EDUC 851: Research on Teacher Education

Welcome to the EDUC 851:  Research on Teacher Education Infoguide

Use this guide to locate sources to use for your course assignments.​

• Find Articles - Key databases and journals for research on teacher education
• Find Books - Mason education e-books and print books and search the Mason and Washington Research Library Consortium catalogs
• Locate Course Readings - Locate and connect to course readings
• Find Websites - connect to key organizations for teacher education and teacher education research
• Find Online Tutorials -   tutorials on beginning your research, finding & evaluating resources, using Zotero to create citations
• Write & Cite - links to information on citing references using APA format and Zotero
• Get Help - make an appointment with the Education Librarian, use Virtual reference, information for distance students, and step by step directions for many common library resources.

This assignment will ultimately take the form of a well-integrated research proposal modeled in part on The American Educational Research Association’s conference proposal format (see Task #3). Completion of this proposal is divided into three related tasks:

1. Develop a statement of your problem
2. Develop an annotated bibliography of the studies you are considering for your final paper.  Two citations you use in your proposal must be dissertations.  In this way, you will see some models of others’ work to gain a sense of what goes into preparing your own.As you review extant literature, consider these questions
   • What was the purpose of the study?
   • What conceptual framework was used? Was this relevant to the study?
   • Who were the subjects/participants studied?  How many?
   • What methods did the researcher(s) use to conduct the study?
   • What did the researcher(s) find?
   • What conclusion(s) did the researcher(s) draw?
   • Then include a summary characterizing the essence of the reference including:  statement of the problem, context, framework, research design, findings, implications and relevance to your topic. Refer to APA guidelines as needed.
3. A research proposal.  Throughout most of the semester you will work on developing a literature review on a topic that interests you related to research on teacher education. You should review at least 15 sources beyond class readings, become aware of the existing research base, and identify possible future research directions based on gaps or possible extensions in the literature. Developing a well-integrated review of the literature in support of a researchable problem placed within a strong argument/rationale and research design is the basis of a research proposal and for Task #3.  The objective of this task is to move you closer to the actual task of identifying a problem and writing up the literature to make your case for conducting the study (practice at learning how to ask a manageable and focused researchable questions within solid design)

In the final paper, you will identify a researchable problem in your area of study (e.g. the preparation of teachers in your area, science, media and technology, special education, diverse classrooms, etc.), and prepare a literature review of the relevant and related research that would serve as a proposal to conduct a study.  You are not expected to conduct the study, rather use the assignment to gain a deeper understanding of your area of interest as it relates to the study of teacher education, and discern next best research question(s).

See syllabus for complete description of these assignments: https://cehd.gmu.edu/people/faculty/asamaras/