Overview
This assignment marks the start of your qualitative research study proposal. While you will not complete a full proposal in this course, you will be developing your idea for a proposal over the course of several assignments and discussions. Here, the focus is on a topic of interest to you (perhaps one you would want to use for your dissertation), psychological theory as applied to that topic, and your research questions. In later weeks, we will develop additional components of your proposal.
Preparation
To prepare for this assignment, you will need to identify a topic in the field of clinical psychology that is of interest to you and locate at least five peer-reviewed articles from the Capella library about that topic. These articles should be current (published within the last five years) and should report qualitative or quantitative data about your topic. You will also identify a psychological theory that can be applied to your topic and locate at least two theoretical articles that help explain the problem. These articles generally will not report research, and they do not have to be current.
Instructions
For this assignment, develop a research topic that is appropriate for the field of clinical psychology, and identify potential qualitative research questions that could be asked about this topic. The first part of this four–part assignment is identifying a research topic. Your research topic should be supported by current literature.
Begin by introducing and describing the topic and demonstrating literature support for this topic as one appropriate to the field of clinical psychology. Cite at least five current sources in this section.
Next, identify a psychological theory that is related to or helps explain the clinical problem of interest. Cite at least two sources for that theory.
Next, identify three qualitative research questions about this topic. One question should be from the generic qualitative inquiry tradition, one from the case study perspective, and one that could be answered using a narrative approach. Label each question with the corresponding approach and explain why that question was selected for the particular approach. Cite the texts and other sources.
Last, choose one of the three qualitative research questions and explain why you selected this question. Briefly describe how you might go about answering the question using qualitative research.
Additional Requirements
Communication: Written communication is professional, scholarly, and free from errors that detract from the overall message.
Length: 4–6 double-spaced, typed pages, excluding the title page and references.
Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.
Resources: Support your findings with a minimum of seven peer-reviewed, scholarly references, five of which are primarily journal articles published within the past five years. The other two are not required to be as current. See How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?Links to an external site. for help.
APA formatting: Use current APA guidelines and formatting for references, citations, and the entire paper. See Evidence and APALinks to an external site. for help.
PS:
I do not have my dissertation topic yet, but I am thinking it should be related to Dementia or Alzheimer.