Students are required to write a 5-page paper, double spaced and in Times New Roman scriipt, font 11. Students will choose a topic related to health care. I have listed some topics at the end of this document. Every student will have their own topic and no student will be working on the same topic. This means that students who pick first will have an advantage.
Each paper will be comprised of the following segments:
• Introduction: This is where students explain the objective or aim of the paper in 1 paragraph. Some topics listed above are broader than others, like the Veterans Affair System. Students can use this section to define clearly what they seek to study.
Depending upon the exact topic, students can decide more than one outcome variable. In that case, students need to highlight the general theme of the paper. For instance, we can have two papers on Veterans Affair System from two students. One student can analyze access to care and prices, while the other paper chooses to look at quality of care for individuals going through the VA system. Students need to think clearly what they want the paper to talk about and whether there is enough materials available in the literature to help them synthesize a 5 page paper.
• Background: Explain the institutional details and policy details relevant to the topic. So, if someone is talking about the Veterans Affair System, they have to explain what the system is and how it looks like.
• Literature Review & Discussion of Results: This is the main component of the paper.
Students need to do a thorough literature review and detail what is already known about the topic. Use this segment to discuss what is known and how the researchers get to their conclusions. Also, make sure to write a few sentences describing the main results of these papers. I would select the results carefully because you won’t have enough space to discuss more than 1 or 2 paper results. Conducting a good literature review is dependent on whether the student has defined the topic properly. If the topic is poorly defined, it will show up in the literature review. If the topic is too narrow, students will not have enough studies to conduct a decent literature review to meet the standards. If the topic is too broad, the paper will appear haphazard and confusing. Students should have approximately 5 sources to discuss their topic. All sources need to be academic (peer reviewed) and cited according to APA citation rules.
• Reflection: This should be 1 or two paragraphs long. Students use this segment to discuss what is not known about the topic. They can refer to studies presented in the literature review and discuss limitations of the papers. A good reflection will require students to do some independent research and illustrate the gaps in knowledge regarding their topic.
What would you want to look at and why? What would you need to be able to analyze your questions?