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Return to: How Do I Know What the Research Says?
Most reports that are primary sources on education research studies follow a common organization.
- Abstract or Executive Summary – Gives a brief but comprehensive summary of the research report, including the research problem, the research method, the results and conclusions.
Hint:
Always read the abstract or executive summary first because it is designed to organize the reader’s thoughts about the content of the report.
- Introduction – Describes the research problem, the background of the problem, related prior research, and the purpose and rationale for the study. It also gives a brief overview of the method used. The introduction usually concludes with specific research questions and sometimes with the research hypothesis.
Caution:
In reports on research studies, the author describes in the introduction how the study relates to prior research on the topic. Sometimes the author refers to this description as a literature review. Because, however, the purpose is to provide a context for the study and not to produce new conclusions based on past research, this description is not a literature review as defined in this Primer, as a stand-alone synthesis.
- Method – Provides information on how the study was conducted, ideally with enough details so the study can be repeated. Typically, the method section describes the following (not necessarily in this order):
- Results/Findings – Describes the results or findings of the research study. The format of the results section depends on the type of research questions the study addressed and the type of research design the study used. The results section usually begins with a description of the data-analysis plan, although sometimes this is explained in the method section. The results section ends with a summary of the results or findings. As might be expected, the results section for a quantitative research study reports many numbers and statistics. The results section for a qualitative research study primarily reports narrative descriptions of the findings.
Hint:
If the results section seems overwhelming, read the summary of the results first. The summary provides the most important information about the findings without getting bogged down with technical details. When there is no summary at the end of the results section, look for one at the beginning of the discussion section.
- Discussion/Conclusions – Summarizes the results and relates them to the research questions and hypotheses described in the introduction. In the discussion, the researcher provides the rationale for why the results support or do not support a particular conclusion. The researcher also discusses rival explanations and limitations of the study. The discussion section often ends with suggestions for future research that might clarify or extend the study findings.
Caution:
The conclusions an author gives often go beyond what is really justified by the research results or findings and may involve the author’s own subjective interpretations. The conclusions of a research study thus generally should be carefully scrutinized to see if they truly follow from the findings.
- References – Lists a bibliographic reference for every citation that occurs in the report. The references section is a good source for finding other research reports related to the topic of the study.
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