Assignment
Step 1: Identify a topic in the healthcare field that interests you (this can be broad at this point, like "Medicare," "mental disorders," "elderly care," etc.)
Topic: The lack of knowledge regarding Alzheimer's Disease. 2 Articles to use for this assignment.
Step 2: Briefly summarize (in your own words) what these articles tell you about your topic in a few paragraphs (I don't need every detail of the papers. Just convey what is relevant). This section should be the bulk of the writing in your paper. Make sure all articles are cited in APA format on the References page at the end of your paper. You do not need to upload the articles.
Step 3: Based on what you learned from the articles above and what you still want to know about your topic, brainstorm 3-4 potential specific research questions (these are not the same as survey questions) about your topic- include each of your brainstorms in the paper (i.e. if you pick elderly care, one potential question could be, "Does regular family visitation decrease risk of depression in elderly individuals aged 70-90 who are living in long-term care facilities?" but not something too vague or subjective, like "Is elderly care in Florida good or bad?"). Remember, study questions should be specific, measurable, and realistic.
Step 4: Pick one of your brainstormed questions that would be best suited for a survey/questionnaire methodology. If your question requires you to collect biomedical data or use secondary data, or in any other way does not depend on participant attitudes/behaviors, it is not suited for a survey- your book has a lot of good information about this. For example, a question like "Does daily intake of a fish oil supplement increase HDL levels in post-menopausal women?" would not be appropriate. To answer this type of question, you would need to measure HDL levels, which obviously cannot be done as a survey.
Step 5: Develop a 5-10 question survey that could be a part of a study that addresses the research question and identify your target population for the survey: College Students/Students between 19-30 yrs old). To make this easier, we are going to standardize the question responses to fit a Likert scale. Identify ONE type of scale from the link that you will use in your survey (i.e. each question would have the same potential answers- clearly identify which of the scales on the linked page you would use for your survey- you are picking only one that will work for all of your questions, so make sure you write your questions in such a way that each could be answered be one single scale). You only need to write out the scale ONCE so I know what you picked- not once for each questions. Remember, the survey does not count towards the page limit.
Reference
1. Knowledge of Alzheimer's Disease Among Norwegian Undergraduate Health and Social Care Students: A Survey Study by Sundaran Kada.
2. Gaps in Alzheimer's Knowledge Among College Students by Elaine M. Eshbaugh.