Quantitative Reasoning - Public-Service Announcement - Paper

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Identify a target audience and information related to a trauma-based issue in their community.
  • Acquire specific numerical data from reliable public sources to support a public service announcement.
  • Interpret the data in such a way as to narrate a "state of affairs" related to this issue.
  • Develop graphic representations of the data that are useful to the public.
  • Provide an analysis of potential faults and assumptions associated with the data.

Instructions

This particular activity is going to be completed in two parts. Ultimately your goals is to create an online-delivered "Public-Service Announcement" which will highlight an "issue" related to trauma and/or mental health. Any public-service announcement, however, needs to be supported by data.

This first part of the assignment will have you identify the "issue" that you wish to focus on and gather data from reliable statistical sources in order to provide validity to your public-service announcement presentation.

Possible Topics

When considering your potential topics keep in mind the focus of this course. Psychosocial events happen that result in traumatic experiences for individuals. The goal of your public-service announcement is to raise awareness of the extent of the issue and its various "costs" on our culture and society. The point is to raise awareness of your audience as to the impact of specific events on others. Topics that might be interesting to explore may include, but are not limited to, any of the following:

  • The impact of unemployment on substance abuse, family violence, suicide, depression, and other mental health issues.
  • The impact of poverty on substance abuse, etc. etc. (closely related to the unemployment issue).
  • The impact of mental illness on employment.
  • The impact of mental illness on crime.
  • The impact of mental illness on violence.
  • The impact of bullying on teens.
  • The impact of failing out of high school on young adults.
  • The impact of family violence on education, career, relationships, etc.
  • The impact of military experience on...etc. etc.
  • The impact of having a family member with military experience on...etc. etc.

You will need to get your specific topic approved by your instructor. You will do this using a specific quiz located in the course called "Public-Service Announcement Proposal". In this quiz you will need to answer the following questions.

  1. Name the topic (describe the relationship as they are described in the examples in the project instructions.)
  2. Identify two independent sources of data that you feel will assist in the creation of your public-service announcement.

Gathering Data

The next part of this assignment is to gather specific data to support a public-service announcement. You will need to find valid and reliable sources of statistical data related to the relationship between your two issues (let's say, unemployment and depression).

You will find this data in the research literature and in statistical sources such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census, and even Crime Statistics (depending on your specific topic). It is very likely that you will need to acquire the assistance of our library staff to locate these sources.

Interpreting the Data and Presenting the Numbers

Once you have located the sources of data to support your message you need to construct a paper that outlines and presents the data that you will use in your Public-Service Announcement. The audience for this paper is your instructor (this is very different than the audience of your Public-Service Announcement).

Write the paper using the outline in the rubric below and submit it to the appropriate drop box as an attachment. Remember that the file needs to be in MS Word or PDF format.

Rubric for Writing the PSA Paper

Title Page
 Includes name, course name, semester, date, professor's name, the name of the assignment.
0
Introduction
 Introduce your topic in a 1-paragraph statement. Be sure to include the relationship between the two variables (i.e. identify how the variables impact one another...such as making a general statement like "Bullying in High School increases the likelihood that teens will use drugs such as alcohol or marijuana.")
10
Presentation of Data

This section should be made up of a series of statements of a statistical nature that support the information you provided in the Introduction.

Statements should be in the following format:

Teenagers who have been bullied were found to be 2x more likely to be arrested for the possession of alcohol than their non bullied peers. (Smith, 2011)

This information needs to come directly from your sources but must be paraphrased (do not use direct quotes - put these statements in your own words) and provide an APA formatted in-text citation for your source (as you can see in the example).

There should be a sufficient number of these statements to support your public-service message.
50
Analysis and Assumptions

This section should present a description of summative conclusions you can make from this data. You should also identify specific weaknesses and limitations of the data based on your understanding of how the data was collected.

It is important to have an understanding of the limitations of data. When we use data in a public-service announcement we are making the claim that information collected from one group of people is applicable and "true" to another group of people...this is called "generalization"....there are limits to this and you need to describe those here.
20
References
 Cite all your sources in APA format. This should be the last page of your paper and should be titled "References".
10
Mechanics
 Spelling, punctuation, grammar, syntax, etc.
10