Project Component A

Directions:

The first step of your project is to find a data set that interests you. Some students may gravitate towards political sentiment, mental health, or science. It is up to you to decide what data set (among the ones we have provided) will spark the most interesting questions for you. What makes a data set interesting to you may be the general topics that are covered or specific questions/topics that are covered within the data set.Next, try to narrow down particular parts of the data set you find interesting. Your goal is to brainstorm some possible research questions. One of the simplest research questions that can be asked is whether two constructs are associated.

For example, in GSS participants were asked about their happiness in marriage (rated Very Happy, Somewhat Happy, or Not Too Happy) and also about their self-assessment of their own health (Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor). One question might be: Is there a relationship between health and relationship happiness?

As another example, in NESARC participants were asked about whether their blood/natural father was depressed (No, Yes, or Unknown), whether their blood/natural mother was depressed (No, Yes, or Unknown) and also a multitude of questions about their own mental health (A list of questions that reveal some form of depression). One question could be: Does parental depression predict an individual’s level of depression?

Remember that you can tweak your question as we move forward, but it will benefit you greatly to spend time now deciding a direction for your project.

The requirement of this assignment is to: select a dataset (also include information about why it is interesting to you), discuss potential research questions, and copy and paste the relevant components of the codebook into a document. (This will help you keep organized in the coming weeks, it is likely you will need to update it as your project and research question evolve). If applicable, let us know whether you are having trouble picking a topic or have any other concerns about how to move forward.

Sample Submission:

After looking through the codebook for the NESARC study, I have decided that I am particularly interested in studying family background and depression. Examining mental health and trying to understand contributing factors to depression is something that I explored during my summer internship. While the internship focused on activity level and depression, I was always interested how parental figure’s own depression (either biologically or through interactions) may contribute to their child’s own depression in adulthood.

My personal codebook includes all questions in the NESARC study that give me information about mother and father depression and also includes some signs of an individual’s own depression:

S4BQ1BLOOD/NATURAL FATHER EVER DEPRESSED?
41261. Yes
321922. No
67759. Unknown
S4BQ2BLOOD/NATURAL MOTHER EVER DEPRESSED?
71341. Yes
314482. No
45119. Unknown
S4CQ1HAD 2+ YEARS WHEN MOOD WAS LOW, SAD OR DEPRESSED MOST OF THE DAY MORE THAN HALF THE TIME
23991. Yes
395102. No
12449. Unknown
S4CQ3A1OFTEN LOST APPETITE
12921. Yes
10132. No
349. Unknown
40754BL – never had 2+ years of low mood
S4CQ3A2OFTEN FOUND WANTED TO EAT MORE THAN USUAL FOR NO SPECIAL REASON
8051. Yes
15052. No
299. Unknown
40754BL – never had 2+ years of low mood
S4CQ3A3OFTEN HAD TROUBLE GETTING TO SLEEP, FALLING ASLEEP, OR WAKING UP TOO EARLY
16131. Yes
7012. No
259. Unknown
40754BL – never had 2+ years of low mood
S4CQ3A4OFTEN SLEPT MORE THAN USUAL
11771. Yes
11342. No
289. Unknown
40754BL – never had 2+ years of low mood

Please note you can have as few as two codebook items in your personal codebook or multiple pages of your personal codebook.