Project description
Comparative Design Paper
Students will write a paper comparing the research designs of three scholarly journal
articles on a topic of your choice. Your three articles must all be looking at the same
topic (they may do so in different ways). Your paper will be 3-5 pages long not
including title page and reference list and will be written using APA format (will be
discussed in class and see sample paper). Listed below are the elements that will be
included in your paper along with an explanation of each section. If you fail to include
all sections you will not receive full credit. This paper will be unlike any other you have
written before (please look a the sample paper in eLearning). Remember the focus of this
paper is on comparing the designs of your selected studies.
Papers will be: 3-5 pages long not including title page and reference list, 12 point font,
Times New Roman, Double Spaced, Justified Margins, and conform to APA guidelines.
* This denotes a major section of the paper.
Paper Contents:
1. Introduction briefly introduce your topic and include how long this topic has been
studied.
2. Research Design (RD)* – Rank Order – Identify the research design used by your studies.
What does this type of RD mean for causality and the observed score. Is this a good
design or is it lacking? What should be made of any findings coming from such a RD
(for each study). Also, briefly discuss the following in this section
a. Time Order In all of your studies, identify how your studies addressed the
issue of time (one of the needed steps in determining causation).
b. Unit of Analysis (U/A) Identify the unit of analysis in your studies and identify
the study with the most appropriate U/A and why.
c. Independent Variable (IV) Identify the independent variable(s). Also,
identify the study that used the best IV(s) for your topic and why.
d. Control Variables (CV) In all of your studies identify the control variables.
Also, identify the study that did the best job using CV(s).
3. Sample Design (SD)* Rank Order – In all of your studies identify the sample design.
How was the sample obtained? Does any error enter the study based on the SD? Discuss
the generalizability of your studies samples?
4. Data Design (DD)* Rank Order – In all of your studies identify how the data was
designed/obtained. Does any error enter the study based on the DD?
5. Conclusion/Next Step First, briefly conclude your paper with a focus on why we know
a lot on your topic or why we still lack quality findings. Finally, offer a way forward that
will provide us with more meaningful results.
I will attach 5 articles, (we only need 3 articles) you can change the articles if you wish. Your three articles must all be looking at the same topic
the articles must have same dependent variable (if not the instructor will give 0)
I will attach the slides that must be used and talked about in the comparative design paper.
I also will attach a Sample Comparative Design Paper.