Please read that reference before you proceed with plans for your action research proposal.
Your paper or poster should include the sub-titles listed below:
1. TITLE FOR PAPER/POSTER
The title should tell the reader some information that is specific to your topic; for example, "Behavior Change" does not tell the reader anything unique about this paper; however, a title such as "Using parent involvement as a means to increase homework completion" tells the reader much more information. Review journal articles for ideas on writing titles. Try several titles after you have defined you research question; share them with the senior seminar instructor, students in your class, and the cooperating teacher before you make a final decision.
2. THE QUESTION
Your task here is to state the focus of your inquiry or the problem that you seek to examine related to your own practice or the practice of others. Sometimes the focus of action research is not really a problem but an examination of what some group (students, parents, other teachers) think about an issue or practice or a teaching method that you will use. Or you might want to investigate how a particular approach to teaching and learning affects the needs of one or more specific students. Here are some questions you need to think and write about:
--What do I want to know?
--Why is this interesting to me or important to students or the class or school?
--Are there other ways to describe this topic or problem if I think about it from someone else's point of view?
3. FOCUSING INQUIRY/REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Whatever your problem or focus, you need to find out what is already known or has been tried. Even if you find research on the same topic, this does not preclude you from testing it within your own setting. You will need to search the professional literature for related research completed during the last five to ten years. For this purpose you need to use HFC's library or another four-year college library having full access to education index listings and a computer search. This section of your paper should be no more than three pages and should include these components:
a) your analysis of the information you gathered;
b) summarize the main conclusions you reached succinctly,
c) be concise but complete,
d) follow APA style for headings and citations, & e) adhere to the mechanics of good writing.
f) at least 6 references related to your topic
Once you have gathered the related source material, read and analyze the information. Identify material that will address your question or focus. Note what seems to be agreed upon or debated, what questions people are still asking, and what other interpretations of the available information might be possible. You will need to synthesize what you have read in the manner in order to prepare your review of the literature. You need to show how the prior research that you have reviewed relates to the research that you will undertake.
4. METHODOLOGY & DATA COLLECTION
In this section you need to tell your reader what strategies you are using to address the problem and/or how you will collect data. If you are using a treatment plan or a new approach to teaching or a classroom management strategy in order to address your problem or focus, then you need to describe the problem and your proposed strategy in a complete but succinct fashion. Data collection methods are also described here. For example, how many students/teachers were involved, what grade(s), was this data collected by you a surver or others, explain.
5. DATA ANALYSIS
In this section you explain to your reader what results you have found. List the results on a table or a graph if possible, then explain in a short narrative form the results. If you conducted a survey, explain the results you obtained from the survey. If you kept log notes or a journal, explain the nature of your findings based on a review of your notes. You define here the objective findings from each data source that you used for your research.
6. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS In this section you need to explicitly summarize what you learned or concluded from your inquiry effort. Did your plan increase learning? Did your program have any impact? The focus here is on what you accomplished. You can also indicate what work needs to be done to further the effort that you have begun with your research efforts. Recommendations for change or future studies are appropriate
Please see the grading rubric to further explain the method for review of your paper.
I. RESEARCH QUESTION/STATEMENT OF PROBLEM/What and Why you plan to do this project-GRADE (20%)
Is the research question or problem clearly stated & well-focused ?
Is it clearly explained why this is an important or meaningful question or topic to study?
Does it attempt to describe or evaluate classroom teaching practices, student learning, school programs?
Is the title of the paper appropriate & specific to the research topic?
II. LIBRARY RESEARCH & REFERENCES (20%)
Are at least 6 recent references cited that are related to the topic?
Does the literature review provide a helpful background for the question being studied?
Does the review of research conclude by showing how ideas from the research will be used to study the question?
Are references cited appropriately in the paper?
Was the reference page and citations prepared according to APA guidelines
III Your PLAN & any DATA (20%)
Is there a clear, feasible action plan that will systematically answer the research question or problem?
If qualitative research has been conducted-have you used several methods to collect data?
Is the information collected compelling enough to convince a skeptic?
IV RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS/DISCUSSION (20%)
Are the data presented and explained clearly using charts, graphs or other appropriate means?
Are clear relevant and logical conclusions drawn based on your reported data?
Have the research questions been answered?
What was learned from this study? What are the implications? Does the data provide support for improving the classroom practice
Did the discussion and results address the issue you studied?
V PRESENTATION & ORGANIZATION OF PAPER OR POSTER (20%)
Is the paper/poster free of grammatical and spelling errors?
Has the paper/poster been carefully edited?
Is the paper/poster clearly written?
Is the paper/poster neat and professional looking in appearance?
Are headings used to clearly indicate each section of the paper/poster?
