Grading: … out of 100

Yeditepe University
RSCH 410 Scientific Research Methods

Section 1
Writing Assignment

Summer 2023 - 03.08.2023

 Please read the following instructions and task, write your assignment accordingly and submit
your writing assignment to the submission folder on the YULearn page of the course as a Word
or PDF document before the indicated deadline. Please note that your assignment will be
uploaded to Turnitin as well once it is submitted to the folder on the YULearn system.
 Please follow the relevant announcements about the submission procedures.
 Please use this document as a template. Do not forget to add your name and surname, and course
code/section both in the document name and in the main text.
 Please follow the appropriate citation and paraphrasing methods and avoid any kind of
plagiarism. Plagiarism cases will be penalized with a grade of 0 for this first assignment.
 You may use the following formatting:
 Font: Times New Roman or Garamond
 Font Size: 12
 Line Spacing: 1,5
 Minimum page number: 6
 Referencing: APA Style
This assignment is due 15 August 2023, Tuesday, 10:00. Please submit your assignments to YULearn
before this deadline, and bring the printed versions of your papers to the class on Tuesday (15 August
2023).

Good luck!
Topic List
Brand Management International organizations
Climate Change and environment Marketing management
Consumer behaviour Media and society
Digital Marketing Organizational theory
Digital world and communication Political culture
Disability and community Political participation
Electoral systems and
Political parties
representation
Gender and politics Psychological rehabilitation
Healthcare models and
Social and cultural movements
rehabilitation
International migration Social media and journalism

Note 1: You may choose another topic other than the ones listed above. If you do so, please inform the
course instructor via email about your selected topic.

Note 2: You may ask for office hours to discuss your research topic and the assignment in general.

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 Please see the instructions on the following pages.
Please use the following pages as a template for your assignment.

Title of Your Research Design Proposal

RSCH 410 – Section 1

Your Name and Surname:
Your Student ID:

Part 1: Research Question and Type of the Research

Please see the instructions below:
 Select a research topic (e.g., political parties, organizational theory, etc.). Explain why you have
selected that topic and how you can narrow it down to formulate a specific research question
(please see Note 1 below).
 Write out a properly formulated research question based on the topic that you chose (please see
Note 1 below).
 Briefly explain why your research question is important to study (list at least three factors by
making references to the existing studies).
 Then, state whether your question relates to basic or applied research and tell us why.
 Briefly refer to whether your question falls under exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory
research and tell us why (while doing so, check the existing research to prove your research
purpose).
 Write out your answers concisely and consistently to the questions above with proper in-
text citations.

NOTE #1 TO RSCH 410 STUDENTS:

While laying out your research question, directly state what your research proposal design is about.
Tell us the puzzle that you want to solve by asking a specific and also feasible question.

For instance, if a researcher is interested in a correlational survey research for her/his topic, the
research question can be formulated as the following: “Does sleep duration relate to election turnout
behavior?”

Alternatively, a researcher is interested in experimental research, she/he might ask the following one:
“Does longer sleep duration lead to greater election turnout behavior?”

Always keep in mind the following questions: What are your independent and dependent variables and
what is the nature of the relationship between the two variables (e.g., correlation or causation).

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Part 2: Initial Literature Review
In this section, please first provide the details of your initial literature review phase. Explain how you
designed an initial literature search and found the relevant sources for your study. Detail the following:
 What are the online libraries and databases that you visited for your search? Why did you prefer
to use those online sources?
 What are the keywords and keyword combinations that you used for your search?
o Please provide at least 5 keywords and 5 keyword combinations and explain why you
have selected those.
 Indicate and discuss the results that you got from the keyword combination search (e.g., how
many sources and pages you came across on Google Scholar, Web of Science, JStor…). To do
so, consider the following in order:
o Select one specific keyword combination and provide the first page of the results for 4
different databases when you search for that combination. Attach the screenshots of
your search into your assignment.
o Create a table to show the total number of results in four different databases when you
search for the same keyword combination. Then, explain how and why you have selected
the sources (articles, books, reports…) among those results. You can use the following
table as a template.

Keyword Database Total number of results Your strategies to select the

combination relevant sources
(Please use the same (such as looking at the
keyword combination publications’ titles, abstracts,
for each Database) keywords, and full-texts to see
whether these works are
relevant for your research
question)
Database 1
Database 2
Database 3
Database 4

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  What would be the other strategies that you followed to locate or find studies relevant to your
research question? Why did you choose to follow those alternative ways of searching?

Part 3: Methodology
a. Hypothesis
As a starter, state your research topic and question, and then write out one neatly written hypothesis in a
sentence.

Research topic:

Research Question:

Hypothesis:

b. Independent Variable
Based on your hypothesis, what is your independent variable? Give us the operational definition. Tell us
whether this independent variable is nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio and why.

Independent Variable:

Operational definition:

Type and why:

c. Dependent Variable
Based on your hypothesis, what is your dependent variable? Give us the operational definition. Tell us
whether this independent variable is nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio and why.

Dependent Variable:

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 Operational definition:

Type and why:

d. Data
State what type of data collection method would be appropriate for your research? Irrespective of whether
you choose the quantitative path or the qualitative path, specify the select research tool (e.g.,
experimental, survey or non-reactive research, or field research, or comparative historical research),
along with the details of why and how.

Type of data collection method:

Why is it appropriate?

How is it appropriate?

e. Sampling

a. What is the population in your study?

b. What would be your sampling frame?
c. Which probability or non-probability sampling would you like to choose and why?

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Part 4: Bibliography
 Relying on your initial literature review part, please list the full bibliographical information to the
resources that you selected for your own research.
 You should have at least 12 references, 10 of which should be academic journal articles.
 Do not forget to list them in alphabetical order.
 Please use the APA 7th referencing style (for both the in-text citations and the bibliography). You
can benefit from using the reference inserting function of Word as well. For your convenience,
you can also visit the following online source for the examples:
https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples

NOTE #2 TO RSCH 410 STUDENTS:

At this point, be extremely careful of what you cite and why you cite that particular study. If you are
referring to those sources within the text, use the parenthetical citation method within the text. Any
unrelated work or irrelevant discussion will distract your reader and you should be very clear about the
literature that provides the framework for you to pursue your project. I would highly encourage you to
look at Neuman (2014, p. 143) for the examples of bad and good literature review writing.

Attach your list of references at the end of your assignment. Remember to use the APA style ( not
included in the page limits of the assignment). I also recommend you visiting the Yeditepe Writing
Center website to download the writing manual for your assignment. Please also visit the APA style
website for more details.
https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples

End of the assignment.