Write 2500 words essay/proposal to explain about your small-scale empirical enquiry. You can choose any focus for your research project for this assignment.
Chosen focus: The effectiveness of using concept maps or mind maps as a strategy to learn cell division topic among 5th-year biology students in Ireland. (please modify the title if it too long)
Your written commentary on the proposal must include:
- An explicit statement about the exact nature of the research problem or issue
Students often have trouble remembering science facts, especially in biology, and this indirectly undermines students’ interest in learning especially for students who are relatively weak in academics. Teachers, without realising, tend to make the subject dull and uninteresting by giving notes in the traditional method, which is the line by line notes. This linear form of writing also tends to demotivate students to revise, and this indirectly causes low attainment in the subject.
(This is just an example; the writer can change this to a better form) - An explanation for why this research matters (you should refer to existing research in the field)
- A statement of the research question(s) – explaining how you have narrowed the focus to these precise questions (you should refer to existing research in the field)
Please write at least 2 research questions, and some literature reviews related to this topic.
Example of research questions: - Does the use of mind maps or concept maps to make notes for the topic of cell division can improve student performance?
- Does the use of mind maps or concept maps to make notes note can increase student’s interest to do revision?
Please include both types of literature sources, one about the research design, the other about the research topic, i.e., the new way of teaching biology. You need to demonstrate what other researchers have done on this topic to justify the need to conduct your research. If we already know a lot about it, then you need to demonstrate how your research will be different and why that difference is important for others to learn. - The methods of investigation you have chosen in order to provide you with the type of information you need to achieve your research aim(s) and objectives
Experiment; Treatment group vs control group
Treatment group: pre-test, receive treatment, post-test
Control group: pre-test, no treatment, post test
- An outline of the procedures you will use to administer your research methods – recruitment, informing your participants, implementing the design.
- Information about the sample (i.e. size of sample plus subgroup identity, such as gender and age and the numbers in each subgroup)
Population: 5th year students in county Cork, Ireland
Sample: 40 students from 2 co-ed school, 20 students from each school, both schools are in Cork city.
School A – 10 students in the treatment group and 10 students in control group
School B- 10 students in the treatment group and 10 students in control group
Students are chosen randomly: purpose of randomisation, if it is not randomised, then the inference has some limitations, because you cannot rule out other factors than the teaching method alone that might have influenced the difference you will observe in outcome.
7. The methods you will use to analyse the data
SPSS statistic software to analyse both descriptive and inferential statistics.
-descriptive statistics: to describe what you will find in the sample, for example, the means and variations in the treatment group and those in the control group.
-Inferential statistics: Since the two groups of the students are similar and randomly allocated to the treatment and control groups, then your inference is about how much difference is actually attributable to the teaching method rather than anything else.
• A reflective discussion demonstrating an awareness of the strengths and limitations of the research design
The questions you will need to consider when writing your commentary are:
• What do you know about the problem already? (What knowledge base informs the study – theoretical/empirical/practical?) What is it that you want to know? (What gap in existing knowledge are you seeking to fill?)
• What type/form of information do you need to achieve this? (This will involve taking each of the research objectives or hypotheses and making a statement about the nature of information that is needed.)
• What research approach do you need to adopt to obtain this information? (What does your research strategy/design need to be?)
• What precise methods do you need to adopt to obtain the information required? How will you operationalise your objectives or hypotheses? (For example, semi-structured interview, attitude scales.)
• What methods do you need to adopt to analyse the information collected? (For example, quantitative analysis using SPSS and some indication of the tests you will apply and why these and not others. If your study includes qualitative information give a clear account of the steps you will take in your analysis.)
• What will your research design and the resulting data allow you to say about the problem in question and what will your research design and the resulting data not allow you to say?
• To what extent does your research design and methods comply with ethical principles and practices?