Past research has focused on attitudes toward public spending on welfare. This study is unique in that it will focus on Americans views toward welfare restrictions. As we examine history we see that the welfare state has imposed many restrictions on its recipients. Such as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 with the creation of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) required for the first time that mothers work in exchange for public assistance and time limits. These restrictions are based off the belief that recipients are lazy and have to learn to become independent and self sufficient, but what about external forces? What about high unemployment and low wages, how will they be independent if society at large is not offering opportunities for them to make a living?

The first research question asks, “Are those respondents who believe that Blacks and Hispanics are lazy more likely to favor work requirements and reducing benefits on welfare?” second, “Are those respondents who believe that poverty is caused by a lack of effort by the poor more likely to favor work requirements and benefit reductions on welfare” third, “Are those who believe that income should be determined primarily by work more likely to favor work requirements and benefit reductions on welfare?  And lastly, “What is the effect of demographic versus attitudinal variables on attitudes toward welfare?”

The data is a correlational study because it aims to analyze variables, the dependent variables being support for work requirements and reducing welfare benefits. The hypothesis is “public’s demographic membership (i.e. race, gender, and class) significantly affects their attitudes toward minorities, the poor, and work, which in turn impacts their support for welfare restrictions.” The type of data are reports of acts and demographic data. The data analyzed was from the General Social Survey of 1990 which was collected from interviews of US households conducted by the National Opinion and Research Center. The date was analyzed through logistic regression models. The findings revealed reinforcing work ethic are the reasons for work requirements on welfare regardless of the respondents class, race, and gender. The study overall aimed to see if  demographic variables have an effect on one’s views on welfare restrictions. However work ethic is such a fundamental part of our society that it drives social policy such as welfare.
Harris, C. A. (2002). WHO SUPPORTS WELFARE REFORM AND WHY? Race, Gender & Class, 9(1), 96. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/docview/218870408?accountid=14729

The article I selected is titled Irreversible Climate Change due to Carbon Dioxide Emissions. This article was written by Susan Solomon, Gian-Kasper Plattner, Reto Knutti, and Pierre Friedlingstein, all of which are experts in climate and atmospheric sciences. This journal article attempts to prove that climate change resulting from increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for roughly 1,000 years after the emissions stop.

Both reports of events as well as expert knowledge are required to answer the research question. This data was collected solely through public and private records. They converted the data they gathered into graphs ranging from the year 1800 up to 300 to view carbon dioxide (ppm), surface warming (K) and thermal expansion (m), making it easier to view the data as well as making it more simple to see the relationship between the three.

Their analysis of this data, among other data allowed them to determine that atmospheric warming, precipitation changes, and sea level rise will continually increase for an extended period even if globally we were to stop releasing CO2 at this very moment.

Their research was very complex but their converting it into graphs made it much easier to understand what they, as scientists, where analyzing numerically. I think the most students can take away from this is that every purchase, every mile driven, and nearly every social activity is contributing to the severe degradation of our environment and hopefully some will be encouraged to reconsider the habits, as I have reconsidered mine.

Susan Solomon, Gian-Kasper Plattner, Reto Knutti, Pierre Fredlingstein. Irreversible Climate Change Due to Carbon Dioxide Emissions. 16 December 2008.

In the article Assessing perceptions of the environment in elementary classrooms: the link with achievement  researcher Michelle LaRocque studies the perceptions students have towards the environment of their classrooms, and links those perceptions to possible effects on math and reading achievement levels. Participants in the study were elementary aged students attending school in a large urban school district. In order to gauge student achievement LaRocque pulled from the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). Student perception was ranked based off of scores provided by students through My Classroom Inventory (MCI).

LaRocque states the purpose of her study was to, “examines students’ perceptions of their classroom environment as well as whether their perceptions impacted their achievement in math and reading” (LaRocque 2008, 291). For the purpose of her study the researcher asked the following questions: Is there a significant difference in perceptions of the environment based on the gender of the student? Is there a significant difference in perceptions of the environment based on the grade level of the student? Is the gender difference in perceptions of the environment, if it exists, influenced by the grade level of the student? Are perceptions of the environment related to achievement in math and reading?

In order to answer these questions students were asked to complete when the MCI individually. In order to answer the first three research questions a MNOVA was conducted. Follow up ANOVAs were completed when the MNOVA showed to be statistically significant. LaRocque used gender, and grade level as independent variables, and student perceptions on the MCI as dependent variables. When the data was completed it was analyzed for normality using methods of skewness, and kurtosis.

The research conducted was clearly laid out, easy to read, and understand. I enjoyed how the researcher made clear of certain terms, especially in the methods, and procedures section.

This article focuses on past Indigenous communities’ active management of their environments for millennia using a diversity of resource use and conservation strategies. The specific research question asks to what effect did ancient British Colombian indigenous peoples have on their clam gardens. They examined variables in clam gardens with and without past indigenous activity, including intertidal height and clam size. They found clam gardens with past human activity had a much higher density and number of clams than those without human activity. They required acts and events as data, and direct observation was the data collection method. There used ANOVA as their analysis with tidal height as independent variable and clam size as dependent. They examined three walled clam gardens and three non-walled gardens. Overall I think the research was awesome, and really proves how effective Native Americans were at conserving and even improving the natural resources of their land. What was interesting to me was the fact that at some gardens there was evidence of human activity from at least 1000 years ago.

Jackley, J., L. Gardner, A. F. Djunaedi, and A. K. Salomon. 2016. Ancient clam gardens, traditional management portfolios, and the resilience of coupled human-ocean systems. Ecology and Society 21(4): 20. <http://0-web.a.ebscohost.com.books.redlands.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=24&sid=128a04c7-4e86-46a4-b654-32fd8a7b8113%40sessionmgr4008&hid=4214>

The article Intrinsic Honesty and the Prevalence of Rule Violations Across Societies written by Simon Gächter and Jonathan F. Schulz is about research on the human intrinsic honesty and if it is more prevalent or not where there are more or less rule violations. Their main goal was to be able to explain how the prevalence of rule violations in people’s societal environment, such as corruption, tax evasion, or political fraud, could compromise and individual’s intrinsic honesty. To do this, researchers conducted experiments across twenty-three countries. They created a “Prevalence of Rule Violations” index from corruption from 2003 and completed this on more than 2,000 people. They made sure to only conduct the experiment on younger people who had no ability to affect the PRV during their time. To measure intrinsic honesty, researchers conducted an anonymous “die-in-a-cup” experiment where participants sat in a cubicle and were asked to roll a six-sided die twice, but were told to only report the first roll. After the data was analyzed, results showed that institutions and cultural values influence the prevalence of rule violations, which impacts people’s intrinsic honesty and whether or not they follow the rules. Results also showed that many people are try and be honest/only become rule benders so as to maintain an “honest self image.” Overall, they found that lower prevalence of rule violations, and higher intrinsic honesty was more profound in western societies.

For this research, the topic was intrinsic honesty, and the research question was to ask if the prevalence of rule violations in people’s societal environment, such as corruption, tax evasion, or political fraud, could compromise and individual’s intrinsic honesty, and how. To answer this question, researchers needed reports of acts, behaviors, or events (die-in-a-cup) and ordinal data (to rank the different country levels of prevalence of rule violations). To collect this data, they completed tests/experiments, and public records. To analyze this data, they complete four different scatter plots to find any correlation between the two variables.

I though this research was well conducted, and an interesting one to learn about, although I think it would also be beneficial to learn if societal/household upbringings had any effect on their intrinsic honesty.

Gächter, Simon, and Jonathan F. Schulz. “Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies.” Nature 531.7595 (2016): 496-99. Web. 17 Mar. 2017.

sydney.edu.au/mekong/documents/current_projects/mli_partnerinit_nuolkkuexchange_proposal_jan06.pdf

This research proposal is called Enhancing community based forest resource management vital to local livelihoods in the Lower part of Mekong Basin and was conducted by Somsy Gnophanxay, Lamphoun Phanvongsa, and Dr. Buapun Promphakping.

These researchers planned to establish more efficient ways for professors in Laos and Thailand to conduct research and fieldwork with students to improve the Mekong Learning Initiative. They planned to do this to improve forest health in Laos and Thailand because forest degradation in both countries is a large concern.

The research proposal is set up in an odd way, the researchers didn’t have a question, but rather objectives and expected results. Although they called this a research proposal, and they went through with this plan, it’s not a traditional research proposal because it’s missing so many things. With the lack of their research question, they don’t have a specific type of data they set out to collect, and from there the entire project gets disorganized. The first thing the do in the proposal is define where the data collection site will be, Step 5 in the design to data analysis. After this they set up their structure for methods and implementation, which again is not as clear as it should be. The writers of this proposal spend a lot of time discussing the background of forest degradation in Thailand and Laos for how uncentered their project is. Reading the background made me think there was going to be a lot more focus on environmental issues rather than researching how people can better understand this through collaborative learning. Although it can be inferred from reading the entire proposal, the data type or collection method is not outlined in any clear way. This proposal clearly has a lot of room for improvement and hopefully this example of a not so thorough research proposal can help students to design much clearer versions of their own research in the future.

The article titled “School Shootings as Organizational Deviance” by Cybelle Fox and David Harding is found in the Sociology of Education journal. Fox and Harding argue that rampage school shootings in American public schools can be understood as instances of organizational deviance. Organizational deviance occurs when organizations do not conform to their goals and expectations, especially anti-bullying policy and awareness, which produces unanticipated and harmful outcomes. The topic of this research is the role of the school administration to recognize troubled and bullied teens to prevent future violence. The proposed research question is, “What role do teachers, administrators, and counselors play in intervention of troubled teenage boys, looking specifically at the schools of Heath and Westside?” “Does an inability to recognize the social and emotional problems of teenage boys by school staff increase the likelihood of future violent rampages?” Fox and Harding draw on qualitative case studies of two schools that experienced shootings to show the ways in which the organizational structure, environment, and culture of these schools led to a lack of recognition of socially and emotionally troubled teenage boys. The researchers aim to understand the causes of each shooting, suggest measures to prevent school shootings, and to understand how the communities were affected by these events. The type of data needed to answer this research question are acts/behaviors/events and reports of acts/behaviors/events. The data collection method involves fieldwork such as participant observation and interviews with the community members. Once the tape-recorded formal interviews were transcribed, in combination with notes from observations, the researchers analyze the data through thematic analysis. Coding is then utilized to sort out the discovered patterns to find underlying themes. This research successfully calls for a policy change to provide teachers with better training on the warning signs of students with social and emotional problems. It is an interesting fact that schools tend to center their focus on students with overt and disruptive behavioral and academic problems, rather than students suffering with social and emotional issues. The teachers must communicate their concerns with one another so that students with social and emotional problems can be identified and receive the guidance they need.

Fox, C., & Harding, D. J. (2005). School Shootings as Organizational Deviance. Sociology of       Education, 78(1), 69-97.

The proposal “Moving From Culture Shock to Cosmopolitanism: The Position of Students Immersed in Educational, Cross-Cultural Experiences“ created by Kristen Hunsberger, with the guidance of Professor Elizabeth Guthrie and Glen Levine, was a grant recipient for SURP. This proposal is a well structured interactive experiment. It bases its conclusion on reported behavior and emotions through surveys of a more specific sample group of students who go abroad. This sample is to be compared to the researchers own experiences and those of others in this project, then drawn to conclusion by such comparisons. The research purpose is in studying the experiences of students studying abroad, acquiring a cross-cultural experiences, and reporting on how they expand their educational experience on an academic and personal levels. The type of data are reports of behavior through a series of collected survey data. The surveys used categorical and ordinal to create data based off the pre researched theories. The administering surveys, questionnaires, and interviews are to be past out on stages of pre-departure, arrival, mid-stay, prereturn, and post-experience. This data will then chart the personal progress of the focus group in their unique relations pre researched stages. Specific factors such as the Pedersonian Stages, and the Schumann’s Factors, are the basis of the interview questions given to the focus group. These factors will be monitored in the research to follow student progress and enable results to show patterns throughout the time abroad. In addition to taking part in the surveys and questionnaires the focus group, Kristen Hunsberger will be maintaining a personal journal. The specific collection sample and site will be monitoring the progress of 10-20 students who are studying abroad in France, along with a personalized data collection of Kirsten herself. As her data analysis method she plans to “organize all data in comprehensive manner to show variance of experiences in relation to Pederson’s “Stages”, interview participants about experience and conduct comparison of initial expectations with actual outcome of time abroad”.

http://www.urop.uci.edu/SURP/sample_proposals/SURP%20Humanities%201.pdf

Rachel Lambrecht submitted a research proposal to the University of Redlands in 2014. I attained this proposal through on of my professors. Lambrecht’s research question focused around the benefits and costs of including or not including social-emotional learning in sex education classrooms as reported by experts.

Lambrecht argues that current sex education is not effective and must be reformed, focusing specifically on how children interpret the information they are given in school into practices in their own lives. Her proposal explains the necessity of youth learning not only about prevention of sex and safe sex practices, but to see sexuality in a positive light, in contrast to how sex is normally portrayed in schools. There is a culture of fear around sex education that posits safe sex as mutually exclusive to sex for pleasure. Body positive language is rarely included. Lambrecht wants to research how social emotional learning can be included using the opinion’s of experts.  As Lambrecht’s proposal uses expert knowledge in order to understand an aspect of sex education, our projects are quite similar. Although, my focus is specific to California’s new sex education standards as of 2016.

Lambrecht proposes to do snowball sampling, first reaching out to experts within her own network, and then learning of others from her interviews. Her interviews used open-ended questions and would be categorized as qualitative research. As she is interviewing, Lambrecht would need to attain the Institutional Review Boards Approval of the topic, however, the risks are minimal. Her research does not work with any vulnerable populations, and as she planned to only interview experts in their own field, there is very little chance even for job retaliation. This part of the research differs from my own, as although I am also interviewing experts, my research does have a slight risk of job retaliation, and so I must set up further precautions to protect my participants.

Lambrecht’s proposal is very similar to how I would imagine my own proposal, however, less complicated. Her project seems simpler and her question addressing a broader issue. My research question is very specific to California and I am looking for multiple data types. I am involved with vulnerable populations, although not interviewing them. Thus, my proposal would be different in many aspects.

The research proposal I chose is called Gender, Credit Constraints and Performance of SMEs in Cameroon by Tabi Atemnkeng Johannes, Makoudem Tene Marienne, NDAM Romanus Adze and Mrs. Tchouapi Meyet Rosy Pascale ( link to the proposal here). I chose this proposal because it is both throughout and related to the topic of research that I am interested in: micro-economics. The research proposal is broken down in to different sections with bolded headings. These sections include Abstract, Introduction, Problem Statement, Objectives of the Study, Gender Discrimination in Access to Business Credit Performance, Methodology, Nature of Data, Expected Outcomes and References.

The research they are proposing to do is about the role of small and medium businesses especially ones run by women, in economies. “In entrepreneurship and finance literature studies, it is suggested that raising capital is more difficult for women than men” Given this information the objectives of the study are to research female business owners and the credit market in Cameroon in order to find better ways to make women entrepreneurs successful in the future. In order to do this the proposal states that they must first recognize and identify gender discrimination in these fields, discover the ability of businesswomen to access credit markets and to identify the relationship between discrimination and performance.

The type of data and ways it will be collected:  the methodology is very important to making this research proposal as good as it is. The proposal states “differences in loan denial or approval rates and interest rates charged do not, in and of themselves, prove that discrimination exists.” So the researchers plan to use additional methods to data collection in order to find out what they are searching for. The proposal is very dense and suggests formulas for uncovering the data that they are looking for. They take many different variables into account when determining how to conduct their research. Much of the data they intend to collect is from secondary sources.

I am inspired by this extremely thorough and specific research proposal. I like how it is segmented into very clear sections with clear headings. I also like how the researchers cover a lot of ground in regards to possible variables that could effect the collection of their data. Finally I am inspired by how their topic connects to what I want to study and offers a new question to the field. I am now interested in how gender can effect the profitability of small and medium businesses in the economy.