Master’s Project

Spring 2016

Structural outline

Introduction

Why are you interested in this topic?  Do you have a personal or professional connection to it?  What do you already know about it from the existing literature that you have researched?  How will learning about this topic contribute to the field of art education?  What is your research question?

Literature Review

What does current research say about your topic?  What categories of literature did you read?  How do they work together?  Where are there differences?  What is missing from the literature?  What will your project contribute?

Methodology

How will you go about answering the question?  Why is the method you have chosen the best one for answering your question?  What is your positionality in relationship to the research?  Which theories are you using and why?  What should we know about your research site?  Your research participants?  Your relationship with your research participants?  

What counts as data: interviews, observations, surveys, etc.?  How did you analyze the data?  Did you look for patterns, identify categories, etc.?

Findings

What did you learn?  This is where you share your date and write about the patterns and/or categories that you identified, quote your participants, write about your observations.

Discussion

This is where you bring the existing research and your ANALYSIS of your research together.  What did you learn?  What surprised you?  What is missing?  This is where you bring the existing research and your ANALYSIS of your research together.  What did you learn?  What surprised you?  What is missing?  

Implications/Questions for further research

What are the implications for your research findings – curriculum, pedagogical or policy changes?  What do others need to consider about their own practice based on what you have found?  What other questions can we ask?

Works cited (does not contribute to your page count) 

Your bibliography