The Importance of Your Research Topic and Question

Assignment Overview:

Every doctoral student must complete a culminating research project to earn his or her doctoral degree.  Students in a PhD program will complete a dissertation research project, while students in a PsyD program will complete either an applied doctoral project or a dissertation.  In Scholarly Argument I (RES 7105), you researched a topic of interest to you, evaluated different types of research studies that had been completed on your topic, and explained some of the findings of the studies associated with the topic.  You also investigated institutional, organizational, and governmental agency sources that were relevant to understanding your topic.

At the end of Scholarly Argument I, you identified a research question and you wrote a persuasive essay defending the choice of your research question.  In this assignment, you will use the accumulated knowledge you have about your topic to expand on that defense of your research question by explaining how answering your research question will contribute to the body of knowledge in your discipline or to the practical application of study information to the academic and practitioner communities.  In a dissertation or an applied doctoral project, this would constitute the Importance of the Study. 

If you did not take Scholarly Argument I, this assignment will help you solidify your background knowledge about your research topic and proposed research question. Make sure to conduct sufficient research using library databases and searching for information in institutional, organizational and governmental agency websites to explain your topic, and to defend the relevance of the topic and your proposed research question to your field of study.

Written Assignment Instructions:

In a paper of at least 1,500 words (not including title, abstract, and reference pages), provide background information to explain your research topic and the relevance of the topic to your field of study, citing scholarly sources and institutional or organizational statistics to support your thinking.  Focus on the over-arching topic you researched during Scholarly Argument I or that you identified at the beginning of this class. Then, describe the potential importance of a study to address the research question you identified. Include in your statement of importance the following:

• Provide background information to explain your research topic and the relevance of the topic to your field of study.
• Focus on the over-arching topic to explain what topic you want to study and why.
• Discuss why your research question is relevant and how the question relates to the over-arching topic.
• Discuss how results from a study to answer your research question may contribute to theory, knowledge, understanding, and/or practice in your field of study, and how study results might be used by practitioners and scholars.
• Identify any knowledge gaps that could be addressed by answering your proposed research question.

Support your arguments with references to at least five different scholarly articles (academic journal articles) in addition to any required course readings. Include title, abstract, and reference pages in your paper.
Note: You may build on the themes and ideas you developed in Scholarly Argument I (SAI), but you may not simply copy and reuse all or part of an assignment you submitted in SA I (or any other UoR class) for this or any other assignment in the course. The only exception to this admonition is noted above in the Weekly Discussion. You may copy the research question you identified in SA I for purposes of expanding on the research question during this course.