Communication Research Final report

Your Final Report will consist of what would be that last three sections in a full Quantitative Research Report: 1) "Methods," 2) "Results," and 3) "Discussion."

Note: At this point, any confusion you've been feeling about what we've been doing with our class study should be clearing up, and everything should start making more sense to you, as you now have the results of your study and can start to work out how it all comes together. However, this is the most challenging portion of this class being offered in the online format - and sometimes, for some of us, these things just need to be explained in person. Therefore, if you still have questions about our study, your results, and what should be going into this final report, please feel free to join me during my virtual office hours (Tuesday and Thursday 3-4) or contact me (cdalelio@coastal.edu) to arrange another time to meet. 

Methods (1-2 pages total)

The "Methods" section is your opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the study you conducted this semester by collecting data through our class survey. Here, you will give a detailed explanation of the survey method we used, how sampling was conducted, and how data was collected, in detail. Then, you will  re-state your two (final, revised) hypotheses, giving the final sample size for the data collected for each. You should explain how each of the variables in your hypotheses were measured, giving at least one sample question from the survey per variable, and explain any scales and/or or score tabulations, if applicable (this can be gleaned from the feedback document I provided with your Survey Questions feedback, and the descriptions I provided of scales/scores in the results posted in Discussion 14.2). Explain all of this in sentence and paragraph form; do not just give a list or bullet points.

Results (Approx. 1 page)

In your "Results" section, you will provide the statistics related to your final hypotheses and variables (these were calculated by me and posted in Discussion 14.2).  Again, do not just provide a list of numbers, but rather use complete sentences and paragraphs to explain the numbers, and write your statistics in the proper within-sentence format. First, you should report the descriptive statistics for each of your variables, as outlined in the Week 13 Resource: Descriptive Statistics.  Then, you should report the inferential statistics for each hypothesis, as outlined in the Week 14 Resource: Interpreting and Reporting Inferential Statistics. Also, for the inferential statistics portion of this section, refer to my feedback in my response post to you in Discussion 14.3. 

Discussion (2-3 pages total)

Finally, you will write up a "Discussion" section, in which you interpret your final results and offer some possible reasons for them, relating back to the literature you cited in your Variables and Hypotheses assignment; offer theoretical and/or practical implications of your findings; provide the limitations of your study; and make suggestions for future research, based on what you learned in your study. 

Requirements:

• 4-6 pages total
• At least 4 articles should be cited, both in-text and in a "References" section at the end.  (See chapter 6 of the APA manual for how to format in-text citations, and review chapter 7 for how to format complete references)
• Citations should be complete and in APA format
• 12 point font
• Double-spaced
• 1.25" margins
• Word Doc or PDF format

Submit your Final Report as an attachment here by 11:59 pm EST on Sunday, December 11th.