Now, that you’ve finished the midterm and reviewed expectations for your proposal, we’ll start developing that proposal in earnest. Your first step is to confirm your general topic and to plan your literature review. Reviewing the academic literature will be our main focus for the next month.

This requires some review of the previous reading, some new reading, and a review of your work and the work of your classmates.

As you can see from your checklist below, I have tasked you with reading and reviewing a variety of materials. Your quizzes only cover the textbook material. Additional material or reviews of chapters in our initial textbook will help you better understand secondary research and APA Style.

The new reading this week is primarily from our new text, Duesbery & Twyman. Part 1 should help you see the commonalities between social scientific research and more applied research or action research. Part 2 can help you see how action research can apply to a wide variety of fields and may help you develop your own research idea.

Two groups will be presenting most of the questions in those parts of the second text. However, with the controversy over CRT in K-12 schools, I thought it would be best for me to cover Question 18 myself. I recorded my presentation from last semester and it will be linked below. I have added video chapters to the recording. You can check the first chapter, which reviews Week 9, but the second chapter is my presentation on Question 18.

As you complete the assigned reading, take some time for reflection.

• Review your initial post and the first posts of your classmates.
• Consider your reflection on the Diffusion of Innovations and how you individually reflected on how the theory connected to your personal life and actions.
• Consider the employers you researched. Is there particular research you could propose that would prove useful to them?
• What article did you find to review in Week 6? Did it involve research that you still find interesting? Did it suggest future research that you could propose? Did you find other research that can still be helpful?

The Week’s Learning Objectives:

1. Compare action research to more traditional research and distinguish the two purposes.
2. Develop a topic for primary research (a new research study)
3. Develop a plan for your secondary research (library research)

Learning Activities:

1. Review research planning questions in Part 1 of Patten and Newhart (2018).
2. Review Topic 12, in Part 2 of the same text, to recall:
   • The importance and prudence of modified and strict replications for beginning researchers.
   • The importance of reviewing previously used methods and measurements for potential replication.
   • The utility of published articles to help your own proposal writing.
   • The general purpose of reviewing the literature AND writing a literature review.
3. Read Duesbery & Twyman (2020) Parts 1 & 2 and consider how your proposal could apply directly to important issues in your field.
   • Review your classmates’ recent Presentations and my presentation on Q18.
4. [Optional]: If you missed Heather VanDyne’s presentation video earlier this semester, take a look now. She originally created it to share with students as they began this research stage:

Assignments:

• Week 9 Blog Post: Develop Ideas and Prepare a Search
• Presentations:
  • Research Designers cover Part 1 of the new text
    • GB – Q1, Q2, and Q11
    • JH – Q3 7 Q4
    • LP – Q7 & Q8
    • KK – Q9 & Q10
  • Reliable Researchers cover Part 2
    • EC – Q12 & Q19
    • ZG – Q15 & Q16
    • HM – Q17
    • DP – Q20
  • I will add those assignments into Bb, but I wanted to share this and get a little more graded first.

Week 9 Deadline: Monday, March 28 at 2pm Central

Other Notes: 

Sunday, March 27 is the final day to withdraw from a course with a transcript record of “W.” See the current Academic Calendar for more information.