June 8 - Parts of the Paper

When creating your research proposal paper, there are several things to remember. First, you may have a tentative thought about what you might find from your study (if you were to actually complete it in the future). At this point it is tentative until you review what other experts have said and/or published related to your topic of choice. It would be good to keep one of the model papers (provided on the Blackboard site) handy as you read through the information below.

Keep in mind that you will ultimately create a research-designed method that helps address your original research question. Before you create your Method section, however, you want to examine some preliminary factors for both you and your potential audience who might be interested in hearing about, reading, or seeing a presentation of your research in the future (if you decided to complete your proposed study in the future).

To do this, you first need to develop an expertise (or even greater expertise) in the area that you are proposing to examine in your study. This part of your paper will demonstrate that you have become an "expert" in this particular area that you are examining. You will demonstrate this expertise through your Introduction section, which consists of an introductory portion, a statement of the problem that you will be examining, a review or related literature (Notice this says related literature. You do not need to repeat exactly what someone else has done in a study, but you may glean from their findings and/or ideas as long as you cite them in your paper [give them credit for ideas used by you].), and a hypothesis statement (for causal-comparative, experimental, or correlational proposed studies) or a research question (for descriptive, qualitative, or historical proposed studies). In the introductory portion of your Introduction, you need to address such questions as:

1. Why is this topic important in our society in general?


2. Who says it is important? (Published experts, national learned societies [NSTA, NCTE, AAPHERD, etc.], government officials or agencies, etc.)?


3. How are we doing in this area, and who has said how we are doing (for example, learned societies, national testing data, state testing data, government agencies, published experts, etc.)?


4. How might what you are planning on researching potentially contribute to helping address this issue or at least give us more information about it?

Once you complete this part of your Introduction, you are ready to make a statement of the problem. This simply means that you say, "The purpose of this study is to..." You let the reader/audience know what you are doing. It should be very clear in this statement by what you say as to what type of research you will be conducting.

Once you have stated your problem to be addressed, you are now ready to do your review of related literature. In your review, you need to give the reader/audience background information that will inform your reader/audience about the specific topic you will be examining in your study. You then lead the reader/audience through a discussion of the topic itself and what others have found related to it. Finally, you bring it to a point of prediction (a hypothesis) or to a research question depending on the type of design you are using. Here are typical questions addressed in a review of related literature:

1. What is the background into which your chosen topic fits? In other words, you need to examine how this area has been historically approached, what theory supports this chosen topic, or both.


2. What information do we currently have about this topic? This information is supplied by what other researchers have found and how it fits with what you are wanting to examine.


3. What specific studies have been completed that are most related to your topic? For example, if you want to know if cooperative learning helps people learn math concepts, what have others found when cooperative learning has been used to learn science, English, or some other subject? If cooperative learning has been used in math before, how does what you are doing distinguish your study from what has already been done?

Once you reach this point of your Introduction (the completion of the review of related literature), it is now time to make a hypothesis (for experimental, correlational, or causal-comparative proposed studies) or to state your research question (for descriptive, qualitative, or historical proposed studies). Whether using a hypothesis or a research question, you need to include three parts:

1. A identifying characteristic of your chosen participants (In other words, are they 1st graders, 5th graders, 10th graders, high school teachers, middle school media specialists, or some other group?)


2. A note of the instrument or tool used to collect data (In other words, will you use a Benchmark exam, a Likert survey, GPA, an open-ended questionnaire, observation, another type, or a combination?)


3. A note on what you are actually examining (In other words, will you be examining a new character education program, a math method, a coaching approach, a discipline model, or some other variable?).

To summarize, the Introduction contains four parts to it. They are:

1. The introductory part.
2. The statement of the problem.
3. The review of related literature.
4. A hypothesis statement or research question depending on the type of study you are planning to do.

Once you complete your Introduction (with the introductory part, the statement of the of the problem, the review or related literature, and the hypothesis or research question), it is now time to plan your Method section. The Method section is the method you will use (including a description of your planned study participants, data collection methods or instruments used, your procedure you will follow, and your design and analysis approach you will use) to test your hypothesis or answer your research question. As you can see, everything flows together. The review leads to a hypothesis or research question. This then leads to a method to test your hypothesis or answer you question. All of this is part of your research proposal. The last section to be included is your References page, which we have discussed previously.