Male Underrepresentation in Higher Learning Education in the US

Guiding Principles for the Final Term Paper

The final term paper is aimed at preparing you for your future career, whether in academics or elsewhere, where you would be asked to initiate and execute original studies on public policy by yourself (and sit in judgment on similar studies by others). You are required to conduct original research (with an emphasis on quantitative aspects of it) on some particular issue in higher education, and present the results in the form of a paper. The paper will try to build on the tools and skills you have mastered during this and other courses. Of course, for many of you this might be the first time that you are undertaking a research project by yourself, and our job is to assist you in the process. Please feel free to contact me anytime if you need any advice, or encounter any obstacles, while on this project. The grade for the final paper only depends on the quality of the paper. You can work on any topic relating to higher education – either in the US, or elsewhere in the world. Also, you have to analyze some data – though of course you do not need to run regressions. For example, you can have a paper which looks like the Winston paper we read for the first assignment – logical reasoning accompanied by charts and tables. I will be happy to assist you in the process of finding relevant data.

Format

• 12 point, Times New Roman font

• Line spacing of 1.5.

• 1-inch margins on all sides

• Numbered pages

• The main text should be around15 pages

• References, tables and charts are extra and not included in the page limit. (You may put in a data appendix if you want, but it is not necessary.)

• APA style of citation for references (in which you refer to sources by inserting parentheses in the text giving the author, date of publication, and the relevant page if necessary) and then list all the sources alphabetically on a References page at the end of the paper. When citing an author with two or more publications in a given year, distinguish them with letters after the date e.g. 1999a, 1999b.

• Minimum Citation number: At least 15

2 Contents of the Paper

The contents of the paper should generally include the following.

Title Page with Abstract

This should include the title of the paper, your name, contact address, acknowledgements, disclaimer, etc. Also include an abstract, in about 150 to 200 words, summarizing what your study is about, how you approach the topic, and your findings.

Motivation/Background

Here you should set up the issue – the particular area and question in education that you focus on – and discuss why it is important and interesting. You may also want to mention if your findings might have some policy relevance in the real world.

Literature review

A summary of the previous literature, including references to any debates or disagreements. You should ideally link your own proposed research to this literature, discussing what your own contribution will be. (Later, after you present results from your analysis, you should discuss the importance of your findings vis-a-vis the existing literature.)

Data

Discuss the data set in some detail – where did you get it from, how it was collected and for what purpose, why it is an important source for your current evaluation (that is, whether it has any special features that make it particularly appealing to your study), etc.

Research design/Theoretical framework

This does not mean mathematical or algebraic equations- just that you should discuss the underlying analytical framework behind your research. For example, you may want to look at the effects of attending community colleges. You should then discuss what the possible effects might be – on completion, transfer to a 4-year college, additional years of schooling, etc.

Research design/Empirical framework

You briefly describe the statistical methods that you will be using. For example, this might be correlation analysis or regression analysis if you will be looking at the relationships between some variables.) 3 (For those of you who are familiar with regression analysis and want to apply that method, you should describe the regression equations that you wish to run with the data – that is, your dependent and independent variables. For every independent variable, mention the expected sign (or if the expected sign is ambiguous due to multiple factors being at work.) You should discuss your methodology clearly at this point – e.g. if you have a 0-1 binary variable as your independent variable, you should say whether you are running an OLS, or a probit, etc.)

Results/Discussion and Interpretation

Discuss your results, step-by-step. Pay attention not only to the signs of the coefficient, but also their magnitudes. Then take a bird’s eye-view approach, and discuss the overall importance of your results. Finally, compare and contrast these results with earlier work in the literature.

Limitations/Directions for Future Research

Not so much a statement on your ability or effort, but what you might have been able to done if you had infinite resources, either in terms of time or data. In other words, talk about what the next researcher in this area should try to address. Conclusions Just a wrap-up of what you have been doing. Make it short and concise, unless you want to highlight some interesting fact or extension.

Grading

It is difficult to lay down the exact rules of grading, particularly when each of you is working on a separate topic. But you will be evaluated on the quality of the paper, in the sense of whether you are able to make a “coherent” case for the particular analysis you are doing. (For example, whether you are looking at the proper variables, whether you have tried to account for confounding factors, whether you are drawing the correct conclusions, etc.) Please don’t feel pressured to apply techniques that you may not be familiar with – for example, just applying regression analysis does not give you any extra points. The aim is to evaluate you on the basis of what you have learned in this particular course, not on the skills that you already had when you started – just as we believe that colleges should be evaluated on the basis of what their students learn, not according to how meritorious those students were when they joined. Generally, we shall try to stick to the following principles. An interesting topic or question, particularly one which is relatively original, together with a competent and comprehensive 4 analysis (along the lines described above), will earn you an A. You will receive an A- if your performance approximates an A standard but falls somewhat short on one or two dimensions. Similarly for the other grades. Note that the grade for the paper not only reflects the work you have put in, but also takes into account things like the importance and relevance of your topic, the value added of your study, the empirical methodology (how convincing the results are going to be), etc.