Concept Paper: Research Design Assignment Instructions 

Overview 

You will write a 5–8-page paper in current Turabian format explaining your research design and methodology, including an explanation and theoretical justification for your selected research method.  

Primary research is any type of research that you collect yourself.  Examples include surveys, interviews, observations, and ethnographic research. A good researcher knows how to use both primary and secondary sources in their writing and to integrate them in a cohesive fashion. 

Many types of primary research exist. This guide is designed to provide you with an overview of primary research. This is not a comprehensive list, and your own research question may require a different design and methodology. 

· Interviews: Interviews are one-on-one question and answer sessions, and they are structured or semi-structured. Interviews will provide much information from a small number of people and are useful when you want to get an expert or knowledgeable opinion on a subject. 

· Focus Groups:  Are structured small group brainstorming sessions. They require audio and/or video recording, extensive transcription, multiple coding, and analytical processes that often accompany qualitative research using focus groups.  They can be conducted online or face-to-face. 

· Open-Ended Surveys: Surveys are a form of questioning that is more rigid than interviews and that involve larger groups of people. Surveys will provide a limited amount of information from a large group of people and are useful when you want to learn what a larger population thinks. 

· Observations: Observations involve taking organized notes about occurrences in the world. Observations provide your insight about specific people, events, or locales and are useful when you want to learn more about an event without the biased viewpoint of an interview. 

· Quantitative Analysis: Analysis involves collecting data and organizing it in some fashion based on criteria you develop. They are useful when you want to describe your data or make statistical inferences, or to find some trend or pattern in the case of time series analysis. A type of analysis would be to survey local government managers concerning their leadership style and analyze whether gender roles create a significant difference. 

Instructions 

· The research design assignment should be 5-8 pages in length. 

· The research design assignment should be written in current Turabian format. 

· The research design assignment should cite sources relevant to justifying and defending the selected research design. There is no set number of sources required. You should provide enough sources to justify their choice of method and design.

Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.