How does the Scouts of America promote diversity and inclusivity within it’s membership?

Independent variable: Community Partnerships. Collaborations with local organizations working on diversity and inclusion.

Dependent variable: Diversity of Membership. Percentage of members from various racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Feedback is use sources from within the last ten years.

Directions

Step 1: Revise Touchstone 1

First, return to the community group description, research question,
and proposed bibliography that you submitted in Touchstone 1, and make
any necessary changes based on feedback from the grader. You will likely
want to refine your reading list based on the feedback you received and
what you learned about diversity and collaboration in Unit 3.

Step 2: Conduct a Literature Review

Next, complete your reading for your literature review.

Reminder of attributes of good readings for your literature review:

• They are academic, scholarly works about research findings or they
  are reliable journalistic reporting based on scientifically credible and
  reliable data.
• They should have been published in the last 20 years—unless they are
  a landmark work on the topic and provide important background or as a
  comparison.
• They look at different sides of the argument and a variety of perspectives.

As you complete each reading, take notes. Some of the questions you could ask about each reading include:

1. Who wrote this article? Is it the researchers themselves, or is it a journalist writing about their findings?
2. Where was it published? Is it a scholarly publication like an
   academic journal, or is it for a popular audience? If the publication is
   for a popular audience, how would you characterize the audience?
3. Do they have an academic affiliation? Are the researchers sociologists, or are they of a different discipline?
4. When was the research conducted?
5. What question were the researchers attempting to answer?
6. How does this question/topic relate to my question/topic?
7. What methods did they use to study their question?
8. What conclusions did they draw from their results?
9. How do their conclusions impact my research question, hypothesis, or research plan?

As you did for your first Touchstone, you will include five key elements for each source, with each element separated by a period:

• Author’s name(s)
• Publisher and publication date
• Title of the source, in quotation marks
• Page numbers (if applicable)
• Source’s location for web-based texts (URL)

EXAMPLE

Alireza Behtoui. Journal of Sociology, 2015. “Beyond social ties: The
impact of social capital on labour market outcomes for young Swedish
people.” p. 711-724. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1440783315581217

Step 3: Formulate a Hypothesis, State Your Operational Definitions, and Choose a Research Method

Hypothesis

Next, formulate a hypothesis for your research question and choose a
sociological research method appropriate for testing your hypothesis.
While you won’t be conducting the research, you will write up a
description of how you plan to conduct your research. (HINT: Refer back to Lesson 1.3.5: Formulating a Hypothesis, Lesson 1.3.6: Collecting Data: Quantitative Approaches
, and Lesson 1.3.6: Collecting Data: Quantitative Approaches
for help.)

A formal hypothesis states the relationship between two variables—one
is independent (IV) and one is dependent (DV). It must also be
formatted as an If/Then statement, for instance:

• If people eat chocolate (IV), then they will get pimples (DV).
• If people go to the gym (IV), then they will be fit (DV).

Operational Definitions

Operational definitions identify important concepts related to the
research. For example, If your community organization includes students,
are they K-12? College? Medical? Or are students defined as: young
adults between the ages of 18-21 who are attending a particular college
or university?

Research Method

Deciding on a research method will also take some thought and planning:

1. Will you use qualitative or quantitative research or a combination?
2. How will you engage subjects or find your data?
3. What kinds of tools and assessments will be used to gather the data?

Step 4: Prepare Your Notecards

Finally, incorporate Steps 1-4 to prepare a set of notecards for your
proposed research study. Use the template provided to create 8-11
notecards that present the work you completed in Steps 1-4.

Notecard	Component
Introduction	Your introduction notecard should introduce your audience to the community group being studied.
Research question	Your second notecard will state your research question.
Literature Review (4-6 cards)	Now that you’ve introduced your community group and research question, it’s time to add information to your literature review notecards. Each source should have one notecard. The notecard should describe the information and analysis you performed in Step 2.
Hypothesis	Your hypothesis notecard should describe your hypothesis.
Operational definitions	Your operational definitions notecard should include and explain any operational definitions you developed for your study. You may skip this card if you have none.
Research method	Your research method notecard should introduce your proposed research method and explain how you propose to conduct your research.