PUA5304 Unit I Scholarly Article
Ethical Considerations and Research Questions
This is a three-part assignment that will be submitted as one document. You do not need to include an introduction or conclusion. Note: This assignment will also be integrated into the Unit IV Assignment. Answer the following questions:
- Define the term research question in your own words, and expand upon the significance of carefully crafting it at the outset of the research undertaking.
- Explain the importance of ethical considerations in public and nonprofit administration research. Be sure to mention informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, anonymity, and Institutional Review Board (IRB) in your response.
- Go to The College Scorecard by clicking the link below.
U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). College scorecard. Retrieved from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/
Select Public Administration and Social Service Professions in the Programs and Degrees box and your state of residence in the Location box. You will see the names of a number of schools as well as each school's statistics for total undergraduates, average annual cost, graduation rate, and salary after attending. With the information provided, construct two research questions. The topic of the questions can be anything of your choice, but you should be sure to include the relevant variables as well as hypotheses that you would associate with each question.
The total assignment length (not counting title and reference pages) should be at least two pages and no more than four pages. Please use at least the textbook in the development of your comprehensive assignment. APA formatting applies. The purpose of this assignment is to gauge your understanding of the content, so focus on writing original content rather than simply regurgitating the textbook or other sources whether by paraphrasing or using direct quotes. Paraphrasing is acceptable, but try to keep paraphrasing to a minimum. A good rule of thumb is to use 80% of your own work and paraphrase 20% or less of the work of others. Consider running your assignment through the SafeAssign Originality Checker located in the student portal. Please contact your professor if you have any questions regarding your originality report.
PUA5304 Unit II Scholarly Activity
Data and Measurements
In this unit, you start looking more closely at data and making assessments regarding its perceived level of usefulness to your own research endeavors.
For the first part of the assignment, go to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) at the link below (bookmark this page; you will be going here a lot throughout the course), scroll to the bottom of the screen, and click "NCES Statistical Standards."
National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Home page. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds
Answer the following question.
In your review of the NCES Statistical Standards, what evidence do you see that the data acquired is reliable and valid; that is, which standards suggest that reliability and validity are priorities?
Next, go back to the IPEDS page, and click on the Report Your Data area and then on the Answer Current Survey area. Answer the following questions.
- At first glance, what appears to be the primary means that IPEDS uses to collect data? What threats to reliability and validity does this technique pose?
- Would 12-month enrollment likely be a very sensitive measure of student satisfaction? Why, or why not?
- How appropriate do you think a time-series analysis of graduation rates would be within a research study? Would it be more or less appropriate than a time-series analysis of institutional characteristics? Why, or why not?
The total assignment length (not counting title and reference pages) should be at least two pages. You are not required to include an introduction or conclusion. You may number your paper and answer each question. Please use at least the textbook and the required website in the development of your assignment. APA formatting applies. The purpose of this assignment is to gauge your understanding of the content, so focus on writing original content rather than simply regurgitating the textbook or other sources, whether by paraphrasing or using direct quotes. Paraphrasing is acceptable, but try to keep paraphrasing to a minimum. A good rule of thumb is to use 80% of your own work and paraphrase 20% or less of the work of others. Consider running your assignment through the SafeAssign Originality Checker located in the student portal. Please contact your professor if you have any questions regarding your originality report.
PUA5304 Unit III Scholarly Activity
Performance Measures
In this unit, we return once again to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) at the link below and begin to compile information, make basic comparisons, and illustrate trends.
National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Home page. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds
For the first part of the assignment, go to IPEDS, and click on the Find your College box. Next, click on the Compare Colleges box. This will take you to the College Scorecard area from the first unit of the course. Click on Programs and Degrees, and select Four-year (Bachelor's) and Public Administration and Social Service Professions and for Location, select Alabama. You should see a list of colleges and universities that present all three statistical areas. Ignore any in the list that do not present all three areas.
For the graphs and charts described below, click here for helpful instructions for creating each type.
- Create a bar graph to display the Graduation Rates of each of the institutions. The bar graph should be labeled appropriately with a title and a legend.
- Create a pie chart to display the Average Annual Costs of the listed institutions. Split these into whatever amount ranges that you would like.
- Calculate the range, mean, median, mode, and standard deviation for the Salary After Attending from the institutions. In your response, include the list of all the values that you included in your calculation, and then provide an answer to each calculation. Click here for helpful instruction on calculating range, mode, mean, median, and standard deviations. In addition, the website below provides some helpful tips in calculating standard deviation:
Math is Fun. (n.d.). Standard deviation formulas. Retrieved from https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/standard-deviation-formulas.html
Place the bar graph, the pie chart, the list of all values, and the answers to each calculation into one document and submit. Be sure to include a properly formatted title page and reference page with your work. At a minimum, you will need to cite the NCES website. For your reference, the citation for the NCES website for this assignment is below:
U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). College scorecard. Retrieved from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/search/?degree=b&major=public_administration_social_service&state=AL&sort=advantage:desc
PUA5304 Unit IV Homework Assignment
Survey Questions
In this unit, prepare an eight-question survey related to the research question that you developed in Unit I. While developing your survey, consider the following information:
- You must indicate whether your approach is more qualitative or quantitative in nature or if it is more of a hybrid approach and why the selected approach is most appropriate for your study.
- For each question included, provide rationale for why the question has been included, what types of information the researcher expects to garner from the question, and why the question is worded the way that it is.
Explanatory portions should be included directly after each question as opposed to including all questions first and then all explanatory content. You are not required to include an introduction or conclusion for this assignment. You can number the questions and include the explanatory portions directly after each question. Please use at least the textbook in the development of your assignment.
You will not need to cite your questions since this should be your original work, but be sure to include appropriate citations (and APA formatting) appropriately within your explanatory portions. The purpose of this assignment is to gauge your understanding of the content, so focus on writing original content rather than simply regurgitating the textbook or other sources, whether by paraphrasing or using direct quotes. Paraphrasing is acceptable, but try to keep paraphrasing to a minimum. A good rule of thumb is to use 80% of your own work and paraphrase 20% or less of the work of others. Consider running your assignment through the SafeAssign Originality Checker located in the student portal. Please contact your professor if you have any questions regarding your originality report.
PUA5304 Unit V Case Study
Interpreting Contingency Tables and Tests of Statistical Significance
In this assignment, respond to three exercises presented in the textbook. Answer the questions for the following:
- Exercise 8.1 Nonprofit Participation in Experimental Financial Assistance Program under Section A: Getting Started on pages 138–140,
- Exercise 9.2 Attitudes toward Corporal Punishment: Are Men and Women Different? under Section A: Getting Started on pages 159–160, and
- Exercise 9.3 What Is Going On in the Schools? under Section A: Getting Started on pages 160–161.
Exercise 8.1 includes the development of a table. Use whatever software you prefer to create your table, but please copy and paste it into your assignment document for the assignment submission so that answers to all exercises will be in one document.
The entire assignment should be a minimum of two pages. You do not need to include citations or a reference page. However, please include an APA-formatted title page with your work, and be sure to indicate which questions are being answered (e.g., Exercise 8.1 A 2, Exercise 8.1 A 3, etc.).
PUA5304 Unit VI Case Study
Exercise[ER1] [ER2] [ER3] [ER4] [ER5] [ER6] 10.1 Nonprofit Lobbying
Section A: Getting Started[ER7] [ER8] [ER9]
Read the following excerpt from an interview transcript. Code the data using your list of preset codes identified in question one of this exercise. You may code the data by using the comment feature in Word. If additional codes emerge, note them on your list of codes and provide a definition for each new code.
INTERVIEWER: I am going to record our conversation so that I can actually pay attention to what you're saying and then can actually listen rather than scribble notes. Is that okay with you[ER10] ?
RESPONDENT: Okay. I give my permission to be audio-taped.
INTERVIWER: Thank you. And if you could just state your full name and your title for the recording, and then we can go ahead and get started[ER11] [ER12] [ER13] [ER14] .
RESPONDENT: Okay. I'm Stephanie Martine. I'm executive director of Family Service Nonprofit in South Raleigh, North Carolina.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, thank you. What we'd like to do today is to just have a brief conversation with you about the status of nonprofit lobbying and advocacy. We wanted to start off the conversation by asking, when I say "nonprofit lobbying and advocacy," what comes to mind for you[ER15] ?
RESPONDENT: I guess it's making sure that the laws are supportive of nonprofit agencies in the United States[ER16] .
INTERVIEWER: And is there a difference between lobbying and advocacy as you see it?
RESPONDENT: [Pause] Lobbying deals more with the laws. Advocacy would be more dealing with rights.
INTERVIEWER: Okay. And does your organization, as you think about what you do, do you feel like you engage in lobbying and advocacy?
RESPONDENT: No[ER17] [ER18] [ER19] .
INTERVIEWER: Okay. And what keeps you from doing that[ER20] ?
RESPONDENT: We're a very small agency. We have all part-time staff.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, what's the size of your organization?
RESPONDENT: We have four part-time staff.
INTERVIEWER: And your position is also part-time?
RESPNDENT: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: And so it's really a time issue for you?
RESPONDENT: Yeah, any extra time I have I'm writing grant proposals to keep going. [Laughter]. I feel like I just run to keep my head above water. And I think our board has a fear of being misquoted, misrepresented, and so there's an attitude of "stay under the wire" there. [Laughing].
INTERVIEWER: So fear is a major issue?
RESPONDENT: And then there's also a fear that if we publicize what we do too much we don't want to create waiting lists. We don't want to be in a position where we have more demand for our services than we have services available.
INTERVIWER: What would make it easier for you?
RESPONDENT: Hmmm…to make things as quick and easy as possible for people to respond to, adding your name to a petition is easier than sitting down and writing your own letter and sending it. Even when somebody sends you a prewritten letter sometimes that's even hard. Whereas if I can hit "reply" and say "Yes, me, too." You know?
INTERVIEWER: Tell me more about that.
RESPONDENT: I don't know. I mean, sometimes I walk away feeling guilty because I wanted to, and I felt that way, too. But I just didn't have one more second to attend to it. I would think it's time.
INTERVIWER: Any other reasons?
RESPONDENT: Time, and, of course, money. Not having the money to hire a lobbyist or garner all the resources that it would take. But also fear, just kind of being afraid of the whole idea. I think that that has merit. And I do think there's some misinformation, miseducation of what you can or can't do in regards to lobbying or speaking out for things. People just don't understand, or they've never been given specifically, "Well, here's how you can do it." And so maybe that's the fear. I mean, I guess I have the fundamental belief that our politicians want to hear from us. They want to know what's going on, and they're relying on the public to keep them informed.
INTERVIEWER: In a perfect world, beyond time and money, what would help you to lobby?
RESPONDENT: Knowing the rules. I just am not sure what we can do and what we can't. It gets so frustrating. You go to workshops and get conflicting information, so that's just a waste of time, too.
INTERVIEWER: Anything else?
RESPONDENT: To be honest, sometimes I'm a little intimidated by going to the legislature, especially in Washington, D.C. –all those people in their high-powered positions. Their slick suits and shiny shoes. I'm just a part-time director. We can't grease their palms like those lobbyist do. [Deep sigh] We're not in the same league.
Exercise adapted from:
O'Sullivan, E., Rassel, G. R., & Taliaferro, J. D. (2011). Practical research methods for nonprofit and public administrators. New York, NY: Routledge.
PUA5304 Unit VII Research Proposal
In this unit, you will develop a research proposal as if you were going to conduct a full research project. In each section, you will include content related to areas that have been introduced and discussed throughout the course and will use one of the databases that you have used with previous submissions.
For this unit, please address the following items:
- Revisit the link below and select any degree, program, and state combination that you would like as long as there are at least 10 schools/universities total. Since the topic of this course is public administration, be sure to exclude private schools and focus on public organizations.
- U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). College scorecard. Retrieved from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/
- Discuss the means in which the information was or was likely acquired and whether or not you think that it is valid and reliable for your project.
- Select an additional research area/characteristic of this population that you are interested in learning about that is not readily available (satisfaction with the program, hours spent on schoolwork per week, etc.).
- Discuss a method that you would likely use to acquire information on the topic, and include your method (e.g., survey) as well as a rationale for including each component (e.g., a rationale for including each survey question). You should include at least eight items or questions.
- Discuss how the data would be analyzed. (For quantitative, possibly via finding simple means. For qualitative, via coding and related practices.)
- Select one of the College Scorecard variables (annual cost, graduation rate, salary) with which to compare your new additional research area/characteristic.
- Discuss the test of statistical significance that you think would be best in determining the relationship between the two variables. Be sure to include such items as confidence levels into your discussion and to account for possible disparities in data into your discussion.
- Discuss internal validity associated with your chosen research methods and possible threats that may be present as well as methods to minimize these threats.
- Discuss external validity associated with your chosen research methods and possible threats that are present as well as methods to minimize these threats.
- Discuss how to maintain ethical standards in research in public administration organizations.
Remember that you are not actually collecting the data or making analysis but are, instead, discussing the techniques that you would incorporate in this portion of your proposal.
PUA5304 Unit VIII Project
For this assignment, you have the option to create a PowerPoint presentation (with accompanying audio components/portions) or a YouTube video to address each aspect of your research proposal components. Your PowerPoint should include at least six audio-enhanced slides (not counting the title and reference slides) or a YouTube video that should be at least four minutes long.
This can include, but is not limited to, the information listed below:
- how original data would likely be acquired,
- how you would acquire further information,
- how data would be analyzed,
- which tests of statistical significance should be employed,
- internal validity, and
- external validity.
These are the components that you wrote about in the Unit VII Assignment, but for this unit, you are providing the information in a presentation or video format. Remember that you are not actually collecting the data or making analysis and are instead discussing the techniques that you would incorporate in this portion of your proposal. Be sure to address any feedback you received from your instructor for the Unit VII Assignment. You should include at least the aforementioned six components, and the discussion related to each portion should include a recorded oral explanation (no less than 35 seconds each).
If you choose to create a PowerPoint presentation, use the slide notes function to elaborate on the information on each slide. Additionally, your PowerPoint presentation must also include the previously mentioned audio components to correspond with each mission statement component.
If you choose to record and upload a video to YouTube, include your transcript of the video in a Word document, and at the top of the Word document, you will insert the URL for your YouTube video so it can be easily accessed by the professor. The written portions (i.e., the slide notes or the Word document) should only provide necessary information to supplement the audio portions. Graphics and/or visual aids are not required.
