Final Project Expanded Research Design

Author

Affiliation

Carolina Torreblanca

University of Pennsylvania

Overview

Your third assignment for the final project is refining the research plan that will guide your investigation of your research question. This assignment is designed to get you thinking more clearly about the limitations of your research design and how you can strengthen your inferences.

This assignment will help you plan the remaining components of your final project analysis. This should look like an expanded, cleaned-up version of your previous assignment.

This project should be submitted via Slack by 11:59pm EST on April 15th. Your submission must include:

• An html file presenting your written design and figures. It is not necessary to show printed code.
• A .qmd file that you used to generate the html file
• All code should be thoroughly commented to explain the choices you are making and the techniques you are using.

Requirements

This assignment has four components. The components are presented below, along with their importance for the grading of the overall assignment.

1. Introduction: Create an introduction section that discusses your research question. Incorporate previous feedback into your statement of the research question. Expand your discussion of previous work by other scholars and how your analysis will build-on earlier contributions. The best introductions will concisely explain the state of scholarly knowledge on the topic and the gap in this knowledge that your analysis aims to address. Your introduction should probably be around 400-600 words. (10%)
2. Hypothesis: Incorporate previous feedback into the statement of your hypothesis or hypotheses. Expand your discussion of the logic behind the relationship that your hypothesis expects. (10%)
3. Data: Describe the dataset(s) you are using to conduct your analysis. Discuss the specific variables you will use. Create a table or figures that communicate the mean and the range of your key variables. Add an informative caption to the ggplot figure that you created in the previous assignment. For guidance, see the captions in the academic papers we have been reading this semester. Interpret the plot; what does it tell us about your hypothesis? (30%)
4. Research Design:
   1. Specify the main regression model you will use to test your hypothesis. Include any covariates that you will use to control for potential confounders, and justify your decision to include these covariates. If you hypothesis states a causal relationship, discuss the threats to interpreting the coefficient on your primary independent variable as an estimate of a causal effect on the outcome. Describe potential unobserved confounders. (10%)
   2. Identify one empirical extension — a placebo test — that will add credibility to your inference. A placebo test asks: if my story is right, what else should be true? And what should NOT be true? For example, if you hypothesize that X causes Y through a specific mechanism, you could test whether X affects an outcome it shouldn’t affect if your mechanism is correct. If you find no effect on the placebo outcome, that’s reassuring. Think back to the examples from class: in the soccer paper, civil war exposure predicted yellow cards (aggression) but NOT goals scored (skill) — the “no effect on goals” was the placebo that ruled out alternative explanations. Your placebo test should allow you to rule out at least one potential confounder or alternative mechanism. (30%)
5. Clean-up the document. If you haven’t, incorporate a Bibliography using a references.bib file and Quarto citations. Remove the printed warnings and code from your document. Create clear sections for each stage of the analysis. (20%)