EDD 630, Section 7934
Educational Research Seminar: Overcoming Adversity
Fall, 2010

Final Project

The final project demonstrates your ability to design an educational program that addresses more than just academic development, but also students’ greater success in the face of real challenges. The project also must contain a workable evaluation that accurately assesses the extent to which your program meets its goals. Therefore, in your final project for EDD 630 you will:

• present a feasible intervention program designed to help a specific group of students overcome a given set of barriers or stressors,
• defend your decision for why you designed it the way you did based on a scholarly review of the relevant literature, and
• propose an economical way of assessing the extent to which your intervention met its stated objectives.

The details and order of these goals are described below. Please note that the draft should conform to APA style (including avoiding common formatting errors).

1. Title Page

This will be a simple title page, which follows APA formatting.

2. Abstract

Your abstract for the final project in EDD 630 will not contain all of the parts of a typical abstract: It will only contain the parts relevant to the paper’s introduction. Nonetheless, do please follow the standard format for an abstract for the parts you will contain. Some tips about writing it are here.

3. Introduction and Literature Review

This introduction will be comprised of roughly three pieces. This section provides background and context of intervention and evaluation assembled from relevant research. The first is a general introduction to your area. This will surely the be smallest piece and will likely be completed with only a paragraph or two at the most.

After this general introduction, you will demonstrate your understanding of the area you are presenting through an intelligent synthesis of the articles into review that draws conclusions and makes connections. This section will be where you cite most of your articles--again using APA style. So, the main goals of this part are to show that you understand the articles you’ve read, you can think about them critically (are an “intelligent consumer”),and that you can make connections and inferences from them to build knowledge.

In the final part of the Introduction and Literature Review section, you will review the main strategies that have been used to address the problems you are reviewing. The articles you will address here will, of course, be those that evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions you’re discussing. You will probably also cite a few sources that explain exactly what the interventions do; for this latter point, you don’t necessarily need scholarly sources. In this section, your main goals are to demonstrate your understanding of the programs and critically assess them in light of the articles you review in the previous section.

Overall, the Introduction and Literature Review section will likely be at least 1,000 words/4 pages long. Remember to correctly cite the scholarship your reference and further it with your own insights and informed opinions. Some formatting guidelines are given here, here, and here. Finally, please use direct quotes sparingly: I’d much rather see you digest the material and put it in your own words.

4. The Intervention

Perhaps the most important part, it is here that you can show both your understanding of the field and demonstrate your creativity and pedagogical/developmental acumen. Since this area is where you can most show your creativity, its format is most open to change. In general, this can be organized like a lesson plan (such as this, this, or this), in which you identify:

1. Objectives
   This the purpose(s) of the intervention written in general terms,


2. Outcomes
   Here you will operationalize the specific changes you expect to see if the objectives are met. These should be objective (i.e., not subjective) and observable,


3. Participants
   Here, describe the target population and any other relevant stakeholders (teachers, parents, etc.). Explain important characteristics (e.g., fifth grade students in a large, public, urban elementary school; currently living on a family income below the poverty line; members of a publicly-run day care for working parents, etc.) but don’t list un-important ones (e.g., religious affiliation or race unless relevant).


4. Procedure
   This section explains the steps one would take to conduct the intervention. Please write this section with enough detail and clarity that a naive but intelligent person could conduct your intervention with fidelity by what is written here. Also in this section, please discuss contingency plans for likely stumbling blocks, for example if a given student needs more help than you can give or if a part you’re not sure is going to work indeed doesn’t. This will probably be the longest section, and will probably be at least 500 words/2 pages long.


5. Materials
   This section may only describe any materials used (e.g., list books used in a reading program). However, there are occasions on which it is appropriate to include the actual materials (e.g., discussion prompts, do-nows, etc.). For next semester’s project, you may in fact include samples of actual materials.

For this semester, you do not need to include an Assessment section (in which you describe in detail how you will measure the extent to which your outcomes are met). Instead, we will complete this early next semester.

6. References

A properly formatted list of articles cited in the other sections. Please include at least six articles. You may use ones we’ve discussed or made available in class.

The EBSCO search engine you will use through our library to find articles can also be used to obtain the proper format for citing works in the reference section. When you click on an article to view the detailed description of it (i.e., the page that also provides the abstract if there is one), note a “Cite” link in a menu either on the top or right side of the detailed citation. Clicking on this link will open a new, temporary window with the article formatted in various citations styles, including the APA style you should use. You can also Son of Citation Machine to help. Please note, however, that neither EBSCO’s nor Son of Citation Machine’s systems always format perfectly, so check with, e.g., the examples given on OWL’s web site to be sure.

Some Guidelines on the Paper’s Format

In addition to the links to helpful sites noted throughout the sections above such as this, the following sites and files should help you conform to the required APA style relatively painlessly. The University of Illinois provides a sample research paper formatted in Word you can use both to learn about the contents of the sections and to help you format your paper. That same sample paper is also available in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org Writer format.

To assist you in conforming to APA style, you may use this zipped template for Microsoft Word or this zipped template for OpenOffice.org’s Writer. Note that you must unzip either template after you download it and before you use it. Information about using the one for Word is here and here; information for using the one for Writer is here, here, here, and here.

Grading Rubric for Final Project

Although you are graded on the quality of your initial proposal, your grade is not fully based on your own ability. You will (hopefully) work closely with the other members both of your group and the entire class to help your fellow students hone their proposal into a first-rate product. I will not grade the extent to which you help each other (unless it infringes on cheating, of course), but I hope that this structure will nurture an appreciation for the role of collaboration in research. Successful interventions are almost never solitary endeavors.

N.b., criteria within each section are listed in general order of importance, the most important being first.

Element	Percent Weight	Target/Criteria
Abstract	5	Contains all requisite parts Succinctly, comprehensibly summarizes introduction and intervention Is requisite length
Introduction	30	Demonstrates a thorough understanding of pertinent background Background well-presented and sufficiently covered Connection between background and intervention study well-made Justification for intervention is well-thought and -presented A strong case is made for employing the intervention as described
Intervention	25	Intervention is feasible Details of the intervention are clear and complete Strong alignment is made between the objectives, outcomes, and procedure Contingencies are honest and well-considered with practical solutions provided
References	5	Articles are well-chosen given topic At least six are given Are properly formatted
Overall Writing Quality	10	Is well-organized (paragraphs build on each other, each paragraph has a topic sentence that is supported by all other sentences, etc.) Is strongly succinct, clear, and engaging Adheres to APA style Is grammatically correct and spelled correctly
Overall Quality and Sophistication of Thinking	25	Demonstrates an expert grasp of the scientific process and scientific thinking Logic is flawless while implementation is practical Demonstrates sophisticated critical thinking about sources, hypothesis creation, and implementation Demonstrates encyclopedic understanding of field and its relation to topic

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