Task 1: Selecting a research topic and formulating a research question
For this Assessment of Learning, you will be creating a research lab report. As part of your first task, you will need to select a research topic and formulate a research question that your research project will answer. Your research project should be about some facet of society, group of individuals, or social change. You cannot use any of the research topics or questions previously covered in this unit. You must use an original and new research topic, and formulate your own question. The research topic that you choose should be something that you are interested in and something you will be able to find research on.
Task 2: Writing your introduction
After you have selected a research topic and formulated a research question, you will write the introduction of your report. This task will include explaining your research topic, presenting the secondary research you have gathered, and stating your hypothesis.
Here are some hints to help you achieve this task:
- You should write the introduction as if it were intended for a reader who knew nothing about your topic. The introduction will be one of the longer sections of your report: It will be one to two pages of double-spaced text. It should be 400 words maximum.
- Any previously published material with important information about your research topic would be useful for your introduction. It doesn’t matter whether it supports your hypothesis or not. It is just meant to help the reader understand what has already been written on the topic.
- When you perform secondary research, you should look for scholarly articles using databases (Google Scholar, for example). You will need to find three to five scholarly sources pertaining to your research topic.
- Remember that you must interpret the information you find using your own words and cite using APA style for the sources you use. This applies to direct quotations, but also anytime you paraphrase someone else’s work. Refer back to the first topic of this lesson if you need to review the APA style.
- Be sure to include your hypothesis in the introduction. Your hypothesis should answer your formal research question in the form of statement of opinion. Do not use personal pronouns when formulating your hypothesis.
Task 3: Applying the inquiry model to your research topic
You are then going to conduct your research by applying the inquiry model. This will include accomplishing the following steps:
- Selecting a research method
- Gathering the data
- Analyzing the data
- Drawing conclusions
Here are some hints to help you achieve this task:
- Determine which research method you are going to use to gather data. Why did you choose this research method? Why is it the “best fit” for your research problem and question?
- You will have to actually gather real data.
- Be sure to describe how you are going to analyze your data and explain your rationale.
- Did the data you collected support your hypothesis or not? Restate your hypothesis and comment on whether it was upheld or not.
Task 4: Write and submit a lab report for your research project
The final task of this Assessment of Learning is to gather all the information and results from your research, and write your lab report. Here is a reminder of all the sections that must appear in your report:
- Title
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Method
- Results
- Discussion
- References
- Appendix (Optional)