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CASC 352 - PLTL Workshop Leader 1

Get started identifying or developing an area of interest

Word Cloud of Teaching & Learning Topics from categories on blogs and recent titles in Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Words in the cloud include: learning, technology, anxiety, education, flipped, ai, active, teaching, grades, includion, engagement, career, game, movement, management

Some ideas to get started include:

  • Reflect on your course content.
  • Browse recent issues of education journals or professional websites to see what types of topics are being studied now.
  • Combine multiple areas of interest.
  • Find one study on a broad area of interest (e.g., engagement in class discussions) and identify what are the specific questions, variables, and methods being engaged with.

SMART Research

Specific: Too much territory to cover? Be sure your scope isn’t so broad or so vague that you can’t answer your research question. Can you break a larger task down into smaller items?

Measurable: Establish clear definitions to help you measure (both qualitative and quantitative) if you are reaching your goal.  

Action-Oriented: What is your plan of attack?  Using action verbs, describe your goals and outline specific steps you will take to accomplish your goal.  

Realistic: What are some possible obstacles to this research? Set goals that you will actually be able to accomplish.  

Time-Bound: You only have a certain amount of time to complete your research, so plan accordingly.  Decide when you will start and finish your project.  

Developing a Topic with PICO

From evidence-based medical practice and research, PICOM (Adapted from PICO) could help you formulate your research question by breaking your research down to component parts. Let's take a look at two examples, one from Medicine and one from Education.

PICOM Component: Example 1 (Medicine) Example 2 (Education)
Population Pre-diabetic young adults First year students in a small discussion-based100- level sociology class
Intervention Continuous glucose monitor (attached to arm for a week) Open ended reflection questions at the start of class
Control/Comparison Traditional Glucose monitor (finger pricking) Multiple choice poll everywhere questions at the start of class
Outcome Lower A1C levels at follow up. Greater class participation
Measurement/ Method Comparison of A1C levels of each group using statistical analysis of depersonalized data. Instructor reflection following each class on their impression of qualitative and quantitative factors- percent of students who spoke, liveliness of discussion, instructor interventions needed.

In example 1, our research question had become, "Do pre-diabetic young adults who are given continuous glucose monitors have lower A1C levels at a follow up appointment compared to those who are encouraged to use a traditional glucose monitor?" and we have a rough outline of the types of method we will use.

*Practice putting the parts together for example 2 to identify the research question.

Sometimes, people add additional letters, like T for time (length of intervention/treatment) or S for study (type of study). For example 1, I might specify "a 3 month follow up appointment" to clarify the time of the research.