HBC201 Young children and toddlers staring intently at the screens of mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablets): Research Methods for the Social and Behavioural Sciences Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

Case Study
Young children and toddlers staring intently at the screens of mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablets) for hours has become a common sight nowadays. This is a worrying trend.

A collaborative research study comprising researchers from the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Institute of Clinical Sciences has found an association between excessive screen time and negative effects on brain development among children.

Through a longitudinal cohort study, the research team reported a dose-response relationship where the longer a child’s screen time during infancy, the poorer his cognitive functioning later during childhood. This effect has been shown to persist even after the child turns eight.

The researchers said that their study’s findings are important as it concerns the development of the future generation of Singapore. They also highlighted the need to examine underlying factors that could explain the excessive screen time among young children.

Suppose the Singapore government would like to know more about excessive screen time among children in Singapore. You are tasked to submit a research proposal that will elaborate on how you can apply relevant concepts and research methods to study the topic. Your proposal should be written as an essay and include the following five parts.

(a) Title and Abstract of Research Proposal Propose
a title that fits your research proposal. Also, include an abstract that properly describes and summarises your proposed study. The abstract must not exceed 150 words.

 Both the title and abstract should be included in your total word count.
 The title should clearly indicate what your proposed study is about.

(b) Background and Literature Review
Examine relevant literature on an issue related to excessive screen time among children that you would like to study. Analyse the identified literature, examine the research methods used in the existing studies, and critique the strengths or weaknesses of these studies.
Following your literature review, you should propose a specific and clear research question that you would like to study. The research question should be about excessive screen time among children in Singapore. You should also discuss the importance of the study you have proposed.

You can choose to study any topic related to excessive screen time among children in Singapore. The key is that you clearly describe the topic you would like to study based on your literature review. Examples of possible topics include the following: factors that may contribute to excessive screen time among children in Singapore, effects of excessive screen time among children in Singapore, impact of a specific intervention that aims to reduce excessive screen time among children in Singapore, etc.
For your literature review, you need to include at least five academic journal articles that are relevant to the topic of your choice. It is acceptable if one or more journal articles that you have selected are not done in Singapore. The key is that you should explain explicitly how the selected journal articles inform your proposed research.

n your literature review, you should critically evaluate the strengths or weaknesses of the selected journal articles, rather than merely present the methods or findings of these previous studies in a descriptive manner. Based on your literature review, discuss the importance of the study you propose, such as how your proposed study addresses a specific limitation of the past studies, any theoretical or practical contribution(s) your research finding(s) may make, etc.
(c) Research Design
Apply relevant concepts and propose a research design to address your research question with respect to the following aspects: (i) explain whether you plan to use a quantitative or qualitative method and why, (ii) briefly describe your proposed method and discuss critical elements in your research procedure, and (iii) discuss possible threats to the validity of your research and
explain how you will address these threats.

You should first explain whether you plan to use a quantitative or qualitative method. Provide at least two reasons to explain why you choose one method over another. If you choose to use both quantitative and qualitative methods, provide at least two reasons to justify your choice too.
Next, discuss the critical elements in the research procedure. You are required to at least describe your sampling strategy, data collection method(s), and procedure of data collection.
For sampling strategy, at a minimum specify the population your study targets (for example, children between the ages of 1 and 10), the number of participants you will recruit, and how you will recruit participants for your study.
For data collection method(s), if you choose to use a quantitative method, you need to include the survey. If you choose to use a qualitative method, you need to include the interview (either semi-structured interview or focus group) questions. You should explain clearly whether you plan to develop the survey/interview questions from  scratch, use existing survey/interview questions, or adapt existing survey/interview questions to study your research question. You need to include all survey or interview questions that you propose to use in the Appendix.
Describe the procedure of administering the survey or conducting interviews
You should also discuss at least two possible concerns in the use of survey or interview method that may threaten the validity of your research. Explain how you will address these concerns.

(d) Ethical Issues
Recognise and appreciate at least two ethical issues in your proposed study that concern research participants. Discuss action(s) you will take to address each issue, to ensure that your proposed study will be conducted ethically.

The two ethical issues that concern research participants (for example, protection of participants’ autonomy) should be discussed specifically in the context of your proposed study.
(e) Limitations of Research
Discuss at least two limitations of your proposed study in understanding the chosen topic about excessive screen time among children in Singapore.
Examples of possible limitations you can discuss include: the planned sampling strategy, limitations in the chosen data collection method(s), etc. The discussion should focus on limitations of the chosen methodology to address the research question of your proposal and should be limitations that cannot be resolved in your proposed study.

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