Assignment Description
As a school counselor, you will regularly use professional literature to inform your work. Many of the important questions that you will have as your career evolves will be answered by researchers conducting qualitative studies. The qualitative designs permit researchers to answer questions that cannot be answered by quantitative designs, by examining peoples subjective worlds as directly as possible, through their own narratives.
For this assignment, you will create a mini research proposal. As you review the media piece, think through a possible qualitative study. Your work on this assignment will demonstrate that you understand the importance of the alignment of the elements of a study and how they work together.
Assignment Instructions
In preparation for this assignment, you reviewed the Riverbend City: Quantitative and Qualitative Research Questions media piece, which provided an example for first steps in creating a research proposal. Think about a problem in counseling practice that could be researched using a qualitative approach. Create a mini research proposal that addresses the problem that you identified. Your proposal must include these elements:

Mini-literature review. Include a review of three recent empirical sources (required) and one non-empirical source (optional).
Research question. This specific question should be written in a way that it could be answered through qualitative data; this is the question that will be answered by the proposed study.
Research design. Identify the research design for the proposed study. Choose from case study, ethnography, phenomenology, and grounded theory.
Sampling plan. Describe your proposed sampling method, including a rationale for the sample you chose and how many participants would comprise the sample.
Data collection plan. Identify data that you would collect in your study and describe the interview that you would use. Explain how you would collect the qualitative data that would answer your research question.
Data analysis plan. Explain how you would analyze the data that you collected.
Ethical and cultural concerns. Identify ethical and cultural concerns that may be present in the proposed study.
Alternative considerations. Describe how the problem that you investigated might be addressed by using a mixed methods approach. Explain whether you believe that would be a stronger approach or not, in this particular situation.

Submission Requirements

Written communication: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
Length: 4“6 pages, not counting cover page and reference page
APA Style: Include a reference page in the current APA style at the end of your paper.
Number of references: Minimum of three peer-reviewed empirical journal articles which are no more than seven years old.
Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.