In: Psychology
Conduct a research design.
You have been asked by a university to determine whether living in dormitories improves student satisfaction and learning outcomes. Propose a research design to assess this question. Good answers will invoke parts of the research design process that we have been discussing: research questions; hypotheses; dependent variable; independent variable; population targeted; unit of analysis; data collection strategy; plan of analysis (i.e., what will you be comparing?).
Null Hypothsis: Living in dormitories will not have any effect on students' satisfaction and learning outcomes
Alternative Hypothsis: Living in dormitories will have significant effect on students' satisfaction and learning outcomes
Sample: University Students
Tools: i. Student satisfaction questionaire and ii. learning outcomes questionairee
Independent Variable: Living in dormitory
Dependent Variable: Student satisfaction and learning outcomes
Design: Between Groups Experimental Design
Method: Two groups of certain number of students each, will be made. Random assignment of students should be done to assign them in group 1 or group 2. They should have equal chance of falling in either group. They should be matched on age, sex and other other variables. It should be made sure that extraneous variable are controlled.
Group 1 will the experimental group, in which the the students will made to live in dormitory.
Group 2 is the control group, students will not be living in dormitory.
This will be followed for a specified number of days for both groups. After the program, the scale used to measure student satisfaction and learning outcomes should be administed on both the groups.
Results: Scoring is done on the reading tests of both groups, and analysis may be done using Independent Sample T-test.