Questions We Can Help You To Answer

Paper instructions:

Part ONe:    Project Topic Selection and Rationale
Select a sample population within a family by gender or by age—for example, fathers, mothers, infants, toddlers, children in the elementary school age, children in the middle school age, or adolescents. Be specific in defining the family population group by age, gender, and cultural group. (The cultural group may be defined broadly.)
Then, select a specific problem, stressor, or developmental issue your selected family population group experiences. This will be the focus of the research literature you will critically analyze for your course project.





The course project:

is an opportunity to demonstrate doctoral level critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis of ideas. You will objectively evaluate and apply the findings of your research materials and the readings from the course to this project. You should write the paper in a scholarly, professional manner, as this will provide practice for both comprehensive exams and the dissertation process. Organize your paper into the following sections:

•    Project Topic:Select a sample population within a family by gender or by age—for example, fathers, mothers, infants, toddlers, children in the elementary school age, children in the middle school age, or adolescents. Be specific in defining the family population group by age, gender, and cultural group. (Cultural group may be defined broadly). Then, select a specific problem, stressor, or developmental issue that your selected family population group experiences. This will be the focus of the research literature you will critically analyze. Support the relevancy of your selections with current research. This will become the introduction to your final paper, so it should be written in a scholarly tone.
•    Scholarly Review and Critical Analysis: Examine the scholarly research relevant to the population and issue you have selected, using the Research Log to organize your information before you begin writing your paper. Prepare a review of the literature, synthesizing the research to present a thorough picture of what is known about the chosen issue experienced by your chosen population. Be sure to address the interaction between the family system and the individual, as well as broader social, economic, cultural, and political forces impacting your chosen population and the phenomena you are exploring. Note: This project is designed to simulate the type of literature review work done in doctoral dissertations; be sure to use headings to guide the reader.
•    Theoretical Foundations: Include in your critical analysis a discussion of the theoretical foundations utilized in the research studies you have gathered. Compare and contrast these theories or models in terms of how effective they are in guiding the research and explaining the phenomena you are exploring.
•    Practical Application: In your critical analysis, include research on non-clinical prevention, education, and advocacy programs and approaches related to working with this population around your chosen issue. (Some of your sources may also be clinical in nature, but the non-clinical will be an important part of your critical analysis of the research).
•    Ethical Considerations: Discuss ethical considerations related to both the conduct of research and development of prevention or advocacy services for your chosen issue experienced by your selected population. Address any personal biases you, as a researcher or practitioner, might have, if you were doing research related to this population and topic.
•    Scholarly Research Critique and Research Recommendations: Evaluate methodological approaches in the studies you have gathered regarding the population and phenomena you are investigating. What do you see as strengths and weaknesses of the research methodology and research designs in the studies you used to inform and support your critical analysis? What do authors report as limitations of their research? Review and discuss the recommendations made for future research and make additional recommendations for future research to expand upon or develop new theories or models for understanding the phenomena you are investigating. Also, review and discuss any recommendations regarding approaches to working with families from a prevention, psycho-educational, or advocacy perspective, adding additional recommendations of your own for working with or on behalf of families, based on your critical analysis.





Project Objectives
To successfully complete this project, you will be expected to:
7.    Critically analyze the research on a specific population experiencing a specific problem, stressor, or developmental issue.
8.    Critically analyze the research on working with families from a prevention, psycho-educational, or advocacy perspective.
9.    Compare and contrast the effectiveness of various family theories or models relevant to the study of families.
10.    Identify ethical issues in working with family populations in research and non-clinical practice.
11.    Evaluate methodological approaches to research on family populations and issues.
12.    Make recommendations for future research to expand upon or develop family research and theory.
13.    Demonstrate scholarly written communication skills and proper use of APA style and formatting, using language, mechanics, paragraph development, and manuscript organization that reflect a scholarly tone and ideas that are generally logical and succinct.