Explore areas for development within your education setting

Develop realistic scope for your proposed development

Investigate social research methods appropriate to small scale education practice improvement

Evaluate ethical issues in relation to your project.

Assessment 1:

A written research proposal action plan (2,500 words)
Weighting 100% (LOs 1-3)

The action plan should include informed critical justification of:

Why this will benefit their workplace and professional development
How key relevant literature has informed your proposal
Aim and research question
Proposed methodology
Proposed research instrument(s)
Ethical considerations

Formative assessment:

Student-led ethics panel
Ethics approval from tutor
Workplace approval
Informal presentation of action plan to peers

In this module you’ll engage in interactive workshops focused on research design, ethics, and data analysis.

Guided tasks will support you in developing your own, focused small-scale enquiry, as relevant to your education workplace.

There will be opportunities to discuss your work and gain constructive peer feedback to support the development and planning of your project. You will also be encouraged to work with colleagues in your organisation to agree a project which can have a meaningful impact on practice. This will help to support you gaining ethical approval as necessary before commencing implementation in the next module.

1. Identify an appropriate evidence-informed area of enquiry into your professional practice.

Knowledge & understanding

2. Critically examine the accuracy and limitations of literature and your enquiry data.

Research skills
Digital literacy

3. Justify the selection of appropriate ethical methods for a small-scale practice-based enquiry.

Research skills
Application & problem solving

British Educational Research Association: https://www.bera.ac.uk/

Education Endowment Foundation: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/

Bell, J. and Waters, S. (2018) Doing your research project. 7th ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

This is an essential introductory text for those new to small-scale practitioner led research.

BERA (2024) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research 5th Edn.

Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2022) Thematic analysis: a practical guide. London: SAGE.

Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2018) Research Methods in Education. 8th Edn. Abingdon: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315456539.

This provides detailed explanations of key research issues to inform and help you justify your approach.

Flick, U. (2022) The Sage handbook of qualitative research design. 1st ed. Edited by U. Flick. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications.

Denscombe, M. (2021) The good research guide: research methods for small-scale social research projects. 7th ed. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.

Parrish, A. and Shaikh, G. (eds.) (2023) A quick guide to research methods for dissertations in education. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350260412.

What small change could make a meaningful difference to you, your students and your colleagues in your organisation? In this module, you’ll design a small-scale, evidence-informed enquiry within your own setting. You’ll explore key areas such as identifying a research focus, engaging with literature, research design and ethics, working with your organisation to agree a small-scale research project. This will help you to develop project planning skills which you will utilise when you implement the proposal in your next module.