Week 2 – Discussion

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of the course text, read the media piece Why Facebook Could Be Good for Your Health (Links to an external site.), read the journal article “Social Relationships and Health,” and watch the video Research Ethics Involving Human Subjects (Links to an external site.).

Now that the literature review has been completed, the text reading this week covers how important theories can be highlighted that will support your research topic. For example, particular groups may naturally link to known theories, such as feminist theory for women’s perspectives, or queer theory for perspectives from the LGBTQ community. The text also covers extensive writing tips in regard to scholarly writing which can help you reflect and develop your own scholarly writing in coursework that requires research. A third aim of the discussion is to touch on the integral aspect of preparation for performing research, ensuring you have considered the ethical concerns and protections for your research participants or subjects.

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In your initial post, address the following:

• Describe a social theory that was discussed in the “Social Relationships and Health” journal article and indicate how it was used to support the research.
• Choose one of the quantitative research results presented in the article; describe the evidence presented and indicate which variables of the experiment were highlighted.
• Determine the article’s conclusion in regards to social relationships in society. Based on the accompanying media piece “Why Facebook Could Be Good for Your Health(Links to an external site.),” how could modern social media sites support the research findings in the journal article?
• The course text reading discussed how research can also use the transformative paradigm in social theory to impact social change. How does it do this and what types of societal populations can the transformative paradigm specifically impact?
• An important aspect of impactful research is that it should be disseminated through a scholarly document such as a research report or journal article. The author of the course text provides some helpful tips in scholarly writing. What tips did you find most useful to further develop your own scholarly writing in course work which requires research papers or a project?
• Lastly, a research study should always be ethically performed. According to the course text reading and your review of the video, “Research Ethics Involving Human Subjects(Links to an external site.)”, answer the following:
  • The Belmont Report of 1979 established three ethical principles for research. Name the three principles and explain each principle.
  • All Universities and Research Institutions are federally mandated to follow ethics guidelines in the research performed which include the principles of The Belmont Report of 1979 – name what this set of guidelines is commonly known as, and describe what it covers.