Alcohol misuse in teenagers: Risks, consequences

Alcohol misuse in teenagers: Risks, consequences, and implications of Underage drinking due to peer pressure in schools, communities and the society as a whole.

Paper details:

You are required to develop a portfolio relating to the Assignment topic. The portfolio will be comprised of four elements (2750 words):

– a literature review
– data analysis
– an analysis of the policy
– a reflection on your learning from the elements above leading to a research question and an outline proposal for how primary data could ethically be collected on your topic

You are strongly advised to use this assessment as the basis for developing your Independent Project (the dissertation) that you will undertake in your final year.

Assessment Structure:

Please use the following structure when completing your assessment:
Introduction and background (around 250 words)
This should outline your specific topic and the rationale (why this is an important area) for your focus. Your rationale should include some evidence of the importance of this as a social issue but can also be personal and reflective. You should include additional background context and identify/define key terms.

Reviewing the context

Your review of the context will provide a thorough overview of the topic under consideration and will be comprised of three sections.

Representations of the Assignment question in terms of the policy (around 500 words)

You will present the findings of your documentary analysis (policy documents). You will begin by giving firm reasoning for your selection of sources to review. Examples of firm reasoning include but are not limited to:
– XXX is the key policy document relating to [your topic], as such the content of this document has been analysed to consider……………………
– XXX is the key guidance for professional working [in roles covered by your topic], as such the content of this document has been analyzed to consider…………………
Your findings will likely present keywords and themes from your source(s) and consider the implications of the ways in which these are used in the documents.

What we know about [your topic] from the existing data (around 500 words)

You will present the findings of your analysis of data from official statistics or other appropriate sources (for example, international data from the world bank, UN or UNICEF; or your own analysis of secondary data from surveys available through the UK Data service.
You will likely present a selection of data in a table before discussing what it shows and the implications of this. You will want to select data which helps the reader understand your topic more fully. This could include considering differences by age, gender, ethnicity, and so on. You may want to show change over time or how an event or policy change has impacted on the data.

Literature review (around 1000 words)

You will present a structured approach to searching for relevant research and the selection of articles to include. This will involve discussion of the database (probably discover), the search terms and any inclusion/exclusion criteria used. You will also need to detail any approaches to narrowing down and the process undertaken leading to your final selection of articles.
You should be identifying peer-reviewed journal articles which report on primary and/or secondary research on your topic area. The scale of this assessment means that you should be reviewing somewhere between 8 and 10 peer-reviewed journal articles. You should aim to move beyond description and be analytical in your review.

You will then need to present the findings of your review of the literature. This will include an overview of the research undertaken (methods used, participants involved, theories used, dates undertaken, etc) and the key themes from the findings of these research papers.

Research proposal (around 500 words)

You will reflect on your review of the context and suggest where future research could usefully be focused. You will then state this as a research question and propose an ethically and methodologically appropriate approach to the collection and analysis of data which should enable your question to be answered.

Conclusion (around 250 words)

Summarise and reflect on your learning through the process of developing this portfolio. You may want to outline how you see what you have done here connecting to your final year dissertation or future career aspirations.

References should be a combination of PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES selected from systematic search, other background literature and GOVERNMENT WEBSITE FOR POLICIES, STATISTICS and any other literature methods. There is a minimum of 15 references to be included.
Acceptable forms of references are peer-reviewed journal articles, academic books, government policy documents, non-peer reviewed studies found on reputable (nationally or internationally recognised) organisational websites.
Newspaper articles are strongly discouraged. They may be used within the introduction only to help you establish your rationale. They should not be used within the main body, even where newspaper articles are reporting about research studies. You need to access the original piece of research. Websites such as Wikipedia, Simply Psychology and others like these are NOT ACCEPTABLE.