Teachers as Researchers (EDUC4620)

 Length: 2000 words + Reference List

You are to apply your knowledge and skills by developing a proposal for a small-scale research based project relevant to your professional learning needs. Prior to your professional experience placement you should consult closely with your tutor to design an appropriate project to ensure that it addresses an issue of current relevance within schools. This project will be implemented during your professional experience placement. It should be closely linked to your everyday work as a teacher and focused on improving students’ educational outcomes.

To choose a topic, you should draw on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and identify a particular professional learning need to improve your practice. You might relate this professional learning need to a teaching area you enjoy, or a topic that you are really interested in. As you may not know your professional experience placement until just prior to commencement, remember to ensure that your research based project, as one source of professional learning, could be conducted in any school.

Your proposal should include:

• Introduction. Outline the background to your problem. Include a clear statement of the issue to be investigated, and let the reader know why this issue is important and how it connects with a particular professional learning need you have identified from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers to improve your practice.

• Review of relevant literature on research findings in the area of your proposed project. Demonstrate your analysis of the research others have done: who has conducted the research, when and where was the research conducted, how was the research conducted, what were their findings? Analyse and synthesise the articles in a way that provides an integrated argument in relation to the topic. Conclude by establishing the need for the research you plan to conduct by explaining how your project extends from or fills small gaps in the current literature.

• The research question/s to be addressed. State them clearly as questions. You will have a main research question and possibly some sub-questions (no more than two) that will help you answer your main research question.

• The research design/method. Describe your proposed research design. What will be the context of your study? Who/what do you propose will be the object(s) of or the participants in your study? How will you select your research participants, if applicable? What instruments will you use to collect your data? You must include your data collection tool/s in an appendix. What steps will you take to collect and record your data? How will you analyse your data? That is, how will you collate your data and make sense of your findings? Justify your research design choices with academic references and demonstrate understanding of principles of ethical conduct of research as well as relevant legislative policies and processes throughout. Ask yourself: With the information provided, could your study be replicated?

• Conclude by articulating how you believe the knowledge generated by the research based project will assist you to improve your practice as a beginning teacher.

• References. Use APA style referencing both within the proposal and the reference list. The reference list should contain only references directly mentioned in the proposal rather than a bibliography of other relevant but non-cited references. It is expected that at least 15 relevant, recent academic references (from 2005 onwards) are included. Your reference list is not included in the total word count for the assignment.

• Appendix. You need to include your data collection tool/s (for example, survey, interview questions, observation checklist). Your small-scale research project should only have 2 or 3 data collection tools. Do not include the contents of your appendix in the total word count for the assignment.

Active participation during tutorials is a requirement in this course. This includes active participation in relation to engagement with course readings, weekly tutorial activities, and discussion about progress to date with your research proposal and final project. These activities and readings are all designed to enhance the development of your research proposal and final project.

Length: 3000 words + Reference List

You are to apply your knowledge and skills by implementing and reporting on the conduct of your small-scale research based project relevant to your professional learning needs based on the proposal submitted in Assessment Task 1. While it would normally be the case that your research reflects your proposal, changed circumstances may necessitate an alteration to the proposed project. Remember that your project should be closely linked to your everyday work as a teacher and focused on improving students' educational outcomes. Your research, as one source of professional learning, should provide you with valuable information for responding to a particular professional learning need you identified from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers to improve your practice as a beginning teacher.

You are encouraged to draw on aspects of your research proposal in writing up your research report.

Your report should include:

• Introduction. Outline the background to your problem. Include a clear statement of the issue investigated, and let the reader know why this issue is important and how it connects with a particular professional learning need you have identified from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers to improve your practice.

• Review of relevant literature on research findings in the area of your project. Demonstrate your analysis of the research others have done: who has conducted the research, when and where was the research conducted, how was the research conducted, what were their findings? Analyse and synthesise the articles in a way that provides an integrated argument in relation to the topic. Conclude by establishing the need for the research you conducted by explaining how your project extends from or fills small gaps in the current literature.

• The research question/s addressed. State them clearly as questions. You will have a main research question and possibly some sub-questions (no more than two) that will help you answer your main research question.

• The research design/method. Describe your research design. What was the context of your study? Who/what do you propose were the object(s) of or the participants in your study? How did you select your research participants, if applicable? What instruments did you use to collect your data? You must include your data collection tool/s in an appendix. What steps did you take to collect and record your data? How did you analyse your data? That is, how did you collate your data and make sense of your findings? Justify your research design choices with academic references and demonstrate understanding of principles of ethical conduct of research as well as relevant legislative policies and processes throughout. Ask yourself: With the information provided, could your study be replicated?

• Analysis of data and discussion of findings and implications. Make sense of the data you have collected. Discuss common themes or patterns in your qualitative data, or share basic calculations in relation to aspects of your quantitative data that help you to answer your research question. Ensure that within your analysis section that you compare and contrast your findings to those of some of the literature you reviewed, or other (additional) literature, and that you include references to this literature. Do your research findings support similar/related research in the area, or does your data shed new light on an issue? Conclude with a discussion of implications of the research for teachers (that is, what do you think other teachers would want to know about your research?).

• Conclusion, including a statement about the limitations of the study and recommendations for further research. You should also articulate how you believe the knowledge generated by the research based project will assist you to improve your practice as a beginning teacher.

• References. Use APA style referencing both within the report and the reference list. The reference list should contain only references directly mentioned in the report rather than a bibliography of other relevant but non-cited references. It is expected that at least 15 relevant, recent academic references (from 2005 onwards) are included. Your reference list is not included in the total word count for the assignment.

• Appendix. Include your data collection tool/s. Do not include the contents of your appendix in the total word count for the assignment.

• Your raw data (the data you have collected) must be submitted to your tutor. This can be included in the appendix to your research report, or submitted separately in hard copy.