Using Research Methods to Investigate Education and Education Settings
Assessment Two
You will use the literature review and research question/s you produced for assignment one to start to develop a research proposal for conducting an academic study in the field of education. You will be required to present the proposal according to the guidelines presented below which provide professional guidance for developing an academically rigorous study.
Weighting: 50%
You will develop the introduction, literature review (including research question/s) and method/s sections for a research proposal which must be relevant to the field of education (1,500 words limit). You will follow the guidelines and use the appropriate structure for a formal research proposal. You will respond to the feedback provided for assignment one (literature review and research question/s) in developing your proposal. Ethical issues must be considered and addressed accordingly. You will follow academic writing and APA referencing conventions in the presentation of your work.
Section by section checklist
Before submitting your work make sure you have completed the following
Title page
• Provide a title page for your proposal: A good title should be short, accurate and concise and indicate the type of study you will conduct. For example: Exploring the impact of pupils’ poor mental health on teachers’ wellbeing: A qualitative study
• Indicate the word count
• Student id
Introduction
This is the first section of your proposal; respond to the written feedback you have received for assignment one and refine your work accordingly
• Provide an introductory paragraph which introduces the broad (educationally relevant) area you are interested in, for example, the impact pupil mental health has on academic performance. You need to present a context for your research and set the scene. Use relevant, recent background information, for example, the rising levels of pupils presenting with mental health issues in schools, decline in teacher recruitment, current policy and guidelines for schools etc.
Literature review
• Revise your literature review content so you have removed any irrelevant or overly descriptive material
• Ensure your content is organised in clearly defined paragraphs
• Write short, concise sentences which clearly state your key points (supported by evidence, correctly cited)
• Present your rationale for the research you are proposing (i.e. why are you doing this research, what’s the point?)
• Finish your literature review by clearly stating the aim/s of your research and explicitly state what your research question/s is/are. For example, ‘What is the impact of pupils’ poor mental health on teachers’ wellbeing?’
REMEMBER TO ASK YOURSELF:
• Is the question feasible?
• Is the question clear?
• Is the question significant?
• Is the question ethical?
Methodology Section
You will decide on your methodology and choose your research method/s. This must be the most appropriate choice for your research question; you need to justify this.
Design
• Identify your research design, for example a qualitative study
Methods/s
• State which data collection method/s you will use and why (e.g. by observation, interviews, a survey, a corpus)? For example, for the research question above, a focus group method was selected as the most appropriate technique because….
Analysis
• Describe the process you will use to analyse the data. Will the analysis involve using specialist software? For the example above, ‘Focus group data will be thematically analysed manually’.
Ethics
You must consider ethical issues in relation to your research study and refer to BERA guidelines: https://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/BERA-Ethical-Guidelines-for-Educational-Research_4thEdn_2018.pdf?noredirect=1
• Consider: What ethical issues does your research raise? Are human participants involved? How will you secure their consent and safeguard their confidentiality?
Presenting your research proposal
Research proposals use standard headings and sub-headings as described above, follow these conventions.
• Provide a reference list at the end (use the heading Reference List) and make sure this aligns with your in-text citations
• Proof read your work (and get someone else to) to check for grammar, spelling, punctuation and comprehensibility
