How do gestures affect the learning abilities of children? Are blind children left out of these learning opportunities

Prompt:
The research question I want to propose includes “How do gestures affect the learning abilities of children? Are blind children left out of these learning opportunities?
My independent variable is blind children and sight-seeing children.
My dependent variable is the learning outcome.
My hypothesis is that blind children will perform worse.

Instructions:
*FIRST LOOK AT THE ATTACHED FILE THAT HAS THE SLIDES INFORMATION ON GESTURES*

Your proposal needs to include the following (in order):

– Description of your research question, how it relates to an understanding of cognition, and why it is important to determine. [Introduction]
– Literature review of the current state of the topic. This should include experiments we discussed in class as well as more modern “cutting edge” research. You should cite at least three academic sources in your literature review (more information on these sources below). [Introduction]
– Summary of current guiding theory and competing theories as well as gaps in the research your project will fill in. Your experiment needs to put theory/theories to the test in some way and clearly improve our theoretical understanding of whatever cognitive process you are investigating. This should include references to Embodied Cognition or possibly Wilson (2013). [Introduction]
– A hypothesis and rationale. Make a clear prediction and fully explain why you think those are the results you will get. [Introduction]
– Proposed experiment including information about participants, design, materials, and procedure. Note this is all written in the future tense, and your participants section talks about who you want to be in the study and roughly how many you want to get. [Method]
– Clear explanation about how the results of your proposed experiment will answer outstanding questions in cognitive science and contribute to an understanding of the mind. Should also talk about the “wider-reaching” implications of your work for general public if relevant. [Conclusion]

Some basic guidelines:

– Your final paper will likely be around 3-5 double spaced pages, but quality is more important than quantity.
– Tone, headings, style, and citations should be in proper APA format.
– Your literature review must include a reference to the Embodied Cognition textbook OR one of the required assigned papers.
– Your literature review must also include at least two additional academic sources from outside the readings and lecture slides, properly cited in APA format. Of the sources you use, at least one must be from the past five years (2018 or more recent).
– You must propose an experiment! Surveys or observations are not acceptable. Quasi-experiments are allowed as long as they are justified (i.g., they would be hard/impossible to do as a true experiment). As long as you have an IV that varies between at least two groups and a quantifiable DV you are fine.
Your participants should all be humans – no rat maze studies, even though they are fun.

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