Designing a Useful and Understandable

Designing a useful and understandable research project requires the experimenter to have a grasp of the standards and practices of how this task can be successfully accomplished. The purpose of this essay is to describe in detail a research project dealing with depression in African-American men. This essay will examine each component of the research process to communicate how this project will be accomplished. The essay will first examine the hypothesis and how to test its reliability. The target population and variables will also be discussed and examined how to best frame the argument around this data. Possible problems will also be discussed to prevent mistakes and create a roadmap to a valid and successful research project that can significantly contribute to the collective understanding of the subject and add a new perspective on the topic.

The research area chosen for this project deals with the psychological condition of depression. More specifically, the hypothesis suggests that African-American men are experience stress at a much more frequent and intense level than other demographics within the country. In other words, how does stress uniquely affect African-American men? Theoretical frameworks based upon race can be used to help frame this argument and provide context useful in describing and comparing the results to other research projects that are attempting to uncover relationships in the same manner.

A useful and practical approach to answer this questions will require transforming qualitative data into quantitative data as depression cannot be understood without subjective input. Using a survey and asking questions pertaining to depression and race can provide data which can then be analyzed and converted into information that can be manipulated into graphic or mathematical forms.

Choosing target populations are important and requires some thoughtful discussion before randomly choosing a group to analyze. Age, location and socio-economic factors must all be somehow converged into a level playing field which may be difficult to attain. Randomness within the survey selection process and within the survey itself can help protect against bias that may seep in unknowingly.

Determining the variables within this project will also help guide the data and provide a way to describe it relatively. With race being the independent variable, the dependent variable for this project would be the varying levels of depression each black man would ascribe in the survey. Further breakdowns of the data could also be included to infer other relationships such as race, address, marital status and any other social label that could be applied to black males.