Assignment 2 - Submission Required
1. Review of Literature
Starting from this class, you will officially work on your project report by using the project report template. We expect you to come out a publishable work (e.g., conference presentation, journal article) by the end of the course. Our requirement of publishable work is based on two reasons. First, we hope that you can get a publication that can contribute to your professional development other than a grade by the end of this course. Second, some writers insist on publication as a necessary component of action research. Although, we do not think it is necessary the case, it won’t hurt to reach their expectations.
Similar to the format of most research papers, your project report will need to include seven parts: 1) abstract, 2) introduction, 3) review of literature, 4) methods, 5) results, 6) discussion, and 7) references. Headings of these seven elements have already put in the project report template. Along with the development of your class project, you will complete them gradually and eventually come out with a publishable research paper.
Open the template and replace “Title of the Project” to your title, “Your Name” to your name.
Assignment: Please write the review literature for your project and add it to the Template under the heading - Review of Literature. Your literature review should:
1) be 500 -1,000 words
2) include at least 5 references. Put your references under the heading “References”. References refer to the list of sources used as additionalmaterials during the research. It is better to note data about all the sources from the very beginning. The sources have to be listed alphabetically.
3) write on APA style. For guidance about writing in APA, please check http://www.apastyle.org/
Mertler (2006) provides sample literature reviews on page 51-52.
2. Introduction (again!)
Most people associate research with doing things: observing people, using equipment, or analyzing data. However, thinking is also a critical part of a research. In last lesson, you were required to think and draft out the area of focus and the purpose statement for your project. Since you have not gone through literature review or primary data collection then, they are premature and only based on your thoughts with no literature support. Now you have done your review of literature. After seeing other people’s work, it is possible that you now come out with a completely different purpose statement. In addition to 1) Area of focus and 2) Purpose statement,you will also need to work on: 3) the research questions and 4) the research hypotheses. This stage is the most crucial part of research.
3) The research questions.
A research question is a formal statement of the goal of a study. The research question states clearly what the study will investigate or attempt to prove. The research question is a logical statement that progresses from what is known or believed to be true (as determined by the literature review) to that is unknown and requires validation. You can definitely have more than more research questions.
The following URLs provide sample action research questions, and tips for you to work on your question(s).
Sample research questions:
http://www.alliance.brown.edu/dnd/ar_quests.shtml
4) Research hypothesis
A hypothesis is a logical supposition, a tentative but intelligent, and informed guess about the findings of a study. It is made before the study begins. A hypothesis is important because it guides the research. The hypothesis helps an investigator to collect the right kinds of data needed for the investigation. Hypotheses are also important because they help an investigator to locate information needed to resolve the research problem. In research, an investigator is able to either support or reject a hypothesis.
The hypothesis is driven by the research question. An Investigator often formulates a hypothesis based on the research questions. Most commonly, hypotheses take three formats:
1. a question, "Does temperature affect fermentation?"
2. a conditional statement, "Temperature may affect fermentation."
3. an If, then statement, "If fermentation rate is related to temperature, then increasing the temperature will increase gas production."
Please use one of the above formats to write up your hypothesis(ses). You can also have more than one research hypothesis.
If you want to know more about writing hypothesis, please read http://www.accessexcellence.org/LC/TL/filson/writhypo.php
Submission Guideline: After adding the review of literature and introduction to the template, when you save the file, name it as "Your PID_AR_literature" and upload it to the assignment page. (click here to get the project report template)