10 pages (excluding the title and references pages)

Be sure to incorporate feedback from your instructor that you received in Week 4 into your final paper.

In your work at a residential treatment center (RTC) for adolescents, several problems related to the delivery of group and recreational therapy services to the residents have become evident. The following represents the issues:

Residents are not opening up during group process meetings (there seems to be a lack of trust or cohesion in the group).When reporting during individual therapy sessions, residents find it difficult to describe how the recreational therapy activity for the week has helped them with resolution of their issues. The boss has observed that during the group process meetings, many of the residents are not paying attention (i.e., they are not engaged in the flow of the session).The boss reports that he or she has noticed that when residents return from recreational therapy activities, many of them are complaining about being sore (pain in their muscles).

Although the program director would like to have all of the questions answered, he or she has asked that you select 1 of the questions (the one that would be most interesting to you). The assignment he or she has given you is to propose a research process that will answer your selected question. The organization is committed to answering these questions, so it will fund the study that you propose. Not only will you be able to answer the question for your RTC, but the corporate office has also committed funds to send you to a conference focused on residential treatment center effectiveness to present your findings. These facts emphasize the need to ensure a well-designed study that will lead to accurate, reliable, and valid results.

Your proposal needs to include the following sections:

Introduction: Describe the current issue (the focus of the proposal should be 1 of the items from the list above) and how you developed an understanding of it. Research Question: Describe the process that you used to arrive at the question that you are proposing (from Week 1), and clearly state the actual question. Literature Review (from Weeks 2 and 4):It is here that you describe what is already known in the general literature about the issue and the question that you are proposing. Methodology (from Week 3): In this section of your proposal, you will describe the type of research design (i.e., quantitative or qualitative) and the method that you will use to answer the proposed question. This should also include information related to who will participate, the materials that you will need to complete the study, and the procedure that you will follow. Conclusion (Week 5): This section should summarize everything that you proposed (1 paragraph) and hypothesize what you anticipate the study will find (i.e., what you believe the outcomes of the study will be).

Your final paper should be in APA format and include 7–9 references.

You will present this proposal to the regional vice president of operations for the organization. Please keep this in mind as you prepare it.

The materials found in the MUSE may help you with this assignment such as article The Research Proposal.

Instructor’s Comments:

For Unit 5 IP, you will add up all the pieces of the key assignment you’ve worked on in Units 1-4, making edits according to the feedback you received from your classmates in Unit 4 DB and from me in Unit 4 DB and IP. You will be preparing and submitting a research proposal, which should consist of the following elements:

Introduction: This should give background related to the residential treatment center and the issues that prompted the study. Make a compelling case as to why the study was needed in this section, using material from Unit 1 IP. Research question: State your research question and how you arrived it, using material from Unit 1 IP. Literature review: Using your annotated bibliography from Unit 2 IP, summarize what is already known about your research question. From Unit 4 IP: Elaborate on your brief summaries from each article, linking their relevance to your research question. Be sure to include in this section an introduction – what is to be covered, the body – discussing sources that you found, and the conclusion – addressing why the study is needed (how your proposed study is novel and answers your research question).Methodology: This section must include the “how” of the study (participants, materials, and procedure), as well as an identification of methods used (quantitative, qualitative, or both). Use material you put together in Unit 3 IP. Conclusion (new for Unit 5 IP): Summarize everything you proposed. Include hypotheses (predictions) of what you believe the research will demonstrate about the original question.

Most of the material you will have already written in Units 1-4. Use the feedback you received in Unit 4 and in the grade book for each unit to make any edits to your paper, and also write up your conclusion.

The Learning Materials this week have a few helpful links to writing a research proposal and being a critical consumer of research. Note: there is no reading in the text book for this week, although you might review Chapter 5 on ethics in research and Chapter 16 on reporting research.