hte memories because the visual memories last longer than the verbal memories.

2. Please describe the emotional journey you imagine you would be going through as you attempt to reconstruct your life. Imagine the feelings you would have.

-It would be aweful. I would wonder myself who I am, where I belong to, and where to begin recovering my memories. I would have to learn everything I knew. My relationship with other people would get narrower than before. These facts would make me suffered from depreesion and give up recorvering the memories.

3. Suppose you were able to pick and choose the memories you wanted to recover from your life. What types of memories would you choose to retain and what types of memories might you decide to edit out of your remembered experience? Positive, negative, painful, happy, angry, frightened, etc. Please elaborate and explain some your decision making process.

-I would choose the happy and positive memories I had first. They would encorage me to recover further potential memories. Once I recovered my positive memories, I might stop to recover the memories because happy thoughts make happy mind. Even it would be aweful memories, I might change it to be the positive way unconsciously. I think I don’t need to try to think of angry or negative memories. However, sometimes, the negative memories would come up in my mind persistantly. If it would happen, I would let it go and admit

My research is about relationship between the length of time in using computer and memory. Most of us have this experience: When we use computer often, we find our ability of memory declined. Sometimes, we find it difficult to remember what we learn. Suppose that the student who less uses computer would be able to do well on the memorizing tasks. So, through the research study, we will find: “will frequent using computer affect our memory? If yes, we should reduce the time of using computer.”

In order to find the correlation between the length of time in using computer and memory, we need to manipulate the research in lab experiment. Independent variable would be the length of time in using computer. Dependent variable would be memory. In order to reduce the influence that difference people have difference level of memory, we choose each group of five people to take the memory test. All the people in the research have the similar age from 20-year-old to 30-year-old. When finishing the memory test, we will get the each person’s score. In the same group, we sum five people’s score and then divide five. We will get the average score of each group. We use this average score to compare with the other group’s score. In the research, we assign five groups: Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D, Group E. Group A’s members never use computer every day. Group B’s members use 2 hours every days. Group C’s members use 4 hours every day. Group D’s members use 6 hours every day. Group D’s members use 8 hours every day.  Suppose that we do this research for one week.

Suppose the hypothesis is true.  Computer users should realize that the longer time we use the computer, the worse we remember the knowledge. Computer users should reduce the time in computer. They’d better use computer when necessary.

The challenges that we face will be fund problem. If we have enough funds, we need to do this research for one month or more because we may not find the significant result in one week.  This research doesn’t have great harmful impact to the experimented people. It may be a little harmful to the experimented people’s eye. However, we need to choose the people who frequently use the computer and who never use the computer. Therefore, they will feel the experiment no difference with their daily life, so the result closes to the true.

What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

• Do students who are in a relationship (have a boyfriend, husband, girlfriend, or wife) during college have lower grades than students who remain single throughout college?

What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

• I am looking to observe the academic performance of students in both groups (i.e. their GPA).

What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

• A correlational study would best suit my research question.

What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

• I would use a survey to ask students about their relationship status and their GPA.

Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

• Students who remain single throughout the duration of their college career will perform better academically and will have a higher GPA.

What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

• The results from this study may help both students who are or are not in a relationship re-evaluate their priorities (i.e. If the study shows that single students do better than students in relationships, then those students in relationships may reconsider being in one if they worry about the consequences of remaining in a relationship).

Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

• One possible challenge I can imagine being conflicted with is students being reluctant to tell the truth in the survey. Students in a relationship may say they have a higher GPA than they really do have because they do not want to blame their relationship on their grades.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?
  Working at the college would be better than working outside the college (in term of time) in order to do well in school? Students working on campus have more time to study than those students who have to commute to their jobs.
• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?
  May students do better in their studies working in campus than outside the campus.
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)
  The type of design that best suit me research question would be correlation.
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)
  The research method I would use to conduct me experiment would be a case study.
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?
  The independent variable would be the time and the dependent variable would be doing good in their studies.
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.
  Students working on campus have more time to studies and do well in their classes since they do not have to spend time commuting.
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?
  The benefits might be doing better in their classes and having more time to study and prepare for their classes.
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?
  This was more difficult than what I expected because I had to find out who was actually working in school and and students working outside the school. Then found out that students enrolled and working in school did better than other students working outside.

Many students nowadays are technology junkies.  Meaning they are always on their phone, texting, tweeting, and even updating their status on Facebook.  I want to explore if communication technology, for example cells phones/iPads, have an affect on studying?

I will use two groups of student that are all taking the same class.  Half of the group participants are able to have their devices with them (hints the independent variable) and the other half does not have anything but their books and notes at hand (the dependant variable).  I am looking at the grades of exams that the students will take after a week of studying with and without the devices to see what group did better.

I would allow the controlled group to study with their devices and the experimental group will not have any devices but both of the groups will be studying the same amount of hours.  We will use experimental method to allow the groups to take the same test and then record their score.  After the exam I would conduct a survey or poll where they’ll be asked questions like:  how well do you think you did on the exam, was studying and focusing difficult for you, etc.

I think I would find that study do better when they have no distractions around them.  The student would gain from it if they knew it was get them a good grade and maybe continue practicing not having their phones.  And teachers would be happier that everyone is passing and getting good grades, which means they are doing something right.

I had the idea in mind but it was hard to structure and put into words.  My phone always distracts me when I do homework or study so it is hard for me to put away my phone.  Even when I wrote this post it was difficult not to just look at my phone to see if I received a text.  I believe at first everything is kind of difficult to me because I get distracted very easily even when I don’t have anything or anyone around me.  It is hard for me to focus at a task at hand and I start to think of other things that I have to do or want to do.  But when I start getting into the assignment, it just flows but all the time that I spent fidgeting was just a waste.

1. What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

How children diagnosed with an autism spectrum can overcome the situation.

2. What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

The therapies and how their parents face the situation

3.What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, correlational, etc)

Experimental Studies

4. What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

Naturalistic observation would be the best type of design.

5. If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

The independent variable would be the therapies children receive (which one is the best), the way their parents treat them and the dependent variable would be the result of these therapies or how their parents helped them to improve their situation.

6. Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find

Children could overcome the situation and socialize, focus, keep a conversation. Also children receiving therapies might stress because of their disability to express themselves. Parents may not follow the orders of the therapist because they feel bad or sad about the situation that they faced for their children.

7. What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

Children and parents would benefit a lot. They are improving their lives. The most important thing is that children could overcome their situation.

8. Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

It was more difficult than I expected because to design an experiment is not as easy as it seems.

What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design? Does a student who types their notes on a computer do better in class than a student who handwrites his/her notes?

What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate? The grades of both students.

What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc Correlational

What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.) Survey

If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? Laptops vs. handwriting.

Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find. Students who type their notes do better in their grades.

What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it? If a student does better in class while typing or writing, then that should be the method of taking notes.

Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How? It wasn’t too difficult. I tried to think of something all students can learn something interesting from. Many students choose to type notes because they feel they get more information down, but i’m not too sure about that.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design? What is the effect of negative feedback on psychological disengagement with participants in college?

• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate? Feedback is being manipulated and the persons involved are being observed.
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc) Experimental
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.) The research method used will be a survey
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? The independent variable will be the feedback (positive or negative) being given and the dependent variables are the persons involved.
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find. The people who are given negative feedback are less likely to feel confident about retaking the quiz and doing well on it.
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it? This study would benefit teachers, managers and other professions that would involve instructing and leading others.
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How? The challenges I faced was people’s indifference about the quiz and the results. Because it doesn’t count for anything, I expect many participants would be less than eager to complete the quiz or the results.

What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?
What is the effect of number of classes taken on the performance of students?
What is the effect of number of tasks on the performance of students?
During this research, I am going to observe how a number of classes taken influences how student do in school.
What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)
My research will be a correlational study
What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)
I will use a survey on a representative sample.
If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?
INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: a number of classes taken
DEPENDENT VARIABLE: grades/performance during school
Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.
The more classes a particular student takes, the lower his/her grades are.
What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it? Basically, students can gain from this study. They can learn how many classes they can take to perform good in school.
Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?
The most difficult part of this research was to find a subject or area of study.

•  The research question is explored through a research study design:

           Whether the children who are being with highly educated parents learn better or not?

•  The variables and concepts are observed and manipulated:

           There are two variables: the children who are being with highly educated parents are manipulated; the grades of those children are being observed.

• The type of design which is best for the research question:

           The type of design would be experimental because the correlation does not really mean the causation.

• Research method to conduct experiment: Case study

• Independent and dependent variables:

            The children who are being with highly educated parents are the independent variable, and the grades of children are the dependent variable in this case study.

• Hypothesis:

            The children who are being with highly educated parents can learn better.

• The benefits and implications of this study:

The children who are being with highly educated parents would gain more confidence and more likely to actively learn.

• The challenges of this research and experiment:

There will be some external factors which would affect the academic performance of those children who have highly educated parents is not satisfactory.

• Reflection on the experiment:

            The children who are being with highly educated parents can directly gain some effective learning experience and method from their parents.

Research Study Design

This is a study to find out how students who are taking exams are influenced by certain disruptions. In this case, I am interest in learning whether students would try to finish their exams faster than they normally would, when they see other students already finished and leaving.

This is a controlled experiment. There will be two separate groups of students to participate. In the experimental group, some students will be told to leave early.  However, there won’t be any disruptions in the control group.

Questions to ask

Would unsuspecting students in the experimental group try to rush and finish their job faster than they would have? Would students in the control group take longer to finish their exams than experimental group?

Hypothesis

Students in the experimental group are more likely to finish their exams faster than those in the control group. They would feel competitive and try to show that they are no less smart than the others, even though such action might serve in their disadvantage by lowering their exam points.

Independent Variable: Students who were set up to leave the exam early

Dependent Variable: Amount of time spent by students completing their exams

Professors and students would benefit from the results of this study. It would be beneficial for both groups to know that exam grades are not always reflective of true knowledge students possess. It is a further proof that there are number of factors that influence students to grade poorly despite successful preparation.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

                – Does television effect whether or not one needs glasses?

• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

               – Will the people who watch television be more likely to have                    prescription for their eyes than the ones who don’t watch                          television?

• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

               – Experimental

• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

              – Case study because I would need people over a long period of                  time.

• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

               – Independent variable is the use of television

• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

               – The use of television will have a heavy impact on the people                  who watch it and will therefore have those who watch it                          with a much higher chance of needing glasses.

• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

                –  People who care about whether or not their future depends                     on the necessity of glasses or not would benefit from this                         study as well as companies who build television to help                           consumers with how their product effects their eye sight.

• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

               – Finding test subjects would be the most difficult part because                 we would need people who never watched television and                        thats hard nowadays. Also to have those subjects uphold                        themselves to not watch any television or be forced to watch                   television everyday would be difficult.

• I wish to explore the topic of study habits and what study habit in general works best for people. Specifically, I will be looking at the difference between studying notes everyday from the time of the lecture to the exam versus studying the notes in depth and vigorously a few days leading up to the exam.
• I am looking to manipulate when students will have access to their notes to study by allowing the first half of students chosen to study the notes from the time they took them to the time of the exam while the other half will have no access to these notes until 2 days before the test.
• An Experimental design would serve best for my research question.
• I would use an experiment in my research design because I will be assigning people to different groups and observing how the differing independent variable (study periods) will affect their outcome on an exam.
• The Independent variable would be when the subjects are told to study and the Dependent variable will be their grads on the exam.
• I think that studying everyday leading up to the test a small amount each day will lead to the higher test scores because as we learned in the memory chapter, when we learn things they are freshest in our mind directly after we hear them.
• Students will have definitive proof as to what study method is proven to work better and thus can implement that into their routine in order to do better on their exams.
• I felt like the hardest part of this was actually choosing a topic and research question to explore. Once I got past that I felt like everything just came naturally.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design? Does having a pet increase the owner’s lifespan?
• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate? The lifespan of a pet owner. 
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc) A correlational design will best suit this experiment.
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)A survey will be used to conduct the experiment.
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables? The independent variable will be the whether or not someone has a pet(s) and the dependent variable will be the person’s current or full lifespan.
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find. I predict that pet owners will have a longer lifespan on average that non pet owners.
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it? Non owners will have more of an incentive to have pets, therefore benefiting animal adoption agencies as well as current pet owners.
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?
• There can be some trouble defining what a pet is? A pet is usually defined as an animal companion. But companionship can be difficult to measure. Some people decide to keep dogs and cats. While others decide to keep more exotic pets such as scorpions, spiders, snakes, etc. Furthermore there are some pets that are easily capable of inflicting fatal damage to their owners. For example, the owners of alligators are placing themselves and their families in a high risk of danger. Some owners may feel unmotivated to complete the survey, therefore the results may be not be an accurate sample of the population.

What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?
– Would regular workouts reduce college related stress and help increase a students GPA?
What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?
– I am looking to observe whether or not regular workouts can affect, r increase, a students GPA.
What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)
– I would use experiemental, however correlational can work as well.
What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)
– Survey can suffice with this experiement, however experimenting and using naturalistic observations can help further aid in producing detailing results.
If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?
–  Although it is not completely necessary in this experiment, the independent can be the GPA and dependent can be amount of workouts.
Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.
– I hypothesize that frequent workouts would infact help relieve stress and keep one healthy.  Therefore, a students GPA would be increased.
What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?
– Students who have collegiate stress can benefit.  If my hypothesis is correct, then working out can be an alternative to other tasks of stress relief and thus would increase GPA.
Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?
– Some challenges that were faced are that it would be difficult to accumilate a large amount of people for the study.  Also, students in this study might cut out time for studying to perform these workouts.  This experiemnts would be slightly more difficult than i expected as i mentioned some reasons before.  In addition, my initial question addresses more than one question which can be split into two separate experiments.

Homework is something that is given to every student to do. Often nowadays, students are under piles and piles of homework but does homework actually help them learn and know their material?

In order to answer this question, an experimental design would be used in which homework is the independent variable. The dependent variable would be how well students retain information from class. In this experiment, students will be separated by age then by gender in order to prevent any possible confounding variable that may occur.

My experiment would first start with a pool of students that will be separated by age then by gender. The half of the students in each gender group would have a lesson and receive homework while the other half will not. This “treatment” will be given to group. Results would be compared at the end.

My hypothesis is that homework will not have an effect on students because homework becomes a tedious thing that each person does. In the end, students rush to complete the homework rather than slow down to actually understand everything. I believe that students retain little to no information that they learned from their homework. They probably remember more from the previous class than the homework they did.

The benefits of this study would allow teaching professionals to understand what effect does homework have on the students’ learning experience. It may allow them to consider the necessity of homework or the quantity of homework that would optimize how much information students remember.

The biggest challenge that this experiment will face is the different subjects that the students learn. The homework format for each subject is different. For example, math would consist of word problems with numeric values. On the other hand, English homework can be given in many different forms. It can be reading or writing. Other subjects would have practice problems in either multiple choice or short answer form. Another challenge is the way each subject can be taught. Subjects like science can be taught more usually compared to English.

Another challenge the elimination of all possible confounding or lurking variables. Although my experiment is trying to see if homework affects how much a student learns, other variables that I cannot control are sleeping habits, eating habits, social background, and etc.

■What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?
Would it be more beneficial to buy a monthly metro card or buy one everytime you take the subway?
■What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?
The variables I’m looking to observe is the monthly metro card or a single ride metro pass.
■What type of design would best suit your research question?
The best design that would suit my research would be experimental.
■What research method would you use to conduct your experiment?The research method I would use to conduct my experiment would either be a surevey or maybe a naturalistic observation.
■If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?My independent variable would be the metro card and the dependent would be the cost.
■Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.My hypothesis is that the monthly metro card would be more beneficial than buying a single ride metro card everytime.
■What might be the benefits and implications of this study?People who commute or travel a lot in the city would gain from this study to know which metro card is best for them.
■Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced?
A challenge you can face is that you have to record everytime you use your metro card and sometimes be in a rush and forget to record it.

My experiment will involve the consent of 4 different classes of the same subject. Ideally, 2 of the classes would give their consent to take a new designer drug that increases the brains ability to recall memory and enhance problem solving functions. This is all that will be said to the 2 classes who will participate in taking the placebo aside from being informed that the drug has been successfully tested on primates for the last 20 years and has been confirmed by many leading scientists to work on humans.

The other 2 classes will be told nothing of the experiment and will act as a control group. The course will be a college algebra course which will help make the test more “standard” by combining memory of formulas with problem solving. The students involved are randomly assigned to this course in the block schedules they submitted themselves to upon registration.

After the test is complete we can compare the scores of the two groups to see if there are any noticeable trends. Ideally, this test could be done every year at the same time at the same university to improve the accuracy towards what we may have concluded from our first batch of data.

Even though this experiment is not a perfect science experiment it will give us the ability to see how confidence affects academic performance. With this information we may be able to gain a deeper understanding of how to improve an individuals academic performance in a way that may have been otherwise overlooked.

 As a non-natural English Speaker, people usually faces a lot of challenges  when they just started their new life in an English country. There are many students who are not the natural English speaker in the CUNY system. Some of them come from new immigrated families; some of them are international students. The first problem when they started the college life should be the language barrier. Those barriers include reading, writing, and communication. The different kinds of student have the different barriers. Through the research study, we will explore: “Should the language barrier affect student’s Grade?  If yes, it is positive or negative?”

In the research, we assigned two groups of people who attend the same lecture at the same time. One group is the students who are the natural English speakers. Another Group is the students who are non-natural English speaker. By the end of the lecture, we give two groups the same quiz regarding the lecture. The natural languages students speak are the independent variables which are manipulated by us.  We use the experimental method to observe the dependent variables, the grade of quiz of two groups. We hypothesized that students who are natural English speakers would have better grade than the non-natural English speakers on the quiz.

Assume the hypothesis is true; the college should be benefit from this research. Through the research, the college should know the potential factor that affects student’s final grades and academic success. Base on the result of this search, the college can make a plan to adjust the capacity of the academic learn center or other English program.

The challenge we may be faced in the experiment should be the veracity of experimental data. Because the experiment require the participated students pay the attention during the lecture. Students who are not interested in the lecture may not pay more attention during the lecture. Those students may get the lower grade on the quiz. However, the grade of these students may be the confounding variables that affect be the veracity of experimental data.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?
  To find out whether drinking tea regularly lowers the level of individual’s ”bad” cholesterol (may lead to heart disease and diabetes) and obesity.
• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?
  Individual’s health condition.
• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)
  Experimental design would best suit my research question.
• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)
  I would use experiment to testify if those who consume tea frequently have higher probability staying away from obesity and high cholesterol level. And so, I would assign one group who have tea everyday and another group who don’t.
• If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?
  I would put tea as independent variable and participants’ healths as dependent variable.
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.
  I think those who consume tea as daily beverage would have better health than those who don’t.
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?
  Everyone, especially those who are already or ”on the border” having high cholesterol and obesity, would gain from it as it provides guideline for individuals to lose fat and body weight and reduce ”bad” cholesterol.
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?
  The difficult part would be collecting participants for this experiment as people normally would reject to take part in something they don’t feel interested in or consider they will not be rewarded afterward.

When I was younger, before a test, my mother would always tell me to have a piece of chocolate to calm my nerves. Throughout the years, a few of my teachers have shown curiosity about whether the intake of sugar before a test has any correlation with how well a student performs on a test.

The type of design that would best suit my research question is a correlational study, in which I would use naturalistic observation on a class of students.

A teacher, whose class is about to take a test, offers the students a bar of chocolate that they’re only allowed to eat before the test starts, if at all. I’d jot down which students ate the chocolate.

Throughout the exam, I’d look for signs of energy or tiredness (normal affects of sugar) on students who ate the candy. I’d also observe the students who did not eat the candy, to have something to compare the first group to.

I’d think that the group that ate the candy before the test will do better on the first part of the test than on the second part of the test, but I don’t think there would be a huge difference between the test grades of the group that ate the candy and the group that didn’t.

If, from this naturalistic observation study, I come to find that sugar might be related to how well students do – meaning, the results of the grades of the students who didn’t eat the candy and the students who did vary greatly, I might do an experiment to research further. Said experiment would have a great effect on sugar intake, because if parents know that sugar has a positive/negative effect on their children’s test grades, they’d be more likely to give/not give their children sugar before a test.

What is more effective?
Studying more hours with less sleep or less studying with more hours of
sleep.

I’d look for students who have similar GPA’s and do not have
any disorders that could affect their sleeping or studying.

I’d perform experimental research.  I would have one group of students study certain material all
night without sleep and I would have the other group study the material briefly
and have more sleep before the test.
Then the same test would be given to both groups.  Then I would look at the results to
determine which group did better on their tests.

If possible I’d perform the test in a classroom, where
hopefully the students do not spend most of their classes in.

The amount of sleep would be manipulated between the two
groups so that would be my independent variable.  My dependent variable would be what groups studying techniques is
more effective based on the results of the test.

My hypothesis is that those who study less and sleep more
would do better.  When you are tired you
cannot concentrate as well and will not feel as well as those who are better
rested.

I think all students could gain from this study.  We will learn the more effective ways to
study and in turn should be able to get better grades.

My reflection of designing this experiment was probably as
difficult as I thought it would be.  I
did not think it would be too difficult as long as I could come up with an
idea.  Once I had an idea to do a
research experiment on I did not find it that difficult.

1. What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

My research question is: What is the most important factor for consumers to purchase a tablet in the market, price or brand?

2. What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

The variable I’m looking to observe is the sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Ipad monthly and quarterly.

3. What type of design would best suit your research question?

In my research, correlational design would best suit my question.

4. What research method would you use to conduct your experiment?

The research method I will use to conduct my experiment is survey.

5. If applicable, what would you put as you independent and dependent variable?

If applicable, I will drop the price of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to $199, that’s my independent variable, and the dependent variable is the sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab are greater than Ipad.

6. Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

I might find that the sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 have great increase after the price drop to $199.

7. What might be the benefits and implication of this study?

The consumers might be the benefits of this study.

8.What were the challenge you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

The challenges I would face are cost and profits. This was more difficult than I think. Because the cost of producing a Galaxy Tab 10.1 was over $200, If they were selling for $199, they wouldn’t gain any profit from it. It might happen after they lower the producing cost in the future.

1. The process of recovering a memory after the falling object I would start with a repeated tasks to push my trigering my brain. For example, If I used to play piano and now I don’t remember how to do it, I would probably take some piano classes and start learning how to play. I believe, I gona spend more time to memorise how to play and learning simple melodies, notes. I will repeat this over and over just to push my brain to remember. Miracles happens). maybe my brain give me some flash back.

2. Feelings and some action are hard to recover, so I would stay around my family and relatives just to feel more comfortale. My life would be much hurder, for sure. I would feel miserable.

3. I would choose to recover my memories how to play piano, remember my friends’ Birthday, my relatives names and the love I felt for my boyfriend. I would avoit to remember the time I struggle with no money in USA, becouse I am an international student, and how sick I was ones.

My Hypothesis is that students who eat healthier will perform better in school

Experiment would consist of 2 groups, the first  group  will be eat junk food. wile the second group  will be eat healthy food.

I would monitor them throughout the day and see witch students are stay focused better and do better in school

I would then be able to see the results that healthyer eating habits helps you function and focus better throughout the day.

Those who have one or more siblings tend to be more used to having someone around and growing up with someone besides their parents next to them. However, we can assume that those who are born as an only-child spend more time alone than do those who have a sibling. Does having a sibling allow one to be more social and comfortable in the presence of others? 

An experimental design would best suit my research question and to help test my hypothesis. A research method I would use to conduct my experiments would be naturalistic observation. In my experiment, I can observe a setting where many children spend their time in the presence of other children-like a playground. In this experiment, my independent variable would be children who have siblings compared to those who are only-child. My dependent variable would be the amount of socializing that occurs at the playground.

My hypothesis is that children with siblings at home will be seen playing with other kids more than children who are the only child at home. 

Through this experiment, everyone can see the influence of having a sibling to a child. If my hypothesis is proven to be correct, we will see that it is important for children to have siblings in order to be active outside of the home.

It is somewhat difficult to perform this experiment because we can not really record our data in a specific way. But, we can just observe and see if the only child or the child with the sibling spends longer or any time time at all associating with the other children.

I wanted to test by how much distraction will have an effect on someone’s reaction time in solving problems.

Does distracting a student hinder his or her ability to think?

There will be two randomized groups of 50 students each. Group A will solve multiplication problems on a computer without any other images on the screen, and without music as well. Group B will solve the same multiplication problems on a computer with images appearing on the side of the screen and loud music playing in the background. After the students are finished solving the problems, the number of right and wrong between the two groups will be compared to see if the distractions surrounding the students had an effect on their concentration and ability to think.

For this experimental design, I plan on using images and sounds as independent variables and the outcome of the math problems as the dependent variable.

My hypothesis is that the group of students who are not distracted by the images and sounds will score a higher grade than the group of students who were distracted by the images and sounds.

If my hypothesis turns out to be correct, I think this will benefit students everywhere, and help them realize that listening to music and doing other actions (such as Facebook) while doing homework or studying for a test will hinder them from getting the highest potential of studying or work that they would be doing, if not distracted.

I think thinking of the research question was hard to do because I had to find one that I could do, and was interested in.

Also when designing the experiment, it was hard to try to keep the amount of confounding variables to a minimum. So I had to change my research experiment a couple of times.

I would like to find out the relation between the way college students study and their grades. My manipulated variables would be the amount of hours studied and I would compare the test results to conclude my research study.

My research question would be a correlation design. Research method by: naturalistic observation and case studies. I would let students record their natural study habits, splitting them into two categories: crammers and those who study regularly. (Regularly, but not necessarily long hours.) I would then compare their test results as a way to see if a specific way of studying results in higher grades. I would also do a case study on kids with especially low/high grades to see if any other factors may have influenced the results.

Hypothesis: I believe that students who study by pulling an all-nighter will perform better on tests overall. I think those who study all the information at once will have a better memory of all the topics covered in class. Those who study a few hours a day may not remember the topics covered from a few days before.

This test would benefit students because they can then study in a manner that will produce better results. A challenge to this experiment would be to consider the overall variation of intelligence levels in students and any other issues on the day that might affect their test taking.

• What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

  Wether or not working out triggers your mood. 

• What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?
  
  Will the individual who works out be in a better mood or not. 

• What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)
  
  Experimental  

• What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)
  
  Survey to ask individuals in what moods they find them selfs in when and when not working out. 
• Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.
  
  Individuals that work out tend to be in more positive moods.
  
• What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?
  
  Individuals who have been working out and ones that are in bad moods.
  
• Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?
  
  One challenge is that people live different life styles resulting in different stress levels. Also, it would be tough to gather a large population that would be willing to experiment for a period of time.