Discussion: Education-Related Issues—Narrowing the Topic
In the Looking Ahead Assignment you completed at the end of Module 3, you explored resources to identify three education-related issues. To be a change agent in the field of education, you have a responsibility to stay aware of current issues and to know how those issues positively and negatively impact key stakeholders.
For this Discussion, you will narrow the scope of each education-related issue you identified in order to formulate problems that merit further investigation. What are some of the problems—whose resolution might be informed by applying knowledge from existing research or conducting a new research study—associated with each of the issues? Why is it important to investigate one or more of these problems? Identifying issues and problems early in your advanced graduate degree program allows you more time to build on your knowledge base related to them. Further, you will be prepared to analyze and evaluate scholarly inquiry with a critical eye.
When evaluating an issue and reflecting on ways to positively address the issue, the task, at first, might seem overwhelming. For this reason it is important to critically examine the issue to determine the most important related problems. As you consider problems associated with an issue, you should be able to begin identifying potential research topics. Before you can begin planning a research study for a topic, the topic must be quite narrow. As you narrow a topic to a specific problem, ask the following:
• What has already been studied in the literature?
• How much time will it take me to complete a study related to this problem?
• What stakeholder buy-in will I need to obtain to perform this study?
• What are the benefits of doing this study?
• What are the ethical considerations related to this study?
• Will I be able to recruit participants for this study?
These questions are not inclusive of all that needs consideration when contemplating a research study, but they give you an idea of what needs to be considered when you take an educational issue and extract problems for possible investigation.
To prepare for this Discussion, review the resources shared in this module as well as the following Toolkit documents: “Narrowing a Topic,” “Refining Your Research,” and “Creating Problem Statements.” Also, review the literature to learn more about each issue, and prepare to share any useful resources you discovered with your colleagues. Please find me a Topic.
By Day 3 (of Module 4)
Post how you would narrow a topic from each of the three issues by identifying a problem for each issue that can be researched. Identify one piece of key information you discovered in a scholarly resource about each problem. Then, create problem statements that concisely define the scope of how you will research each problem.
The case study that I have been talking about is Case study for Corporate and Non-Academic Learners. The materials in this case study are a combination of authentic public domain documents and simulated documents created specifically for the case study that draw on authentic research and data form government and scholarly sources, and from the opinions of experts in the field.
The scenario outlines real issues in the corporate setting, but Setem Technologies, Inc. is a fictional company, invented for the purposes of this case study.
Scenario
You are part of a team at a small medical device startup business called Setem Technologies that is looking to rapidly expand over the next five years. The CEO/founder of Setem Technologies is working on next year’s budget and sees no reason to dedicate funds for training and development (T & D). Others in the company disagree with the CEO and see clear benefits to having a comprehensive approach to training employees. The suggestions for fitting T & D into the budget range from a training strategy developed in-house to solutions based around hiring external training vendors. It is your task to make a recommendation to the CEO as to the extent that the company should focus on training, given the budget constraints, and whether outside vendors or internal staff should be employed to implement the company’s training programs.