This folder contains a prompt for a research proposal, scaffolded exercises to create a proposal over the course of a semester, and exemplars from a student who completed the assignments well.

Content warning: suicide, LGBTQ oppression, depression.

A short online tutorial to introduce readers to research best-practices in the humanities and social sciences.

This textbook introduces students to the fundamental principles of what it is like to think like a psychology researcher in the contemporary world of psychology research.

This lesson plan was created by Stefanie Green as part of the 2020 NDE ELA OER Project. This Research Kick-Off lesson plan is designed for senior-level students and would most effectively be taught in collaboration between an English teacher and a school librarian. The lesson will take approximately 80 minutes. View the Google Slides presentation here: https://tinyurl.com/y5nvtbfu

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. This book is based on my lecture materials developed over a decade of teaching the doctoral-level class on Research Methods at the University of South Florida. The target audience for this book includes Ph.D. and graduate students, junior researchers, and professors teaching courses on research methods, although senior researchers can also use this book as a handy and compact reference.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The gut microbiomes of animals are diverse microbial communities that dramatically affect host health and physiology. Modern laboratory techniques have allowed researchers to learn much about these microbiomes. Unfortunately, the common sequencing and culture techniques often struggle to distinguish between strains within a bacterial species. But microfluidic droplets could be a way to sidestep such limitations and distinguish between strains in a high volume, efficient way. To test this, a research team developed a microfluidic platform that encapsulates individual bacterial cells and cultivates them in different growth media, and they used it to successfully profile the honeybee microbiome at a strain-specific level. Strain diversity is particularly important for honeybees due to their uniquely simple and stable bacterial community. Compared to traditional gut samples, this technique detected more strain diversity in some bacterial species..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This is a test module for the Social Work Distance Education conference.  The materials are drawn from the open textbook Critical Inquiry in Social Work, adapted by Matt DeCarlo.  This book was adapted from Principles of Sociological Inquiry – Qualitative and Quantitative Methods by Susan Blackstone.  

The following are some common methods of data collection in statistical studies that involve people.

With short accessibly written chapters, What is Qualitative Interviewing? explores a range of interview types and practices, and provides illuminating examples with diagrams and extracts.

Scientific research has been one of the great drivers of progress in human history, and the dramatic changes we have seen during the past century are due primarily to scientific findings—modern medicine, electronics, automobiles and jets, birth control, and a host of other helpful inventions. Psychologists believe that scientific methods can be used in the behavioral domain to understand and improve the world. Although psychology trails the biological and physical sciences in terms of progress, we are optimistic based on discoveries to date that scientific psychology will make many important discoveries that can benefit humanity. This module outlines the characteristics of the science, and the promises it holds for understanding behavior. The ethics that guide psychological research are briefly described. It concludes with the reasons you should learn about scientific psychology.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotic-resistant bacteria like carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) pose a serious threat to human health. Some resistant pathogens can exist alongside our commensal microbiota at undetectable levels. Antibiotic use can lead to outgrowth of these subclinically colonized bacteria. A recent study sought to better understand the interaction between the gut microbiota and CRE during subclinical colonization and outgrowth. First, researchers exposed wild-type mice to the CRE _K. pneumoniae_. While the levels of _K. pneumoniae_ were not detectable after exposure, the post-exposure microbiome was disrupted. Then, administration of an antibiotic cocktail, ampicillin, vancomycin, or azithromycin induced _K. pneumoniae_ outgrowth while reducing overall microbial diversity. Vancomycin only induced outgrowth in a subset of mice. The researchers found these outgrowth-susceptible mice had differences in mRNA stability pathways and xylose abundance..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Like most animals, mosquitoes carry many microbes in and on their bodies. These microbial communities (microbiota) impact the mosquitoes’ growth, survival, reproduction, and capacity to transmit pathogens, but the tools available to researchers to study mosquito microbiotas are limited. In other species, particularly mammals, microbiota transfer is a useful method to research microbial dynamics. However, such transfers had not previously been attempted in mosquitoes, until a recent study where researchers successfully transferred microbiota between individual _Aedes aegypti_ mosquitoes. as well as between _Culex quinquefasciatus_ and _A. aegypti_ mosquitoes. They transferred whole-body microbiota from adult donors to larvae and then observed the microbiota dynamics. The recipient mosquitoes retained most of the donor bacterial groups, suggesting that the transfer was successful, and the typical microbiota shifts occurred as the mosquitoes moved from larval stages to adulthood..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

It is widely believed that research that builds upon previously published findings has reproduced the original work. However, it is rare for researchers to perform or publish direct replications of existing results. The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology is an open investigation of reproducibility in preclinical cancer biology research. We have identified 50 high impact cancer biology articles published in the period 2010-2012, and plan to replicate a subset of experimental results from each article. A Registered Report detailing the proposed experimental designs and protocols for each subset of experiments will be peer reviewed and published prior to data collection. The results of these experiments will then be published in a Replication Study. The resulting open methodology and dataset will provide evidence about the reproducibility of high-impact results, and an opportunity to identify predictors of reproducibility.