Title Page: ALL the information is clearly present and properly formatted. The title is descriptive, and within the word limit.
Abstract: A clear and comprehensive summary that includes all the key elements of the paper and is within the word limit (150-250 words).
Introduction
Introduction — Statement of the Problem: A strong and clear lead-in paragraph that introduces the topic. This includes a clear statement of the problem/research question, justification of importance, and purpose of the study.
Introduction — Review of Literature: Provides compelling and accurate evidence to support the central position; topics are well-organized; studies are effectively/accurately referenced and cited throughout the paper.
Introduction — Connection between Past & Present: Provides a strong and clear connection between past research and the proposed study. This includes discussion of the focus of the previous research, limitations, and how the proposed study builds on or adds to the previous work.
Introduction — Aims & hypothesis: Specific aims of the study are clearly listed; testable hypothesis(es) are clearly written.
Methods
Method — Participants: Provides a clear and detailed description of the participants. This includes, the number of participants, relevant Description of the participants is provided but some minor information is missing. Description of the participants is vague or incomplete. participant information, location, and selection process (e.g., recruitment method, compensation, eligibility requirement).
Method — Measures: Provides a clear and detailed description of all the measures with example items and units of measurement; correctly provides references for the measures (where appropriate).
Method — Procedure: Provides a clear and accurate description of the study design. Provides a clear and detailed start-to-finish description of the study, including control procedures.
Results
Results — Predicted findings: Clearly states the research questions and hypothesis. Clearly and accurately describes the planned statistics for each major hypothesis. Clearly summarizes the major expected findings by providing numeric data (correct degrees of freedom, XX.XX for unavailable values, and p-value). Clearly restates the findings in words.
Results — Figure: Correctly formatted figure is provided and referenced in text. Figure accurately describes the expected results.
Discussion
Discussion — Restate hypothesis/ expected findings: Clearly and concisely restates the major research question and hypotheses; clearly explains the expected findings in words (not numbers).
Discussion — Compare and contrast findings: Critically and clearly compares and contrasts expected findings from the proposed study with findings from other studies.
Discussion — Strengths and limitations: Clearly and accurately explains at least two strengths and two limitations of the study.
Discussion — Interpretation of findings/ suggestions for future research: Clearly provides interpretation of the expected findings and implications of the expected findings. Provides appropriate future research suggestions.
Discussion — Concluding remarks: Effectively brings the paper to a conclusion that succinctly summarizes what the study provides to the topic as a whole.
References: Provides a complete list of references that are cited (at least 10 peer-reviewed journal articles); perfectly follows the APA guidelines.
Writing Quality & Format: Paper is well written and clear using APA guidelines and standard English characterized by elements of a strong writing style. Mostly free from grammar, punctuation, spelling, usage, or formatting errors. Perfectly adheres to the APA guidelines.
Sources Ive cited so far. I need 15 total.
https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.32171
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/5/e040739
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0160589
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jpm.12168
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.3477
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002520985667
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/coep.12244
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21250202/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4816476/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-007-9171-x
Outlined Details
I. Participants: In this section you describe the participants who will be in your study.
Population sampled: Who and how many will participate? (e.g., first grade teachers, female physicians in the U.S.)
Active children throughout the USA, specifically those who dance in their spare time, as their sport of choice, or for leisure. Focus will be how dancing and staying active affects quality of life (self reported and externally evaluated) in adolescence and development.
Demographic description of participants:
Sex: males and females
Age (Average: 9.5) & (Range: 5-14)
Ethnicity (Sample: children of any ethnicity who participate in dance or staying active in their daily life)
My study topic follows the general population of dancing young Americans: how dance and staying physically active can positively influence quality of life for children between the ages of 5-14.
Location: Where are participants from?
Participants can be from any location. Dance can be conducted in a professional class setting, in the comfort of one’s home, with friends or family, or simply at any location.
Region of the country (e.g., Long Island, New York)
Anywhere in the 50 States of the USA.
Any other important information (e.g., Public or private schools? College or elementary school?)
Specific Sample: children of any background, who dance at home, for leisure or with a dance school.
Selection process: How will they be selected?
How will you recruit for your study (e.g., newspaper advertisements, radio announcements, school visits, random-digit dialing, etc.)?
The selection process would be conducted through elementary and primary school visits and screening, as well as at doctors offices, libraries and dance schools.
How will you compensate your participants? (e.g., course credit, paid, etc.)
Compensation for participation would be in the form of positive reinforcement for young children. This would include a snack, toy or a gift card depending on age; moreover, as the study progresses, the additive of new and more age appropriate compensation such as payment would be considered.
How will you select your final sample? (i.e., eligibility requirements – who will be eligible; screening measures – cutoff score on a measure, presence or absence of an attribute; how you will assign participants to different groups, if applicable)
The final sample will be selected based upon physical activity hours, activeness in response and willingness to participate in the study.
Eligibility requirements would be: 30+ minutes of activity per day, pre and post exercise questionnaire and physical external evaluation.
II. Materials: This is where you describe the “equipment/tools” you will use to collect the data. In this section, you will also describe how you OPERATIONALIZED all of your variables (in other words, how did you define your variables in a specific and concrete way so that they could be measured and quantified?). For example, what do you mean by “aggression”? How will you assess “aggression”? Are there different types and levels of aggression (e.g. physical abuse, verbal abuse, mild, moderate, and severe levels of both physical and verbal abuse)? What is the best way to measure this? Interview? Questionnaire? Behavioral observation?
Your measures should be based on established rating scales, structured clinical interviews, etc. You should search for what has been used in the past to get details of these measures. Depending on your study, you may have to modify the measures in order to get all the information you want. However, you may have to create your own questionnaire in order to get more factual information (i.e., number of arrests, SAT scores, etc.).
For EACH survey/questionnaire/interview, you need to provide the following information
Exact name of questionnaire and who created it (citation!):
Likert scale (Cooper, Lim); and external physical evaluation and blood testing (Campbell)
State what the measure is designed to measure:
Likert scale will measure overall “happiness” scale and general wellbeing with various questions.
External evaluation would be conducted by an outside source such as a doctor, to evaluate general physical health.
How many questions/items are in the measure?
Likert scale would contain at least 10 questions about general wellbeing and happiness.
Physical evaluation would be up to the discretion of the doctor (possibly blood and neurotransmitter testing) and written down for study.
How the questions/ items are worded and rated (if questionnaire/survey) (e.g., Likert scale, open-ended):
The likert scale would be 10 or more questions geared towards self confidence and general overall happiness.
Give an example(s) of a question(s):
Examples would be: “Please rate your general mood on this scale of 1-20”, or “Please rate your feelings toward your personal hobbies and how much satisfaction you receive from completing them”
*If your study uses machinery (computers, stop watches, tables, chairs, eye-trackers, etc.) include this information.
The study would utilize blood testing, paper, a medical professional, as well as
III. Procedure: This is where you lay out exactly what you will do and how you will do it at a level of detail so that a stranger could walk in off the street, read your procedure, and be able to perform the study. Thus, this is where you provide step-by-step instructions of what participants do in your study.
What is the study design?
Cross-sectional or longitudinal (if so, at what points in time will the data be collected?)
This would be a longitudinal study. It would involve data collection pre exercise, post exercise as well as over the course of study which would be weekly evaluations over the course of years.
Correlational, quasi-experimental, or experimental?
This would be a quasi- experimental study, since not all variables are controlled and the pre existing dance participation is a requirement of eligibility and not an assigned variable.
Describe the variables:
Variables would include the sample group, the scale of measurement in the self evaluation, the physical evaluation and the time between data collection.
Describe where and how (step-by-step) the study will take place.
Describe the treatment/procedure given to each individual (or group if comparing groups) chronologically and in step-by-step detail.
The sample group of children already involved in dance classes or leisurely dancing would be required to self evaluate, as well as be evaluated by an outside source, before exercise begins, after exercise is over and routinely over the course of years.
The self evaluation would include likert scale (1-20), as well as an external physical and mental evaluation done by an unbiased outsider such as a doctor or psychiatrist.
Testing would be before and after each time exercising.
These precautions such as external evaluation, would attempt to decrease the frequency of biases– while it is acknowledged that bias in some instances is inevitable and will happen.
What procedures will you employ to make sure the data are collected systematically to reduce any experimenter and or participant bias?
A large sample size, internal and external evaluations will be utilized, consistency across data collection schedules, random selection of participants, as well as diverse representation of population in the sample such as age, sex and ethnicity.
Describe control procedures: methods that attempt to hold constant all variables and conditions other than those directly related to the hypothesis being tested (e.g., room temp, restricted age, experience of participants).
Control procedures will include the same self testing questions for each group, the same external evaluating source doctor, the same time of day for evaluation, and amount/ frequency of testing will remain the same.