Now you have been fully exposed to the process of action research. According to our model, you are now on the first step of conducting an action research project – Identify a Focus. In other words, you are now officially launching your research project. You will start to work on your project report – a research paper. Research paper writing is an individual investigation carried out on a topic of specific interest. It is not a one-hour task. If you have never worked on a research paper before, don’t worry about it. As long as you work on the class assignments, you will get it at the end of the course.
1. Introduction
A research paper starts with the Introduction. Introduction, as its name indicates, introduces the entire research to the readers. It has a number of important requisites. First of all, introductory writing must give reasons for the importance of the research. It is some sort of a hook, which places your research paper writing into the center of the readers’ attention. Any type of introduction also has to provide a rationale. It is what you set as a specific objective of the research. Do not forget to tell the readers why you have chosen this particular hypothesis (for quantitative research) and the research questions. Generally, you will need to cover four areas in your introduction: 1) Area of focus, 2) Purpose statement, and 3) Research hypotheses, and 4) Research question. Let’s start with the first two areas, and we will discuss the other two areas in next class.
1) Area of focus
To cover area of focus, please describe the problem you found and why you think it is important to conduct the research. In the previous lesson, you were asked to settle down with a research topic and completed a brief description of your research. Those are the resources that you can use to write out the area of focus.
2) Purpose statement
Please finalize your purpose statement by complete the statement:
The purpose of this action research project was to _____________ (e.g., understand, explore, see…) how____________ (your action) can/will_____________
Submission Guideline: Please complete your assignment in Microsoft Word. At the top of the paper type "Identify a Focus", underneath that include your name, email address, and the date. Save the file as "Your PID_AR_focus" and upload it to the assignment page.Remember, the topic you select should 1) within your locus of control, 2) be something you would like to change or improve, 3) be able to be complete within the time frame of the class, and 4) be something you feel passionate about.
After you complete the project or when you work on it, you may want to revise your Introduction. It is normal. You can always come back and revise your introduction. Sometimes, researchers leave the Introduction as the last thing to write. We choose to work from the Introduction to save your labor later and to help you keep the big picture in your mind.