Enhancing Student Understanding of Child and Family Research within Human Development and Family Science Grant uri icon

abstract

  • HDFS 4000: Introduction to Child and Family Research is a required course for Family and Community Services HDFS majors. This course introduces students to the basic elements of scientific thought and the stages of the quantitative research process employed in child and family studies. As it is currently taught, students are required to conduct a review of literature in which they are exposed to the process of 1) selecting an appropriate topic in child and family studies, 2) searching for scholarly sources, 3) understanding the literature on their topic, and 3) learning how to integrate, synthesize, and critique the literature. This project would expand students’ understanding by including a more in-depth experience of the research process from beginning to end. Students would 1) conduct a review of literature on a chosen topic in child and family studies and synthesize and critique the literature, 2) receive guidance on how to formulate hypotheses/research questions, 3) identify variables, 4) select appropriate instrumentation to operationalize their variables of interest, and 5) describe what their proposed research design and sampling strategies would be based on their understanding of quality research. For the purposes of this experience, students would complete this research project in groups. In addition, the course curriculum would be adapted so that as the class covers the major components of the research process, the groups simultaneously work on producing this component for their research project. To complete their experience, we will incorporate a research presentation day to the course syllabus.

date/time interval

  • March 2017 - January 2018

awarded by

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