What: As masters students, you are developing your skills for understanding and consuming literature such that you can use bodies of literature to inform your respective practices and the problems of practice that arise. Therefore, this project allows learners to:
(a) Identify a Problem of Practice and a Research Question relevant to one’s own practice
(b) Search relevant literature
(c) Use the literature to inform one’s Problem of Practice
(d) Develop research design thinking to explore one’s Problem of Practice
(e) Develop skills in selecting methods to investigate one’s Problem of Practice with validity and trustworthiness
(f) Understand the ethical concerns and implications of Action Research into one’s Problem of Practice
Rationale: Being able to effectively search, interpret, and apply the findings in bodies of literature to aid in one’s practice is the defining skill of masters training. Therefore, the rationale for this project is to provide learners the opportunity to practice the related skills of searching, interpreting, and applying empirical findings of literature for one’s identified Problem of Practice.
Moreover, masters trained learners should have the knowledge and skills to investigate their own practice, using both empirical literature and their own investigation.
Elements: An Action Research Project, which will use the Six Cyclical Steps of Action Research, as listed in the Efron and Ravid (2020) text. Those steps include the following elements:
(a) Introduction
(b) Step 1: Identify a Problem (of Practice)
o Identify and define the Problem of Practice you want to explore
Ô Problem Statement (Define central concepts and terms)
Ô Write Research Questions (see page 40 in Efron and Ravid)
o Describe your role in the planned study
o Describe the context of your work, in which the Problem of Practice exists
o Describe the population with which you are working
o Explicate the rationale for researching/addressing this Problem of Practice; why does this Problem of Practice matter?
o Identify what previous steps or approaches you have used in addressing this Problem of Practice; or, if you have not yet tried to address it, discuss that and why