Research method

by | May 8, 2025 | Economics

 

Imagine you are the principal of a local public school. You experienced a higher than usual amount of turnover with your teaching staff. You want to implement a program to support the new teachers in hopes of improving teaching staff retention.

Preparation
Develop a research question you would like to answer about how to improve work-life balance at your school.

Choose either an experimental or non-experimental method to study your question.

Respond to each of the following prompts in 75-100 words each.
Question 1
30 PointsState your research question.
Question 2
30 PointsDescribe how the method you chose is experimental or non-experimental.
Question 3
30 PointsExplain why the method makes a positive difference in studying your question.

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

Here are my responses to your prompts, acting as the principal of the local public school:

Question 1:

My research question is: Does the implementation of a flexible scheduling program, allowing new teachers to choose their preferred start and end times within a set window, significantly improve their reported levels of work-life balance and intent to remain at the school after one academic year, compared to new teachers following a standardized schedule?

Question 2:

The method I would choose to study this question is quasi-experimental. This is a non-experimental method because I cannot randomly assign new teachers to the flexible scheduling program or the standardized schedule group. The implementation of the flexible scheduling program would likely be offered as an option that new teachers can voluntarily participate in, rather than a condition they are randomly assigned to. This lack of random assignment means pre-existing differences between the groups could influence the outcomes, making it difficult to definitively establish a causal link between the scheduling program and the results

Here are my responses to your prompts, acting as the principal of the local public school:

Question 1:

My research question is: Does the implementation of a flexible scheduling program, allowing new teachers to choose their preferred start and end times within a set window, significantly improve their reported levels of work-life balance and intent to remain at the school after one academic year, compared to new teachers following a standardized schedule?

Question 2:

The method I would choose to study this question is quasi-experimental. This is a non-experimental method because I cannot randomly assign new teachers to the flexible scheduling program or the standardized schedule group. The implementation of the flexible scheduling program would likely be offered as an option that new teachers can voluntarily participate in, rather than a condition they are randomly assigned to. This lack of random assignment means pre-existing differences between the groups could influence the outcomes, making it difficult to definitively establish a causal link between the scheduling program and the results

Question 3:

This quasi-experimental method makes a positive difference in studying my question because it allows for the real-world implementation of a potentially beneficial intervention without the logistical and ethical challenges of randomly assigning new staff to different working conditions. By comparing the work-life balance and retention rates of those who choose the flexible schedule to those who adhere to the standard schedule, I can gather practical data on the perceived impact of this program in our specific school environment. While not establishing strict causality like a true experiment, the findings can still provide valuable insights into whether offering flexible scheduling is associated with improved work-life balance and increased teacher retention, informing future policy decisions for supporting our new teaching staff.

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