Introduction: locate your identity as a researcher in the worldview approaches, and describe what worldview resonates with your identity.
Statement of Research Interest: Write a Statement of Research Interests (SRI) that reflects on and describes an area of communication and/or media you are curious about and/or may want to explore during your graduate studies. The purpose of this part is to introduce you to the initiating process of research design: how it often begins with an idea, an observation, or a conceptual problem that compels the researcher to further investigate.
Existing and Emerging Research Inquiries: Discuss the relationship between your interest and an existing or emerging research inquiry, by looking at several studies that discussed the idea, observation, or conceptual problem that compels you, and how that relationship informs your interest in and identification of an emerging problem of practice. This part will further help you determine the literature you need to look at in Assignment 4. You are not required to summarize any of the existing or emerging studies related to your research interest, but rather explain how they inform you to form your Research Problem.
Research Problem: The research problem is ‘what has failed to understand, what we lack to understand, including the factors that influence our lack of understanding of an idea, issue, concept or phenomenon” (Abdelrahim, 2021). In this part of the assignment, you should explain what makes the idea, issue, observation, concept, or phenomenon problematic. You will also need to think of the factors that influence the research problem. There is no certain form for the research problem. While you could spell it out in one sentence, explaining the problem and factors that influence may need you to write a few paragraphs. Please stay focused. Now, reconsider your research problem according to the worldview you discussed in the introduction. Explain how the worldview you resonate with informs/influences your investigation of the research problem.
Proposed research titles and questions: Now that you have a research problem think of the research questions that your research will aim to answer and the title of your research.
Propose two titles for your research: A research title is different from a newspaper article title. An excellent way to get acquainted with how to write a research title is to look at academic journal articles.
Propose 4-5 Research Questions or Hypotheses that your research aims to answer or examine. Utilize the readings and the lecture on research questions.
Overall length for this assignment is 4-5 pages, double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins. Your paper will include a cover page and a well-formed APA 7th edition reference list [which are not included in the page-length restriction].