This methodology chapter outlines a comprehensive research design for investigating how abortion restrictions affect women's mental health. The study proposes using quota and purposive sampling techniques to recruit 1000-5000 women from populations affected by abortion policies. Through a cross-sectional design with structured surveys, the research aims to measure mental health outcomes as the dependent variable while examining abortion denial rates and restrictive state laws as independent variables.
SOCIOLOGY
Sociology: How Do Abortion Restrictions Affect Women’s Mental Health?
Methodology
Sampling
The sample would be based on an infinite population of women being affected by the policy on abortion bans (Kozak, 2008). The females would be selected based on quota and purposive sampling. The sample is selected by specifically setting a criterion and having certain characteristics (Martinez-Mesa et al., 2016), such as women being pregnant or being on the verge of deciding for an abortion. The preferred sample size would be between 1000 to 5000 females.
Variables
The dependent variable in the current study would be ‘mental health.’ The measurement level of this variable would be interval. For example, a survey sample question to measure this variable could be “Do you think the government law can protect the pregnancy after rape?”
The first independent variable would be ‘higher chance of being denied an abortion’ for which the measurement level would be ordinal. For example, a survey sample question to measure this variable could be “Do you think the government would allow freedom to choose abortion if it resulted from rape?”
The second independent variable in this study would be ‘states with restrictive abortion laws’ for which the measurement level would be either ordinal or nominal. For example, a survey sample question to measure this variable could be “Do you think the restrictive of the state would allow abortion if it resulted from rape?”
Research Design
The study would be based on a cross-sectional design. This design is the one in which participants are exposed to certain circumstances, and the outcomes are measured by the investigator (Setia, 2016). Since the participants are selected based on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, the exposure to change of laws would determine the psychological effects on the female participants.
Certain steps are involved in a cross-sectional design study; the first step would be reaching out to the selected sample participants within the population. The second step would be getting approval from Institutional Review Board (IRB), the third step would be sending an online survey to the targeted sample, the fourth step would be the time duration given to the participants to fill out those surveys for which two months is deemed to be a suitable time, the fifth step is about sending out reminders to the participants for filling of the survey for which every two weeks would be an apt time gap, the sixth step concerns the input of data into a database after the survey responses have been collected back. This is a crucial step where the response data is thoroughly checked if any data is missing. The last and seventh step would be getting ready for further analysis.
The remaining sections cover Conclusions. Subscribe for $1 to unlock the full paper, plus 130,000+ paper examples and the PaperDue AI writing assistant — all included.
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