Assignment 2: RA 2: Research Question and Literature Review

In RA 2, you will finalize the research question on a human services topic that you selected earlier in the course and conduct a literature review to better understand the problem being presented through the research question.

In this assignment, you will get an opportunity to practice many different concepts and skills that you have covered throughout this course.

Tasks:

Using what you have learned about research questions, along with the feedback you received in M4 Assignment 2, present your finalized research question on a topic in the field of human services. Your question should clearly depict the variables being examined and the relationship between these variables.

Gather, analyze, and critique scholarly literature and develop a literature review to address your research question. Use the list of resources that you finalized in M4 Assignment 2, in addition to any other articles that you found since Module 4.

Your literature review must be based on:

• Credible research sources
• A minimum of one quantitative and one qualitative research study
• One or two seminal or foundational sources
• At least five peer-reviewed journals and two websites
• Current sources from within the past five years (with the exception of the seminal or foundational source mentioned above)

In addition, your literature review must:

• Synthesize the research and provide a summary of how the selected literature helps support the research question.
• Discuss common themes found in the literature related to the topic.
• Compare and contrast the typical research methodologies found in the literature you reviewed—qualitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods.

Submission Details:

• Compile your research question and literature review in an 8- to 10-page Microsoft Word document. Include a title page and a reference page and apply APA standards to citation of sources, including use of in-text citations and full references.
• Save your paper as M5_A2_Lastname_Firstname.doc and by Monday, January 18, 2016, upload it to the M5 Assignment 2 RA 2 Dropbox.

RA 2 is worth 300 points and will be graded according to the following rubric.