All courses certified as meeting the goals of the Global Citizens Project need to have an assignment

All courses certified as meeting the goals of the Global Citizens Project need to have an assignment that is connected to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG). These goals encompass a wide range of critically important global priorities and point toward the direction we want to pursue as a global community to solve the existing problems and prevent new, potential ones. Therefore, your selected topic for this project will need to be aligned with these general goals. At the same time, the range of the UNSDG is very wide, so you will have a lot of freedom to focus on the area of your own interest. Although you will not be conducting statistical analysis, you will be completing the steps that are followed in conducting research of existing data (secondary data analysis). The project asks you to research the literature on the issue, formulate a hypothesis, define variables that would need to be tested, and compare your prediction with the existing evidence from published data sources. This topics of Hypothesis Testing and Statistical Significance directly prepare you for working on the Global Citizens Project, so make sure to complete all the readings in the previous modules. The actual steps you will need to complete for this project include:

1. 1. Identify and research a globally-relevant social issue related to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. If you have a topic in mind that you are interested in you can check the United Nation website that describes the goals to find out how your topic fits in with them. This will help you to write your topic description. You can browse the website to get ideas for the project as well. UNSDG can be found at https://sdgs.un.org/goals (Links to an external site.)

2. 2. Write a summary of this issue and its global significance using quantitative support (in other words, citing numbers that explain the severity of the problem and why it needs to be addressed). You will need to use additional sources other than UNSDG website to complete this step of the project. The references need to be cited fully (no hyperlinks) in any format you like.

3. 3. Develop a hypotheses addressing this globally-relevant social issue. The hypothesis should include an independent and a dependent variables, written as an if-then statement. Then define the null hypothesis, which is the opposite of your research hypothesis and assumes there is no difference in the variables you intend to study. If the null hypothesis is supported by the data then your hypothesis is disproven. Clearly identify in the text of your paper your research hypothesis and your null hypothesis.

4. 4. Describe and analyze the variables that quantitatively assess this globally-relevant social issue and directly relate to your hypothesis.

5. 5. The next step is to check if your hypothesis is confirmed or refuted by the existing evidence in literature or published statistical reports. You will not need to perform statistical analysis of your own. You will test your hypothesis by comparing your prediction with the data you find from already existing published surveys from local, national, or international sources. It would help to look for and identify surveys or other existing quantitative data for the problem of your interest while you are selecting your variables and hypothesis.

6. 6. Write a report of your results linking them with a UN Sustainable Development Goal.