Assessments
Assessment #1 – Methods Essay (Graded)
ESSAY QUESTION
If you wanted to examine young people’s experiences of homelessness, would you use qualitative methods, quantitative methods or a mixed methods approach? Explain you answer.
ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVE AND DETAILS
This assessment provides you with the skills to analyse and understand what research methods suit a particular research question and why. This is a short paper written in essay format. Drawing on the essential readings from the course and additional research literature sourced from UniSA library databases you need to argue whether qualitative, or quantitative, or a mixed methods approach is the most appropriate to investigate young people’s experiences of homelessness.
GUIDELINES
Due to the short length please do not provide a formal introduction. The introduction to this paper is only the Essay Question and the body of the paper addresses the Essay Question.
Briefly define homelessness based on scholarly sources
Formulate and demonstrate your conceptual understanding of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches.
Argue which approach is most appropriate for the research question and target sample.
The conclusion to the paper should be brief.
The paper must utilise scholarly literature, cited according to the UniSA Harvard Author-Date Referencing System.
Submit your paper by no later than the due date/time via learnonline. Your paper will automatically process through Turnitin text comparison software. You do NOT need to attach an assignment cover sheet and the assessment sheet pro forma.
Late submissions will incur penalties according to the guidelines of the school.
Instruction ( Things Concern)
*PLZ read all attached powerpoint and provided essential reading on below
* Ensure don’t copy and paste when quoting
*Use attached unisa harvard referencing
*The page number of intext referencing must be quoted and all intext referencing must be matched with end-text referencing
* don’t use difficult english language
* must read the attached simple of the work and just use it as a simple and all referencing must be found by yourself
Welcome to Social Enquiry Methods.
Social Enquiry Methods is a course designed to introduce students to research in social work and the human services. As a philosophical foundation, the course seeks to provide students with an appreciation of the value of research and a critical understanding of knowledge and meanings in the human services. Students will learn how research can be used to achieve professional aims by enabling the analysis of social issues, the examination of social policies and programs and the critical interrogation of practice. Then, the course quickly moves on to the ‘how’ of research including an overview of the research process, formulating the research question and aims, the use of and engagement with literature, research design, sampling methods, ethics, introduction to methods of data collection and analysis and the writing of research proposals. You will not be expected to conduct research in this course. The course requirements end with the submission of a research proposal.
Your participation all throughout the study period will be essential to your successful completion of the course. In preparing a research proposal, you would need strong skills in conceptualising research problems, engaging with the literature, research design and academic writing. In this course, we hope to further enhance these skills which, we trust, you have started to build in your previous courses. Please study this course outline in its entirety. You will also need continual access to the course textbook to complete this course.
I wish to thank and acknowledge the previous coordinators of this course who have contributed to its development including, but not limited to, Dr Lia Bryant, Dr Bridget Garnham, and Dr Bev Majda. We have a great teaching team – all with substantive research experience starting with their PhDs. Your allocated tutor will be your first contact point for any concerns.
Course Content
The students will develop ability to conceptualise meanings of knowledge, overview of the research process; research as practice with examples from social research as activism, social policy development, community development, submissions for funding for organisations and programs and evidence based daily practice; formulating the research question and aims; the use and engagement of literature in research; research design including theoretical orientations; sampling methods; ethics, equity and diversity; introduction to examples of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis; and writing research proposals.
Essential readingsTextbook(s)
You will need continual access to the following text(s) to complete this course. The library does not hold multiple copies of the nominated text books. It is strongly recommended that you purchase the book(s).
Neuman, WL 2011, Social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches, 7th edn, Pearson, Boston
