HDFS 9/15 NOTES

Variable Classifications in Empirical Research

• Dependent Variable:

  • Defined as the variable measured to observe potential changes resulting from an experimental intervention or manipulation.

  • Conceptualized through the mnemonic phrase: "depending on the dependent variable to change."

  • Frequently termed the outcome variable by modern statisticians who prefer moving away from the traditional label.

• Outcome Variable:

  • A contemporary term used interchangeably with dependent variable to denote the measured target of research inquiries.

• Independent Variable:

  • Defined as the variable or construct that is actively manipulated by the researcher or introduced via an intervention to induce observable changes in the dependent variable.

Literature Retrieval & Academic Database Navigation

• Accessing Institutional Catalog Databases:

  • To locate validated research materials, access the university library system via the student portal path: Students $\rightarrow$ Library.

  • Authentication (logging in) with institutional credentials is mandatory to obtain full access to restricted databases and full-text articles.

• Filtering Parameters for Scientific Validity:

  • Resource Type: Search results must be constrained strictly to Peer-Reviewed Research Articles. Books, book chapters, preprints, and general website pages are excluded from empirical research reviews.

  • Availability: Set parameters to "Available online."

  • Publication Recency: Filter publication dates to within the last $10\text{ years}$ to eliminate outdated literature dating back to the 1800s.

• Google Scholar Integration:

  • Navigating to Google Scholar within a browser session logged into the university library system (e.g., MSU Library) automatically grants proxy access to paid journal subscriptions and full-text documents.

• Course Assignment Criteria for Research Retrieval:

  • For specific empirical tasks (such as Reality Assignment 3 focused on parenting research), submitting a book, book chapter, preprint, or website yields zero points; only peer-reviewed articles are accepted.

The Academic Peer Review Process & Scientific Rigor

• Faculty Responsibilities & Workload Distribution:

  • Academic faculty positions often divide duties into specific effort percentages, such as $50\%$ teaching and $40\%$ research.

  • Maintaining employment requires continuous publication output, typically demanding $1\text{ to }2$ peer-reviewed manuscripts per year.

• Sequential Stages of Research & Publication:

  1. Design the study framework.

  2. Select methodological approach (qualitative vs. quantitative).

  3. Develop sampling protocols.

  4. Submit and secure approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

  5. Collect empirical data.

  6. Draft the complete research manuscript.

  7. Submit the manuscript to an academic journal.

  8. Editorial Anonymization: The journal editor removes all author identification to perform a double-blind peer review.

  9. Peer Review: The manuscript is transmitted to two independent domain experts who evaluate methodological rigor, statistical accuracy, logical consistency, and potential errors.

  10. Review Submission: Reviewers return structured feedback (often spanning up to $5\text{ pages}$ of formal critiques) to the editor.

  11. Editorial Determination: The editor selects one of three decisions:

      • Reject: Direct decline of publication.

      • Revise & Resubmit: The primary outcome for most submissions. The author must execute all mandated structural/analytical corrections, resubmit, and undergo secondary anonymous peer evaluation by the two reviewers.

      • Accept: Immediate acceptance without revisions.

• Publication Realities & Acceptance Rates:

  • Initial acceptance without requested revisions is exceptionally rare; across an academic career yielding over $95$ published papers, direct initial acceptance occurred only $2$ times.

• Scientific Rigor vs. Non-Peer-Reviewed Information:

  • Information published on general websites or produced by public agencies (e.g., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / CDC) does not undergo the academic peer-review pipeline.

  • Science relies on peer-reviewed journals to establish high methodological trust and verifiable empirical findings.

Structural Components of Empirical Research Articles

• Abstract:

  • A concise summary spanning $100\text{ to }200\text{ words}$ serving as a study overview.

  • Outlines the core research problem, analytical framework, data collection techniques, and primary empirical findings.

  • Functions as an initial screening tool to evaluate paper relevance.

• Introduction & Literature Review:

  • Positioned together at the beginning of the article.

  • Introduction: Summarizes current domain knowledge, highlights critical gaps in existing literature, and formulates the central research objective.

  • Literature Review: Delivers an in-depth exploration of prior studies, concluding with explicit research questions and theoretical hypotheses.

• Research Questions & Methods:

  • Details exact procedural execution and sampling frameworks, specifying participant demographics and recruitment sources.

  • Identifies the paradigm (qualitative vs. quantitative) and precise analytic tools used:

    • Qualitative Analysis: Employs techniques such as thematic analysis.

    • Quantitative Analysis: Employs advanced statistical procedures such as multi-level modeling.

• Results:

  • Presents objective empirical statistical data and findings without interpretive elaboration.

• Discussion:

  • Synthesizes empirical findings from the Results section with existing literature reviewed in prior sections.

  • Highlights novel discoveries versus outcomes consistent with existing body of knowledge.

  • Concludes with practical implications, real-world utility, study limitations, and recommendations for future scientific inquiries.

• References:

  • Comprehensive bibliographic catalog linking directly to original retrievable research cited throughout the text.

APA 7th Edition Document Standards & Formatting Mechanics

• Standard Framework Context:

  • The American Psychological Association (APA) format creates a uniform linguistic and structural standard across social sciences and applied health sciences.

  • Alternative discipline-specific frameworks include the American Medical Association (AMA) format for health disciplines and Modern Language Association (MLA) format for humanities/English.

  • Current standard: APA 7th Edition (instituted in 2020).

• Document Layout Requirements:

  • Font: $12\text{-point}$ Times New Roman.

  • Margins: Exactly $1\text{ inch}$ on all four sides.

  • Line Spacing: Double-spaced continuously throughout the entire document body and reference list.

Academic Integrity, Plagiarism, & Artificial Intelligence Policies

• Plagiarism Definitions & Examples:

  • Extracting content from online sources (e.g., Wikipedia) and altering only 1 or 2 words constitutes plagiarism.

  • Utilizing generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to write text without explicitly citing AI constitutes plagiarism, as AI models generate output by ingesting and re-synthesizing human intellectual property from online databases.

• Institutional Detection & Sanctions:

  • Submissions are analyzed using automated detection platforms (e.g., Turnitin) that flag verbatim matches and map back to primary web sources.

  • Consequences range from official academic warnings to formal reporting to the Dean of Students office (establishing a permanent record).

  • Severe penalties include course failure, academic expulsion, institutional blacklisting, and degree revocation (e.g., losing a PhD post-completion).

• AI Performance Impact:

  • Generative AI platforms consistently fail to align with specific academic course rubrics, resulting in poor academic evaluations.

• Paraphrasing Mandatory Requirement:

  • Direct quotes are strictly prohibited in course assignments.

  • All material must be entirely restructured in the writer's own words—approached as if explaining the concept clearly to a high school student—accompanied by appropriate in-text citations.

In-Text Citation Standards & Citation Mechanics

• Core Elements:

  • In-text citations require the author's (or authors') last name(s) and the year of publication.

• Syntactical Rules for Author Links:

  • In-Sentence (Narrative) Citation: Spell out the word "and" between author names (e.g., Duck and Charming (2020) demonstrated…).

  • Parenthetical Citation: Use the ampersand symbol "&" between author names (e.g., … (Duck & Charming, 2020)).

  • Citations must be placed either narratively at the beginning of the sentence or parenthetically at the end of the sentence, but never duplicated in both positions for a single statement.

• Citation Placement & Continuity Rules:

  • Provide an in-text citation during the initial sentence introducing external information.

  • If subsequent continuous sentences detail information from the same unchanged source, additional citations are unnecessary until the source changes or personal interpretations are introduced.

• Author Quantity Rules:

  • 1 or 2 Authors: Write out all last names in every citation instance.

  • 3 or More Authors: State only the first author's last name followed by et al. or and colleagues in every instance (e.g., Duck et al., 2020).

Personal Communication & Lecture Citation Protocols

• Definition & Scope:

  • Personal communication refers to non-retrievable information sources that external readers cannot access directly, such as live classroom lectures or online recorded presentations.

• In-Text Citation Format:

  • Include the speaker's first and middle initials, last name, the explicit text personal communication, and the full date.

  • Example (Narrative): A. Welch (personal communication, September 15, 2023) stated…

  • Example (Parenthetical): … (A. Welch, personal communication, September 15, 2023).

  • For live lectures, use the date the lecture occurred; for pre-recorded online lectures, use the date the material was viewed.

• Reference Page Exclusion:

  • Personal communications are never included on the final References page because they lack retrievable physical or digital publication records.

Reference Page Formatting & Bibliography Rules

• Page Structural Setup:

  • Must always begin at the top of a brand-new, isolated page at the conclusion of the document.

  • Header: The word References centered and bolded at the top of the page (no quotation marks, colons, or underlining).

• Entry Formatting & Ordering:

  • Arranged in alphabetical order by the primary author's last name.

  • Double-spaced throughout.

  • Formatted using hanging indents (the first line of each reference entry is flush left; all subsequent lines within the same entry are indented $0.5\text{ inches}$).

• Bibliographic Element Rules:

  • Author Names: Formatted as Lastname, Initials. using ampersands (&) before the final author name.

  • Publication Year: Placed inside parentheses following author names.

  • Article Title: Capitalized using sentence case (only capitalize the first letter of the title, the first letter following a colon, and proper nouns such as Mexico). Do not italicize the title.

  • Journal Title & Volume: Italicized continuously (e.g., Journal of Marriage and Family, 82).

  • Issue Number: Enclosed in parentheses immediately after the italicized volume number, set in regular (non-italicized) font (e.g., 82(4)).

  • Page Numbers: Listed directly after the issue number without using "pp." (e.g., 100-115).

  • Digital Object Identifier (DOI): Formatted strictly as a functional URL prefix (https://doi.org/...). Hyperlink settings (active blue underline vs. plain text) must remain consistent across all references in the document.

• Textbook Citation Protocol for Coursework:

  • Textbooks synthesize vast secondary literature; for course reality assignments, attribute broad textbook ideas directly to the textbook author (Welch) rather than citing primary internal sources.

Course Assignment Specifications & Execution Protocols

• Reality Assignment Core Requirements:

  • Strict adherence to prescribed template formatting (e.g., university platform format examples).

  • Late submissions are not accepted under any circumstances; zero credit is assigned.

  • Every assigned prompt must be fully answered.

• Source Citation Quotas for Reality Assignments 1 & 2:

  • Minimum of $1$ in-text citation from the course textbook (citing Welch).

  • Minimum of $1$ in-text citation from lecture content (formatted as personal communication).

  • The Reference page will contain exactly $1$ entry (the textbook reference entry).

• Reality Assignment 1 Task:

  • Select any self-chosen media source (e.g., a television show).

  • Apply $2$ theoretical frameworks to analyze, explain, or predict behaviors observed within that media source.

  • Integrate all required in-text citations and reference list formatting.

• Proofreading Warnings Regarding Automated Editing Software:

  • Software like Grammarly can severely alter natural student writing voice into overly formal phrasing.

  • Unnatural shifts in writing style alert evaluators to non-original writing, which negatively affects assignment grades.

Interactive Review & Self-Assessment Questions

• Question: Copying text directly from Wikipedia into an academic paper and changing one or two words is considered acceptable citation practice. (True/False?)

  • Answer: False. Modifying a few words while maintaining the original text structure without complete rephrasing and attribution constitutes plagiarism.

• Question: Is using AI tools to write an academic paper without citation considered plagiarism?

  • Answer: Yes. AI generates text by processing human-authored content from large online models; using it without attribution presents aggregated labor as original work.

• Question: What are the document format standards required under APA 7th edition for text font, page margins, and line spacing?

  • Answer: $12\text{-point}$ Times New Roman font, $1\text{ inch}$ margins on all sides, and continuous double line spacing throughout.