INSTRUCTIONS:
Conduct a pilot research project including all the parts specified here. You will be preparing a pilot research project for a library and information science (LIS) topic of interest and which you deem worthy of research.
The pilot research project should follow APA 7th edition professional paper style, including title page, abstract, formatting of citations (both in-text and reference list), and pagination.
The final product should be a maximum of 5,000 words (reference list not included in the word count)
1. Introduction
Explain the issue you are researching and why it is significant to the field.
Describe the general area of the study, including the organizational context
Explain why researching this phenomenon is important to the general area under study
2. Background/Review of the Literature
Describe what is already known about this area and include a short discussion of why the background studies are not sufficient.
Summarize what is already known about the field. Include a summary of the basic background information on the topic gleaned from your literature review
Discuss several critical studies that have already been done in this area
Point out why these background studies are insufficient. In other words, what question(s) do they leave unresolved that you would like to study?
3. Problem Statement/Rationale
Describe the question(s) you are examining and explain why it is important
List the specific research question(s) that you are exploring.
Explain how these research questions are related to the larger issues raised in the introduction.
Describe what specific claim, hypothesis, and/or model will be evaluated with these questions.
4. Method and Design
A description of how you would go about collecting data and test the questions you are examining.
Method:
How did you collect the data? Why is this a good method to collect data in the context of your research question?
Describe the general methodology you chose for your study, in order to gather data that will help inform your research question.
Rationale:
Explain why this method is the best for your purposes.
Participants or data gathered: Who or what did you test and why? How many?
Describe the sample you used and explain why you chose this sample. Were there any participants or items you excluded? Why?
Design: What did you do in order to gather and analyze the data? What did the stimuli look like and why? The answer will include a number of the components listed below. Consider accordingly as they apply to the study you want to conduct.
Procedure
How did you present the stimuli?
What did the participants in the pilot project do?
Analysis
How did you analyze the results?
Include any specific steps for processing the data
5. Results and Conclusion
Discuss, in general, the findings you uncovered during the data analysis process and how your proposed pilot study would lead to a significant improvement over the available studies and how it would benefit the LIS field.
6. References
Include all references in APA 7 style.
