If you don’t already have a burning question or topic your are interested in studying, begin by narrowing your focus to a specific field of educational research. Below is a non-exhaustive list of areas within education, several of which are linked to associations that fall under the umbrella Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE):

• curriculum studies
• educational psychology
• Indigenous education
• social justice education
• women and education
• teacher education
• educational technology
• special and inclusive education
• educational leadership and administration
• early childhood education
• higher education
• sociology of education
• philosophy of education
• comparative and international education
• educational policy and legal studies
• language and literacy education
• assessment and evaluation
• physical education
• adult and continuing education
• arts and STEM education

Whose knowledge is privileged?

Let’s critically examine your role as the researcher. Following along with the steps in a research project, you start studying the literature on your topic, find a place where you can add insights, and conduct your study. But why are you the person who gets to decide what is important? Just as students are the experts on their own lives, members of your target population are the experts on their lives. What does it mean for a group of people to be researched on, rather than researched with? How can we better respect the knowledge and self-determination of community members?

A different way of approaching your research project is to start by talking with members of the target population and those who are knowledgeable about that community. The researcher’s role in this case would be similar to a consultant, someone with specialized knowledge about research who can help communities study problems they consider to be important. The researcher is a co-investigator, and community members are equal partners in the research project. Each has a type of knowledge—theoretical expertise and lived experience—that should inform the research process. This is in part the principle behind the Research 101 : A Manifesto for Ethical Research in the Downtown Eastside.

The community focus highlights something important about student projects: they are localized. With a local scope, student researchers can bring about change in their schools, organizations, and community.

Read!

Once you have a potential idea, start reading! A simple web search should bring you some basic information about your topic.

Scope-setting and focusing your project

It’s a good idea to keep it simple when you’re starting your project. Choose a topic that can be easily defined and explored. Your study cannot focus on everything that is important about your topic. A study on gun violence might address only one system, for example schools, while only briefly mentioning other systems that impact gun violence. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad study. Every study presents only a small picture of a larger, more complex and multifaceted issue. It’s important to consider what you are and aren’t going to study. Below is an example of establishing scope:

Think about what you hope to accomplish with your study. This is the aim of your research project. Educational research is generally research for action. Educators engage in research to help people. Often, researchers begin with a target population in mind (e.g., grade 3 students in a rural school in Northern British Columbia).

How do you feel about your topic?

Now that you have an idea of what you might want to study, it’s time to consider what you think and feel about that topic. Your motivation for choosing a topic does not have to be objective. Because education is a value-based profession, scholars often find themselves motivated to conduct research that furthers social justice or fights oppression. Just because you think a policy is wrong or a group is being marginalized, for example, does not mean that your research will be biased. It means you must understand what you feel, why you feel that way, and what would cause you to feel differently about your topic. Understanding your own biases (beliefs and expectations) will help you design a research project that doesn’t fall prey to expectancy bias (you “discover” what you already believed to be the case).

Start by asking yourself how you feel about your topic. Sometimes the best topics to research are those about which you feel strongly. However, you must be able to accept that people may have a different perspective, and you must represent their viewpoints fairly in the research report you produce. Be prepared to accept all findings, even those that may be unflattering or distinct from your personal perspective. Consider intentionally studying a topic about which you have strong feelings.

Kathleen Blee (2002)^[1] has taken this route in her research. Blee studies groups whose racist ideologies may be different than her own. You can listen to her lecture Women in Organized Racism that details some of her findings. Her research is so impactful because she was willing to report her findings and observations honestly, even those contrary to her beliefs and feelings. If you believe that you may have personal difficulty sharing findings with which you disagree, then you may want to study a different topic. Knowing your own hot-button issues is an important part of self-knowledge and reflection in education, and there is nothing wrong with avoiding topics that are likely to cause you unnecessary stress.

Educators often use personal experience as a starting point to identify topics of interest. Personal experience can be a powerful motivator to learn more about a topic. However, researchers should be mindful of their own mental health during the research process. A teacher who has experienced a mental health crisis or traumatic event should approach researching related topics cautiously. There is no need to trigger yourself or jeopardize your mental health for a research project. For example, a student who has just experienced domestic violence may want to know about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. While the student might gain some knowledge about potential treatments for domestic violence, they will likely have to read through many stories and reports about domestic violence as part of the research process. Conducting a research project on this topic may negatively impact the student’s mental health.

What do you think about your topic?

Once you figure out what you feel about your topic, consider what you think about it. There are many ways we know what we know. Perhaps your mother told you something is so. Perhaps it came to you in a dream. Perhaps you took a class last semester and learned something about your topic there. Or you may have read something about your topic in your local newspaper. Take some time to think of everything you know about your topic. Thinking about what you already know will help you begin to frame a question about your topic.

Student projects can make a difference!

The adage that “a good project is a done project” is true. At the same time, this advice might unnecessarily limit an ambitious and diligent student who wanted to investigate something more complex. For example, here is a Vice News article about master of social work student Christine Stark’s work on sex trafficking of Indigenous women. Student projects have the potential to address sensitive and politically charged topics. With support from faculty and community partners, student projects can become more comprehensive. The results of your project should accomplish something. Social science research is about creating change, and you will find the work of completing a research project more rewarding and engaging if you can envision the change your project will create.

In addition to broader community impacts, student research projects can have an impact on a university or academic programming. Consider this resource on how to research your institution by Rine Vieth. As a student, you are one of the groups on campus with the least power (others include custodial staff, support staff, contingent and adjunct faculty). It is often necessary that you organize within your cohort of students for change. Not only is it an excellent learning opportunity to practice your advocacy skills, you can use raw data that is publicly available or create your own raw data to inform change. The collaborative and transformative focus of student research projects like these can be impactful learning experiences, and students should consider projects that will lead to some small change in both themselves and their communities.