Set-Up Yellowdig

This courses uses Yellowdig for all discussion assignments. Before posting, you must visit this link at least once to ensure your Yellowdig discussion activity syncs with the course’s gradebook. All learners, regardless of previous experience with Yellowdig, must complete this step to automatically receive a discussion grade.

SET-UP YELLOWDIG GRADE SYNC

 

Each discussion in this course has a couple of questions that may ask you to apply your readings, use new skills, identify additional outside sources, reflect on how content applies to you, or give you an opportunity to talk about what interests you most. You may choose one to respond to each week or you could post your own content related to the concept for the week.

Take the multiple-choice quiz to gauge your understanding of the material presented in Week 1.

Daily Bonus: Thursday

Log in every day, Monday through Friday, for a new question.

Each question is worth 1 point of extra credit, and gives you a chance to practice material and learn more about the course.

GO TO DAILY BONUS QUESTION

 

About the Assignments in This Course

In this course, you will learn the basics of research methodology and its application.

Each week will allow you to understand the specific elements of research that comprise proper research methods. You will use that knowledge and apply it to each of the assignments. There is a research topic that covers all three assignments – first generation college students and resilience at a four-year university.

• In Week 3, you are presented with a research matrix assignment. This assignment provides a detailed understanding of research methods as they have been applied to published research. You will need to identify the methods in the research articles and populate the research matrix with the corresponding content.
• The research matrix assignment in Week 6 provides you with an opportunity to further demonstrate your understanding of the components of a research study.
• The final assignment can be found in Week 9. This assignment calls for developing a research proposal outline. The outline has been set up for you as a PowerPoint file. Main headings and subheadings are included. You will add the main points for each of the subheadings. This is not a narrative-driven assignment; therefore, you will be expected to be thorough, clear, and concise, while delivering a presentation-style assignment.

New Doctoral Learner Resources

These resources will be helpful to you as you navigate your new role as a researcher, and in this course. You may want to bookmark them for later reference.

• Capella University Library.
• Program Library Research Guides.
• Reviewing the Literature.
• How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?
• Anatomy of a Scholarly Article.
• Tour the Library.
• Research and Scholarship.
• Doctoral Resources and Support.
• PhD Dissertation Research in Education.
• SoE PhD Programs of Research [PDF].
• Library Help.

Readings

• Use your Creswell and Creswell text, Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, to read the following:
  • Chapter 1, “The Selection of a Research Approach,” pages 3–22.
• The Course Study Guide [PDF] highlights content to focus on as you read and absorb the materials. You may also find some additional articles with direct relevance to your field in the guide.

 

This course uses a tool called Yellowdig to facilitate course discussions. Yellowdig provides an interface that resembles social media platforms and makes it easy to participate in discussions.

A Yellowdig account has been automatically created for you. The first time you access a Yellowdig discussion, you will be asked to acknowledge and confirm your account. Note: You will have the best experience using Yellowdig with the Google Chrome browser.

To learn more about using Yellowdig, visit Tools and Resources. You can also explore the Yellowdig Forums page on Campus.

If you have trouble getting connected to the Yellowdig discussion boards, contact Capella Technical Support.

Grading in Yellowdig

Yellowdig uses a unique discussion points grading system. In this course, points will be given as follows:

• Initial post of 50 or more words: 40 points.
• Comment (response) of 30 words or more on at least two learners’ posts is required: 40 points for each response.

Additional points may be awarded by your instructor in the form of accolades (badges).

You can earn a maximum of 120 points each week. Once you reach that maximum, you can still continue your conversations on Yellowdig, but you’ll stop earning points for the week.

Your final discussion participation grade will be based on the total number of points you have earned throughout the course. If you earn the maximum of 1000 points possible for the course, your final discussion participation grade will be 100%.

Checking Your Progress

To help you stay on track, Yellowdig calculates how many points you should try to earn each week to ensure you finish the course with a top grade. You can find this information by clicking on the points dashboard area of Yellowdig (on the left-hand menu within the tool).

Your participation grade in your courseroom My Grades area will be updated by Yellowdig throughout the day. Each week it will account for the points you could accumulate that week as well as the points you already have. So, do not be surprised if your grade changes; you’ll get used to the pattern in a few weeks.

Instead, focus on the points displayed in Yellowdig. If you are hitting your maximum points each week, you are good. In fact, you are more than good! Aim for at least 100 points each week to stay on track.

Using Yellowdig

Yellowdig is designed to take a less formal approach to discussing course content. Think of it as a playground for ideas. We still expect you to use APA style for citations and references. However, we want you to focus on writing short, succinct posts about the course content rather than lengthy essays.

Try to start a conversation on the new topics you learn each week. Also share additional resources with one another to help everyone better understand and explore new ideas.

This is an environment designed to give you flexibility and control. Take advantage of that to learn in the manner best suited to you.

Yellowdig Features

• You can like or love each other’s posts.
• You can use hashtags.
• You can filter what you see (icon on the top of the screen).
• You can use the sort function (icon on the top of the screen) to control the order of the posts.
• Weekly points (on the left) will tell you how many points you’ve earned that week. Aim for at least 100 points each week to stay on track.
• You can embed outside resources like videos, pictures, and links.
• You can create polls or videos from within your post while you are writing it.

PLAN: WRITING PROFESSIONALLY

As a graduate learner—and in your future as a professional with an advanced degree—you are expected to write in a professional manner. Writing is a skill that you can always improve. You are encouraged to visit the Capella Writing Center – Evidence and APA to learn more about academic and professional writing. Along with an abundance of information on writing skills, the site also offers the Writing Center Self-Assessment.

Part of writing professionally is writing honestly. Plagiarism is a serious and egregious offense, and it is your responsibility to avoid it. To understand more about plagiarism, read Maintaining Academic Honesty. To learn more about writing with integrity, you are also required to read the following Campus pages:

• Academic Honesty and APA Style and Formatting.
• Stages of Writing.
• Note-Taking Methods.
• In-Text Citations.
• Avoiding Plagiarism.
• Why Plagiarism Happens.

In addition, you may find these resources helpful when citing a resource. A persistent link is not the same as the link in the browser’s URL and will help others find your references.

• Persistent Links and DOIs.

APA Style

Capella learners are expected to follow the scholarly writing guidelines from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, also known as the APA manual. Capella offers resources to help you learn this style.

You will probably refer most often to the following from Academic Writer:

• Under Learn > Quick Guides > Citing Sources, “Citing References in Text.”
• Under Learn > Tutorials > Writing, “How to Avoid Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism.”
• Under Learn, see the Sample References tab.

Academic Writer has additional guidance, examples, and tools you can use for researching, writing, and formatting your papers and for citing and referencing resources in APA style. See the Evidence and APA section of the Writing Center for more information as well.

Write Your Discussion Post

Remember that this course uses a tool called Yellowdig to facilitate discussions. See the study introducing Yellowdig in this week for more information.

For help using Yellowdig, please see Using Yellowdig [PDF] or Grading in Yellowdig [PDF]. Or visit Yellowdig Forums, Capella’s Campus support page for Yellowdig, with links for technical support.​

Begin practicing the use of APA style for citations and references. All information that is not your opinion or experience should have a citation to show the reader where the fact came from and then a reference at the end of the post.

Discussion Question

This week is about the various philosophical worldviews researchers utilize to help guide their choice of research methodology. Each worldview reflects assumptions about the benefits research can bring to society. Please post something to the discussion board related to the content covered this week.

Note: Do not create your post as a reply to the pinned post. Instead, use Yellowdig’s Create option to create a new post. Label your post with the hashtag for the week (#Week1) so that others can sort posts by the week’s topic.

Here are some ideas for your post to get you started:

• Discuss your personal preference of the four philosophical worldviews; which do you gravitate to and why?
• After completing the readings for this week, share which reading most interested you or you felt was most immediately relevant to your own professional or academic career.

Response Guidelines

As you respond to your classmates, share your experiences and anecdotal feedback regarding their posts. How have your personal experiences resonated with their ideas? What can you add to their ideas, building upon the connections you have made to the material so far? Consider exploring the features of Yellowdig, such as your ability to embed videos and pictures, create polls and videos, use hashtags, love or like a post, and so on.

GO TO YELLOWDIG DISCUSSION BOARD

Take the Quiz

In this course, you have been introduced to new concepts related to research methods. This multiple-choice quiz will gauge your understanding of the material presented in Week 1. The following competencies will be covered in this quiz:

• Analyze the methodology used in scientific research.

Please carefully read the following instructions before beginning the quiz:

• You must complete and submit the quiz by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Central time.
• You may take the quiz three times. Do not open and close the quiz to return to it later, as this will end the quiz session.
• This quiz is not timed, but once you submit the quiz, you may not go back and change any of your responses.
• Your score is automatically recorded in the instructor’s grade book upon completion of the quiz.
• Your score and the correct answers will be accessible to you after you have completed the quiz and your score is recorded.
• This quiz is worth 2% of your overall grade for the course. There are 5 questions each worth 20 points for a total of 100 points possible.

Click the linked quiz title to access the quiz. If you have any issues with the quiz, contact your instructor.