Scenario
Imagine you have been approached by your supervisor and asked to develop research-based solutions to a topic of interest to your professional practice. Select a problem or issue in your workplace or future field which you have some interest in solving or improving. For example, perhaps you are an elementary teacher with an interest in improving student engagement.
Instructions
Search the library databases for educational research articles and find two research reports that address your topic and problem. The research reports must be from the last five years and must be peer-reviewed, original research articles from a journal. Your supervisor requests that you submit a report to her. You will also make a presentation to the entire staff and lead a strategy about how to implement the solutions you have uncovered.
Once you have read the two research reports, continue to build your knowledge base regarding the problem in your professional practice that you developed during the earlier units by expanding upon your existing knowledge through the review of at least four more peer-reviewed journal articles related to your topic and problem. Use this additional content to support your work.
Before you being writing, review the “Developing Research-Based Solutions Template” below; it will provide more detailed information that will help you organize this assignment. Make sure to review the scoring guide to see how you will be graded on this assignment.
Include the following in your answer:
Introduction
- Briefly introduce the assignment and what you will accomplish in this assignment.
Problem of Professional Practice
In this section, define the problem of practice as it exists at your organization:
- Begin with the statement, “The problem at [insert organization] is…” The statement should be one or no more than two sentences. Then, describe the problem of practice more fully.
- This section should be no more than two to three paragraphs. Be concise in your description of the problem that needs to be addressed. Carefully consider the scope of your problem.
- If the organizational problem of interest to you is a large problem with multiple causes that would require a multifaceted approach from different areas of the organization in order to improve outcomes, it may be possible to delineate a smaller aspect of the problem that you will address.
- Avoid problems that are too narrow or trivial. Some things to keep in mind:
- Do not confuse a problem with a solution. A problem that is stated as “a lack of training” is usually a solution in disguise, not the problem.
- If you find yourself thinking that a lack of professional development or training is the problem, ask yourself why it is a problem. What problems exist for which training could be a solution? What are the performance problems that training will appear to alleviate or solve?
- Examples of performance problems are too much teacher-led instruction, below-average student performance, increasing discipline issues, poor wound-care assessment and documentation in a hospital, and financial aid office compliance problems. It is possible that training is a way to address the problem, but there could be other approaches as well (for example, tutoring, mentoring, better hiring practices, and changes to working conditions or environment).
Analysis of Key Findings
In this section both describe and analyze what you found in the two research reports that you located.
- Your description will include the type of each study, the purpose of each study, the theoretical or conceptual frameworks for each study, research questions, how the data were collected and analyzed, and the results or findings.
- In your analysis consider both studies together and describe commonalities; that is, describe similar patterns, common questions or concepts, similar theories and studies in the literature reviews, and similar results or findings.
- Also consider differences between the two studies. How did the data collection and analysis differ? How did results of findings differ? Were there disagreements between the two studies?
Evaluation of Key Findings
In this section evaluate the two studies in terms of two aspects:
- Can you trust the studies? Why can you trust the studies?
- How useful are the studies to you in developing a proposed evidence-based solution? What makes the studies useful to you?
Proposed Evidence-Based Solution
- In this section, propose an evidence-based solution based on the two studies.
