Abstract
There has been an increasing need for quality care for the aging population in this society. This makes professional caregivers very important in this society. Caregivers in this society play a vital role in offering quality care to the aging population. The African American caregivers form a section of caregivers in this country that has played a major role in the development of care centers in various parts of this country. This research will take a qualitative approach. The participants will be selected through stratified sampling. Analysis of data will take a descriptive approach.
Research Topic
Choosing a relevant topic is one of the most important steps that come before starting a research process. In this research proposal, the chosen topic will be African American Caregivers. The importance of caregivers in American society has increasingly become important, especially for the aged. According to Bajjaly (2009), the need to care for the aging population in this country has become more pronounced in the recent past. Scholars have been researching their relevance and effectiveness in offering quality care to this population. The research will try to focus on the activities of caregivers in the United States, with a special focus on African American Caregivers.
Research Questions
In research, it is always important to define a research question that would define the path to be taken in the collection of data. According to Braithwaite (2007), research questions always act as a compass that gives direction to the path that should be taken when gathering data. It helps research discern data available in the field, and only chooses that which is relevant to the research. Given the qualitative nature of this research, the following question was considered appropriate.
How effective are the African American caregivers in offering quality care to the aging population within this society?
The above research question is descriptive. It seeks a clear description of the effectiveness of the African Americans in offering quality care to the old members of the American society. This research question is justified in this research because it helps in offering insight into the role and effectiveness of African American caregivers in taking care of the aged in this society.
Review of Literature
According to Marlow (2011), the need to care for the old is a tradition that has been in existence for many years. This scholar says that it reaches a moment when the aged cannot take care of themselves because of their age. When this happens, it becomes necessary for other stronger members of society to offer them care. Traditionally, the old were taken care of by members of their families. However, there has been a worrying trend in the recent past where family members fail to take care of this group. Some people reach old age without having a family of their own. In such cases, the aged suffer physically and emotionally (Jacon, 2012). They lead pathetic lives where no one cares for their well-being. For those who are lucky to have a stable family, most of their family members have failed to offer them the much-needed quality care either because of ignorance on how to care for the aged, or lack of goodwill from them. As Burger (2014) notes, it would be necessary to find a way in which this group can be offered quality care, including health care services.
Methodology
In every research, it is important to choose the research method that would yield the desired result using the available resources. In this research, the qualitative research method was considered appropriate as it would facilitate a description of the effectiveness of African American caregivers in offering quality care to the aged. Qualitative research methods, also known as descriptive research, are always necessary when the research question demands a description of something, or a comparison (Anastas, 2012). In this research, the chosen research question requires both a description and a comparison of the variables. There is a need to describe how effective the African American caregivers are in this society. To offer effective descriptions, there is a need to compare them with other subgroups in this society. This can be achieved when the research takes the qualitative approach to data analysis. This guided the choice of a qualitative research method in the analysis of the collected data.
Participants’ Selection
The selection of the research participants is important because the research depends on their responses to obtain the needed primary data. It is necessary to find the right participants who are used as a sample of the entire population under investigation (Foss & Waters, 2007). The sampled participants must be able to give data that can be generalized to the entire population. In selecting the participants, a stratified sampling method would be used because it would help identify different subgroups among the entire population under investigation. A stratified sampling method would enhance the ability to identify the subgroups among the African American caregivers. The sub-groups can be classified in terms of age, religious beliefs, or any other demographical factors that can make one group behave differently from another group. After identifying different strata, simple random sampling would be used to pick participants from the different strata. This would help identify the most appropriate participants for the research. Obtaining consent from the participants would be necessary before the onset of the research. The researcher would send a letter to the sample population about the relevance of the research and the confidentiality with which their information would be treated. The research will be conducted only among those who give consent to the research. Those who fail to give their consent will be replaced by the more willing group.
Data Collection Method
Data collection is a critical stage in the process of conducting the research. The first approach would be through a review of the literature to collect secondary sources of data. Secondary data sources are important in developing the hypothesis of the research (Hennink, Hutter & Bailey, 2011). They present a body of language that helps in further understanding the field. This data is important because it has already been refined and presented in a way that is easy to understand. The second method would be the use of interviews. The researcher will conduct the interviews with the help of questionnaires to collect primary data. The questionnaires will be sent to the willing participants. They will fill the forms and then return them electronically. The collected data will be analyzed qualitatively based on the research question. The types of questions that will be asked will focus on finding the effectiveness of African American caregivers. Some of these questions are given in the appendix below.
Ethical Concerns
Some ethical concerns should be addressed by concerned individuals in this research. The research was faced with several obstacles that needed ethical concerns. One such concern is the name of the project. In this report, it was considered necessary to determine the effectiveness of the African American caregivers in this society. The approach taken would be considered an ethical problem. The approach of analyzing the effectiveness of African Americans is discriminatory. The approach compares closely to a scenario where different groups of the society are considered superior over other groups. Although this may be necessary, it is a factor that may bring division in society. It would make the society members start thinking along the ethical line. This is ethically wrong. It creates the perception that one ethnic group is superior to others in offering care to the aging population. This may facilitate racial discrimination in this country.
Limitations of Research Proposal
In research, it is important to identify some of the existing limitations to address them as early as possible at the proposal stage. Some of the limitations of this research proposal have been identified as the nature of the research topic. American society has experienced discrimination against blacks for a very long time. There has been a struggle by human rights groups to shake away this social evil and their effort has yielded positive fruits. This research proposal is focusing on the effectiveness of African Americans in offering quality care to the old members of society. This means that it may not be possible to avoid comparing them with other ethnic groups such as the Whites. This may be considered as an approach that facilitates discrimination along ethnic lines.
Conclusion
The need to offer quality care to the aging population has been on the rise in American society. African American caregivers have been actively engaged in offering quality healthcare to this population. In this research, the focus was on how effective African Americans are in offering quality healthcare. The research will use qualitative methods in data analysis. The participants in the research will be selected using a stratified sampling approach. The researcher will also maintain ethics when collecting and analyzing data.
References
Anastas, J. (2012). Research Design for Social Work and the Human Services. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bajjaly, S. (2009). The community networking handbook. Chicago: American Library Association.
Braithwaite, J. (2007). Regulating Aged Care: Ritualism and the New Pyramid. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishers.
Burger, W. (2014). Human services in contemporary America. Belmont: Brooks.
Foss, S. K., & Waters, W. (2007). Destination dissertation: A traveler’s guide to a done dissertation. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hennink, M., Hutter, I., & Bailey, A. (2011). Qualitative research methods. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.
Jacon, S. L. (2012). Research methods and statistics: A critical thinking approach. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Marlow, C. (2011). Research methods for generalist social work. Belmont: Thomson Brooks.