Assignment

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Application

Begin: Introduction, Research Questions, and 8-entry Annotated Bibliography

This Application begins a multi-week activity, due Week 7, in which you will explore developing the beginnings of a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods study. To that end, you will complete an introduction, research questions, and an 8-entry annotated bibliography. Over each successive week, you will focus on a specific part of the assignment:

  • This week, you will begin a process that resembles a literature review.
  • In Week 6, you will focus on writing the introduction, including the purpose statement.
  • In Week 7, you will write research questions and hypotheses (if applicable) before submitting the comprehensive Application (a single document) to your instructor.

Starting this week, you are encouraged to post draft components of this assignment in the Workshop area under the Week 11 button. There, you will have the opportunity to propose ideas and receive feedback from your colleagues. Participation in the Workshop Discussion is optional, though highly encouraged.

Note that for these Application Assignments, you are encouraged to examine a potential research topic—if you have one in mind. This can be an early testing ground to help you determine whether or not the topic that you would like to investigate is viable.

This Week: Focus on the Literature Review

Note: This Application is due in Week 7.

This portion of the Application is designed to help you discover where and how to search for appropriate research materials. Here, you are not engaging in a full review of the literature as you might do for a research paper, a KAM, or your final thesis or dissertation. Nevertheless, this activity will provide you with some practice in critical reading so that you may better identify potential gaps in the literature, which will assist you in identifying a place for you to contribute to the body of knowledge in your discipline.

To prepare for this Application:

  • Review Chapter 2 and pp. 79–87 of Chapter 4 in the course text, Research Design and the “Literature Review” media segment.
  • Find eight research articles based on the topic, research problem, and the main research question for your study.
  • Review the instructions for writing a summary of a study presented in the course text, Research Design, on pages 36–38.
  • Write a brief rationale for why you selected each item.
  • Identify a gap in the knowledge or potential deficiency apparent in your research articles to justify the research.
  • Identify articles that support or detract from existing research to justify the research study.

The assignment:

  • Prepare the following for this part of the assignment.
    • An APA-formatted reference list entry for each of the eight articles that you have found.
    • A one-paragraph summary, following Creswell’s guidelines, of each article that you have found.
    • A brief rationale for the selection of each item. Within each rationale, identify any gaps in the knowledge or deficiencies that justify your research and whether not the article supports or detracts from existing research.