Assignment: Research The Behavioral Science

Assignment: Research The Behavioral Science
Assignment: Research The Behavioral Science
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tangor, C. (2013). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed., Laureate Education custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Chapter 12, “Experimental Control and Internal Validity”
Chapter 13, “External Validity” (pp. 254–263)
Read the “Thinking Critically About Research” scenarios (a—i) in Chapter 12, pages 256–258.
Choose the scenario that most interests you. Note: Before selecting a scenario, view the Discussion 4 Forum to see if any colleagues have already posted. If so, select a letter that has not yet been chosen. All nine (a–i) letters should addressed before a student repeats a letter.
For your chosen scenario, determine the possible confounding variable(s) (there may be more than one), and consider how they might be eliminated using research designs presented in the readings (e.g., 2×2 factorial design).
The article applies Bloom’s (B. S. Bloom, M. D. Engelhart, F. J. Furst, W. H. Hill, & D. R. Krathwohl, 1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain to the process of graduate-level writing in counselor education. Bloom’s Taxonomy is provided as a mechanism to help students develop and demonstrate cognitive complexity when writing comprehensive literature reviews. The article outlines common assumptions held by students operating at each level of the Taxonomy, typical organizational structure and content of papers at each level of the Taxonomy, and tips to move writing to more cognitively advanced levels.
Graduate students in counselor education write numerous papers. One of the more common types of papers assigned is the comprehensive review of the existing literature. Both master’s- and doctoral-level students are expected to write literature reviews for courses, and doctoral students eventually use their writing skills for literature reviews in their dissertations.
Little literature exists, however, to support curricular or pedagogical methods for improving writing in graduate programs. There is some evidence that three types of training are typically available: conducting a library search (Bem, 1995; Peper, 1971), learning to read and understand research (Jackson, 1980), and writing in American Psychological Association (APA, 1994) format. In other words, students may attend classes or workshops to learn how to conduct computerized database searches and collect information to be included in their papers. In addition, students are typically required to take a research methods course to help them read, understand, and summarize research (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs [CACREP], 1994). Finally, they may attend workshops or use the APA (1994) Publication Manual to learn the specifics of how to cite references in APA style. Although the APA manual advocates cognitively advanced writing, it does not offer a mechanism on how to improve the complexity in writing. Rather, it focuses only on the specifics of written presentation. Thus, although specific faculty certainly engage in individualized instruction to improve writing, what seems to be missing in the counselor education literature is a formalized, intentional, and well-grounded mechanism designed to teach students how to critically evaluate and synthesize the material they have collected into cognitively advanced reviews of the literature.