Research Report Requirements
Cover Page
Include your name, name of course, instructor, title of paper, and date submitted.
Headings
Use the headings that follow to identify major sections of your paper. You should also have
subheadings to help the reader follow the various subsections within the paper.
APA provides direction for subheadings and headings.
Table of Contents
Use your research report outline to develop a table of contents for your Research Report.
The pagination for the TOC is roman numerals. See APA and Lunenburg and Irby (2008).
Introduction
(Lunenburg & Irby, Chapter 6)
Identify the topic to be investigated and need for the study, supported by citations from researchers in the field of education or educational leadership. Explain how this study may contribute to decision making, planning and policy development for your school, school district, or organization.
Literature Review:
(Lunenburg and Irby, Chapter 7)
Clearly and concisely state how you conducted the literature review. Google is not an acceptable search source. However, scholar.google.com can be helpful in searching publications. What data bases did you search?
What were the key search terms? (i.e. year-round, elementary organizational calendars)
Limit the search and report to literature published from 2014-2024.
This is a contemporary literature review and
not a historical perspective.
Provide a synthesis of the literature and published studies. The order should be chronological and from large perspective (i.e. international/national) to small perspective (i.e. state/local). See Lunenburg and Irby (2018).
Another example of logical organization of
going from large to small would be to share research on your topic for education overall, then high schools, then middle schools, then elementary schools.
Use subheadings to help the reader follow
your investigation of literature cited. For example, you may have a topic of extended school year or school day. Then, have subheadings of International, National, and State. You may also have subheadings of high school, middle school, and elementary school. Literature that aligns with the subheadings should appear within those sections. Using subheadings assists you in organizing your writing and helps your reader in comprehending your writing.
Conclusions
What are the trends that you identified in your literature search? What are the gaps that you identified in your literature search? What are the conflicting findings you found in your literature search? Clearly state your conclusions based on the evidence within the sections that precede this one. Do not insert opinion; hence, this is a Research Report.
Implications for Leadership Practice and Further Research
Based on your findings, what are the recommendations that you have for leadership practice?
Based on your conclusions, what recommendations do you have for further study?
References
All sources used to write this paper must be listed according to APA, 7th Edition in the last section of the paper: References.
Appendixes
Most of you will not have documents in your appendixes. If you do want to include such documents or support, then this is the logical place for evidence to which you refer, but which is too lengthy to go in the body of your paper. An example might be a table from a study or another visual.
Professional Writing: (refer to writing rubric)
- No spelling, punctuation, or typing errors
- APA style