CXC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION SBA GUIDELINES

Statement Of Aims
Your SBA should have at least 3 aims. The aims tell what you hope to find out, and are centered around the research topic. For example, if “worship” is your area of research, then all the aims must be centered around worship.

Methodology
This tells how, when and where you will collect information. Why have you selected a particular method of data collection (advantages)? How many questionnaires or interviews were administered? How many questions were on the questionnaires or in the interview schedule and when were they collected?

Formulating Questionnaires: Look at the aims and form questions based on these aims and all the questions must relate to the topic chosen.

Summary of Findings
This section should provide the information to cover your aims. For example if the aims are to discover:
(1) What is the most important Rastafarian symbol?
(2) How are these symbols used in the Rastafarian Movement?
(3) How has the use of the Rastafarian symbols impacted on Jamaica?

You would therefore have to provide information under the following headings for the summary of findings: * Important Rastafarian symbol * Rastafarian symbols and their purposes * The impact of the Rastafarian symbols on the Jamaican society.
Simply put, the summary of findings is the information that is researched based on the aims.

Analysis and Interpretation of Data
In this section you can use diagrams to represent your findings or simply provide a description of their findings.

Interpretation is to say in percentage how the respondents answered the questions.
For example, the questionnaire asks: “What is the most important Rastafarian symbol?”

Questionnaire results shows:
Lion 60%
Flag 5%
Dreadlocks 25%

You illustrate this on a chart and speak to each response, as demonstrated below.

Pie Chart # 1 showing respondents’ view of the most important Rastafarian symbol.

As shown in pie chart # 1 above, 60% of the respondents said the lion, 5% said it is the flag and 25% said the dreadlocks.

Analysis: After looking at the interpretation, you will now have to use critical thinking skills to find out what factors could contribute to difference in the responses. Why did some say the flag? Based on research done, which is really the most important symbol? Could it be that some of the respondents are not informed about the movement? This reasoning is the analysis.

Conclusion
In this section, you provide answers for the aims in a summary. For example: * The most imporatnat Rastafarian symbol is the lion because...................................... * The rod and staff are used for................................. * The flag is used during worship.................... * The rastafarian symbols have had both positive and negative effects on society ................
You can also include your own views on the research (optional).

Presentation
You must have a table of contents, appropriate illustrations, properly compiled & neat document. You must also have a bibliography. Your bibliography should include the author’s name, the year of publication, the name of the text, the place of publication and publisher’s name, as seen in the example below:

Dessler, Gary (2008) Human Resource Management (11th ed.) New Jersey: Pearson Education
Your research should be submitted in a simple soft-back folder and on letter-size paper. Your candidate registration number, title of the research paper and the name of your school should be clearly written on the folder AND on the FIRST inside page. The document should be typed in a clear font, preferably “Times New Roman” or “Tahoma” and at a minimum font-size of 12.