Module 2 - Components of a Research Article and More

In this week’s module, we were given three primary objectives:  discuss the components of a typical research article, describe four stages of action research:  planning, acting, developing, and reflecting, and analyze a research article.

According to Phillips, a typical research article contains several components.  The first is the title and author.  The title should summarize the main idea, preferably with style.  It should be a concise statement of the main topic, identify the primary variables or theoretical issues that were investigated, and identify the study participants.  All of this should be stated within only 10-12 words.  The next component is the abstract, which should be a brief summary of the entire article, and should contain very brief statements of all of the major components.  Third, the article should contain an introduction which presents the problems of the study, the subject of the study, the underlying theoretical basis, the relationship of the study to any previous work or literature (which can be quite extensive and provide for a large portion of the article), a clear statement of the need for the research, and research questions.  The fourth component of the article is the method, which describes how the study was conducted.  It is often split into subsections, but sometimes the subsections will be untitled to save space.  Subsections usually include subjects or participants, which clarifies who participated in the study, how they were chosen, the number of participants, how they were assigned to experimental or control groups, use of research ethics, and who remained in the study for the entire time.  Another subsection is the materials used or the data collection instrument.  Next would include a subsection about the procedures, design, or method of the study.  Here, the quality of data is of utmost important.  Data analysis is sometimes a subsection within the method, and it is often the most difficult to understand part of the study because it contains unfamiliar terminology and many numbers to deduce.  It is therefore helpful for the writer to include graphs or tables to assist the reader in comprehension.  Many times, data will be analyzed by a computer program to increase reliability and eliminate human error.  The next subsection is results, which represents the findings of the data analyses.  It is usually summarized as an average, not as a raw score, and will be presented as an answer to the initial question.  It normally does not include conclusions, which are normally part of the final subsection, discussion.  Discussion tries to make sense of what happened in the experiment.  It normally ends with implications of the results and suggestions for future research.  Of course, research articles must also include a references section, which is normally noted in APA format.  It is clear that these components are standard as evidenced in the actual articles provided in chapter 3 of the Phillips text, chapter 3 of the Mertler text, and in the article “Career Influences of Music Education Audition Candidates.”

Additionally, this week included a reading and discussion of the four stages of action research, which were defined as planning, acting, developing, and reflecting.  The planning phase of action research is used to identify and limit the topic, gather information, review related literature, and develop a research plan, very similar to the beginning components of a standard research article.  The planning stage exists because the teacher-researcher has a desire to make things better, so he or she plans carefully so that the conclusions will be useful.  The teacher talks to other teachers, consults teacher manuals or curricular guide, and reflects on his/her beliefs during the gathering information portion of the planning stage.  During the review of related literature portion, the teacher will search for books, research journals, websites, resource manuals, and discussions with colleagues to get as much information that has already been established on the topic as possible.  During the portion where the teacher develops a research plan, he or she creates his or her research question, which can include a hypothesis of what he or she thinks may be the result of his or her study.  This portion will also include the teacher’s layout of procedures and research ethics.  This completes the planning stage.  The second stage of action research is the acting stage, which includes collecting data and analyzing data.  During this stage, the teacher will decide what data to collect and how it will be collected (instruments), make observations during the actual study and record them, conduct interviews through a questionnaire or survey, examine and analyze existing data or records, and collect multiple measures of data if possible.  Regarding the analyzing portion, the teacher will analyze data as the experiment actually occurs and will also analyze the whole at the end of the experiment.  This will provide for the most useful and reflective research.  The third stage of action research is the developing stage, which includes creating an action plan.  This is the ultimate goal of the study.  It is necessary here that there is the existence of a specific and tangible approach to trying out some new ideas that will solve original problems, and it must be carefully documented.  The fourth and final stage of action research is the reflecting stage, which contains two major parts:  sharing results and self-reflection.  Sharing results for action research can be done through a simple presentation to colleagues or through the complex process of formal writing and submission to a journal.  The reflection, although counted as the final stage, is truly part of the entire process.  Reflecting is what makes action research truly cyclical in nature; there is always a way to further the research or improve the current method.

Although the provided texts were very interesting, the most truly engaging portion of this week’s module was undoubtedly the opportunity to analyze a research article.  The article that we analyzed was titled “Career Influences of Music Education Audition Candidates.”  As the title states, the article was related to students who were auditioning for college music education programs and the influences they had in high school and earlier that led them to choose music education as a career field.  As a former (and current) music education student, I can clearly remember the audition process, and I found myself easily relating to the topic as it has directly applied to my life.  Some major findings of the article were that students are primarily influenced by their high school directors, and students will primarily choose to focus in the area in which they focused in high school.  As a band and choir student, I had trouble choosing whether to focus on band or choir as my music education major, but I settled on choir because I related more viscerally to the use of my voice as my primary instrument.  I was definitely influenced primarily by my high school directors, although since both of my parents are music educators, they also had a very strong influence on me.  Interestingly, I followed the exact normalcy of students, and I wanted to teach high school choir or college choir when I entered college.  I have only been able to find jobs teaching elementary school, and I will be teaching band this school year.  The article addressed that the relationship between a music education students desires and the actual jobs that he or she takes may be an area of future research.  This may be an area I would be interested in pursuing since it seems to apply so directly to me.

The research article was also engaging because it provided me with an opportunity to put into practice all of the components of research articles that I read this week.  From discovering which components of the research article were strongest, which were weakest, and which demonstrated the creative individuality of the authors, I now feel that through the analysis of the research article, I am far more apt to compose one of my own.

References

Phillips, Kenneth H. (2008).  Exploring research in music education and music therapy.  New York 

                Oxford University Press.

Mertler, Craig A. (2012).  Action research:  Improving schools and empowering educators.  Los 

                Angeles:  Sage Publications.

Rickels, David A., Brewer, Wesley D., Councill, Kimberly H., Frederickson, William E., Hairston, 

                Michelle, Perry, David L., Porter, Ann M., and Schmidt, Margaret (2013). Career influences 

                of music education audition candidates.  Journal of Research in Music Education, 61.  doi: 

                10.1177/0022429412474896