Research Project [res]
Purpose
For the project you are doing for this class, you are required to do field research or research in which you will learn new information by speaking to individuals within a context or observing their literacy practices. This will give you the opportunity to interact with an actual site of literacy. Also by designing and conducting field research, you will learn the ethics of collecting and reporting data from human participants.
For the research plan, you will focus entirely on how you conduct your field research. Field researchers should always conduct research by designing a solid plan before beginning the data collection. Like the Project Proposal, the Research Project serves as both a guide for you, the researcher, and an opportunity for you to get feedback on your work before you start.
Instructions–Writing
In one to two single-spaced pages, you will detail and justify a strategy for conducting your field research. Your proposal should entail:
Your research question(s) What problem are you studying? What specific question or questions about specific literacy contexts/practices do you propose learn about from this field research? What do you want to learn about these literacy practices in this specific context? In many situations, your responses to these questions will mirror your responses to these questions in the Project Proposal. However, in this document, you will want to be much more specific about what you want to learn from the site in which you are collecting data.
The logistics At this point, you will want to spell out what you plan to do in enough detail that another person could pick up this document and confidently conduct your research for you. Therefore, you will want to address...
What will you be doing? What methods will you use to collect data? Interview? Focus Group? Questionnaire? Observation? Include a copy of your research tool with this document.
Who will your research participants be? For interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires, who will be answering these questions. Who or what will you be examining for an observation? By this point you should have a specific plan. If your data collection requires you to make an appointment or reservation, you should have done this by now.
When will you collect this data? If you have had to make an appointment, provide a specific time. If you are collecting data through questionnaire or observation, provide the time or times you will collect data; different populations visit these specific sites at different times of the day and thus influence your data outcomes.
Where will you collect the data? Be as specific as possible as to where you will collect the data. Again, different part of a specific location attract different people.
Why? Your response to this question is the justification of your responses to the four previous questions.
Target Dates Again you want to work within the deadlines that the instructor has established for conducting field research to create deadlines for yourself.
Plan B What parts of this plan do you anticipate will become problematic? If you experience any of these "roadblocks," what will you do as a contingency plan? Focus this discussion just on the features of the project that you think may be problematic. Simply provide some brief descriptions of your alternative methods; you do not have to provide another detailed plan.
When you compose this document, use block paragraphs, create hierarchies (use headings, subheadings, and so on), bulleted lists and images when appropriate.
Instructions– Portfolio
You do not need to revise this document for the portfolio. Instead, you will reflect upon what you actually did; in your Rhetorical Statement, you will explain both what you did differently in practice and why you made these variations.
Criteria
The first draft of the Project Proposal is due March 3, 2005.
An evaluated copy of the Project Proposal is due with the Portfolio on April 26, 2005.
The first draft will be evaluated as part of your participation grade and will receive two grades for content and convention. The final submission will be part of the portfolio grade.
In addition to the general evaluation criteria, the instructor will be looking for evidence of...
- a sense of audience–will your audience be able to conduct this research without you being present?
- a proposed plan that is cohesive? In other words, do you propose appropriate means to address your research questions? Does it fit with your Project Proposal?
- a project that is viable (capable of being accomplished over a few weeks).
- your understanding of the plan that you are proposing, the context/practice that you will be studying, and literacy studies?
- an ability to articulate your knowledge of the course content
- an ability to articulate what your future actions will be an why? In other words, provide meta-commentary.
- appropriate use of conventions, including MLA or APA citation formatting
last.updated 01.11.05