Research: Final Research Paper
Format: Word document (or similar) submitted in BlackBoard and Foliotek
Grading: Based on rubric provided in syllabus and in BB
Using concepts from class and additional research, write a research review paper about your chosen student group, which helps describes the current and perhaps optimal campus environment in terms of student retention and success. Your paper(s) assigned earlier in the class are designed to build toward this final paper and provided opportunities for you to receive feedback on your ideas that build to this paper. You may edit those papers and include them in this final as you write your final, cohesive paper.
Your eight to ten (8-10) page paper should include
an examination of the research on the college experiences and outcomes of the population.
a thesis sentence highlighting the sections of the paper;
a thoughtful definition of the population (edited from your first research assignment in this class);
a literature review on the group’s unique characteristics and themes concerning the effects of the college environment on the population (edited and enhanced from your outline earlier in this class). In this review, choose the roughly 3 themes that the literature suggests are important to the campus environment and use sub-headings for grouping the research in those themes.
Based on findings from the research you’ve reviewed, a proposal of at least two (2) recommendations for supporting the population in college. Recommendations might include institutional programs, institutional policies, state policies or initiative, or national policies or initiatives (and other ideas!) that could enhance this group’s collegiate experience.
Conclusion and references page, with at least 8 peer-reviewed articles (See “Tips for Final Paper” below on details!).
APA style and formatting
Tips for your final paper
Please note that research articles are not media articles. While The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and many other news outlets are excellent sources of information about higher education and may at times highlight research, they are not the same as primary research and/or scholarly articles. You are welcome to supplement your paper with news sources, but you must have 8 scholarly articles for full credit. You might view the following lists of peer reviewed journals related to higher education and student affairs to get a sense of journals that might have articles related to your population.
http://libguides.bgsu.edu/c.php?g=227115&p=1505430
https://library.louisville.edu/ekstrom/CFDC
Using the UofL library, you might also conduct searches in the ERIC (EBSCO) database as a start: https://library.louisville.edu/subjects/education. Scholarly books, reports from the government, research institutes (e.g., https://heri.ucla.edu/) or educational think-tanks would also be appropriate.
Simply listing sources in the bibliography is not sufficient for this assignment. One must write about the research and make sense of it in the actual paper itself. Thus, I expect you will have some of your own written analysis on the research. Most effective papers will not simply give summaries of 8 articles in separate paragraphs, but will find common themes and related findings/data that the articles then together inform. The goal is to move away from simple summarizing and move toward analysis, synthesis, and broad connected understanding of unique pieces of research. Work to use the articles/research together to make some broad points and an argument that you can describe in the introduction and in a thesis sentence. Be sure to use APA guidelines and avoid plagiarizing by appropriately citing. Cite both in-text and in a bibliography (be sure sources are in both). Because one must find research that is related and relevant to one’s paper, you will find many more than 8 articles. You are welcome to use more than 8, but if using only 8, select the articles that most relate to the points you want to make.
I also attached the responses from the previous papers below.
She gave the Population Definition and Annotated Bibliography: 13/15 (86%)
Climate Research: 11/15 (73%)
