Part 1: Purpose, Problem Statement and Research Questions
Directions:
1. Review “Thinking It Through” in the Module 1 assignment.
2. Access the article, Action Research to Improve Teaching and Learning, by Roberta Ross-Fisher in the Ebsco-Proquest database. This article describes the steps of action research, including the development of a problem statement and research questions. While the article is focused on education, it provides guidance for action researchers in any discipline.
3. Read through the bulleted questions and explanations in Part 1 below this set of directions to find more assistance in generating a problem statement and research question(s) for your action research paper.
4. Compose an introductory paragraph in which you grab the reader’s attention and state the purpose of your research. Remember, your research purpose is to describe the situation.
5. Compose a problem statement for your research paper. Summarize the problem and the setting and context for the study. Support the problem with data.
6. From your problem statement, generate from one to three research questions. Questions should not have yes/no answers, and they should require research to answer.
o What wonderings do you have about your professional practice? What do you need to know more about to be optimally effective? What situations need to be examined? Think specifically about your specific school or organizational situation, and avoid outside issues and conditions over which you have little control.
o From your wonderings and thoughts about what you need to know or examine, select an issue or concern and explain why it is important to you. Clearly articulate your concern or issue as a problem statement. How do you know it is a problem? What evidence do you have that the problem is worth investigating? What are the chances an investigation might lead to action on your part to improve or resolve the problem?
o There are times when it is difficult to clearly state a problem because you don’t yet know enough to do so. This may dictate the first phase of your action research project will involve gathering data leading to a clear statement and suggesting appropriate action to be taken in a follow-up phase. If this characterizes what you are contemplating, then the research you carry out will be exploratory and problem-defining, and your final action research report in Module 5 will need to include a detailed description of phase two complete with action to be taken and data-gathering methods to assess the effects of this action.
o In contrast, what you are contemplating may allow for a final problem statement and definitive action from the outset with your initial round of data gathering designed to assess action effects. In these cases, your description of next steps in your final report in Module 4 will not have to include an additional action to be taken and could describe some type of expansion, extension, or replication.
o From your problem statement, formulate researchable questions – at least one and no more than three for the purposes of this assignment. Each question should be narrowly focused, specific, and researchable. You will need to consider your student population, your desired outcome, and how you might bring about that outcome, assuming enough is known about the problem to spell all of this out. For example, you may have noticed that girls are not performing well in science. The problem is reasonably clear, so you can ask, “Will grouping by gender during science work improve the participation of female students?”
o Another example may be low journal-writing production, and you have read in the literature that word walls may help. This problem is also clear, so you can ask, “Will interactive word walls improve the journal writing of my kindergarten students?” If you still have “why” questions, they will need to be recast to make them researchable beginning with “how,” “what,” “does,” “will,” etc. If formulated correctly, these are essentially hypotheses.
