IRS Research Proposal

IRS  2012

      INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROPOSAL

STUDENT NAME  Sean Low Ryan Choo Emmanuel Kasman Sunny Deshpande	SCHOOL/TEAM SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, SINGAPORE
MENTOR Mr Ng Guo Hui	PROGRAMME/INSTITUTION INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROPOSAL

TITLE OF PROJECT An investigation of the factors that result in the increase in the number if teen smokers
CATEGORY		Environmental Science   Medicine & Health ( x )	Others: Teen smokers
PURPOSE OF RESEARCH  (a) For scientific investigations Hypothesis / Engineering Goals : Peer pressure, Curiosity, Nicotine Independent variable: Factors that results in teens smoking Dependent variable: Number of teen smokers Constants: Subject of test/ Sample size (b) For social sciences/exploratory research Aims of research: To find out all the causes and root causes of teen smokers so that we can prevent teen smokers by steering our campaign and educations to counter the factors of tees smoking, hopefully reducing the number of teen smokers Subject(s) of study: Teens who do not smoke- for their hypothesis on the factors which cause teens to smoke. Smoking teens- to find out why they started smoking and what would make them quit.
RELEVANCY OF RESEARCH Why is your research important? It should help teens in the future not take up and get addicted to smoking How does it contribute to existing body of knowledge? The current body of knowledge has not gone this in depth to find out the root cause of the problem. thus, only solving part of the problem. Our research goes down deep to find out the root cause of the problem. removing the problem once and for all. How does your research contribute to/impact the society or community? It reduces the number of teen smokers, reducing the number of teens going astray.
SCOPE OF RESEARCH  The "scope" section is where you list what you are doing. The "bounds" section is where you set the boundaries and you list some thing explicitly that you are not doing because they are outside the bounds of the project.  Our Scope of research:
LITERATURE REVIEW What are the current research available/ you have come across? National environment agency, ministry of health, ministry of education, Wikipedia Summarise the research articles that you have encountered which may be useful to your research             We found out that most of the research articles that were on the net said that the causes are due to teen pressure, media, curiosity. But all of their conclusions are based on experts studies, not the teen smokers themselves.
METHODOLOGY  Procedures How are you going to gather data? We will gather data through survey and interview from those who do not smoke and those who smoke. By finding the root cause of the of the problem, we can better focus the resources to counter the root causes. This will help prevent countless teens from going astray. How are you going to collate data? We will collate data via graphs and finding out the most common cause of them smoking.  How are you going to sift and sort data i.e. which data is important? By using graphs and sifting out the important questions and paying more attention to then answers.    a) We are going to gather data by asking Teens probably from the ages of 13 -18 and ask them what are the reasons why teens smoke and for the smokers we are going to ask them what are the reasons of them smoking. We are going to ask them whether they think that smoking as a teenager is acceptable. Data Analysis How are you going to analyse the data? We will give them a questionnaire and then review the answers given by the people who we interview. How are you going to present the data? We will present the data in a graph, sorting out the common from rare answers Bibliography NEA Homesite: http://app2.nea.gov.sg/index.aspx Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org
RISK ASSESSMENT List/identify the hazardous chemicals, activities, or devices that will be used.  Paper, Pencil, Clipboard. Identify and assess the risks involved. The smoking teens that we interview might be violent and injure us, but I believe that as long as we remain tactful with comments, we will be safe. Describe the safety precautions and procedures that will be used to reduce the risks. Having an adult with us.
DESIRED OUTCOMES/SKILL ACQUISITION ICT skills Applied Learning skills 21st century skills  The Scientific Method  Inter-disciplinary Research