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• How to Define a Research Problem | Ideas & Examples

How to Define a Research Problem | Ideas & Examples

Published on November 2, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Tegan George. Revised on May 31, 2023.

A research problem is a specific issue or gap in existing knowledge that you aim to address in your research. You may choose to look for practical problems aimed at contributing to change, or theoretical problems aimed at expanding knowledge.

Some research will do both of these things, but usually the research problem focuses on one or the other. The type of research problem you choose depends on your broad topic of interest and the type of research you think will fit best.

This article helps you identify and refine a research problem. When writing your research proposal or introduction , formulate it as a problem statement and/or research questions .

Table of contents

Why is the research problem important, step 1: identify a broad problem area, step 2: learn more about the problem, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research problems.

Having an interesting topic isn’t a strong enough basis for academic research. Without a well-defined research problem, you are likely to end up with an unfocused and unmanageable project.

You might end up repeating what other people have already said, trying to say too much, or doing research without a clear purpose and justification. You need a clear problem in order to do research that contributes new and relevant insights.

Whether you’re planning your thesis , starting a research paper , or writing a research proposal , the research problem is the first step towards knowing exactly what you’ll do and why.

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As you read about your topic, look for under-explored aspects or areas of concern, conflict, or controversy. Your goal is to find a gap that your research project can fill.

Practical research problems

If you are doing practical research, you can identify a problem by reading reports, following up on previous research, or talking to people who work in the relevant field or organization. You might look for:

• Issues with performance or efficiency
• Processes that could be improved
• Areas of concern among practitioners
• Difficulties faced by specific groups of people

Examples of practical research problems

Voter turnout in New England has been decreasing, in contrast to the rest of the country.

The HR department of a local chain of restaurants has a high staff turnover rate.

A non-profit organization faces a funding gap that means some of its programs will have to be cut.

Theoretical research problems

If you are doing theoretical research, you can identify a research problem by reading existing research, theory, and debates on your topic to find a gap in what is currently known about it. You might look for:

• A phenomenon or context that has not been closely studied
• A contradiction between two or more perspectives
• A situation or relationship that is not well understood
• A troubling question that has yet to be resolved

Examples of theoretical research problems

The effects of long-term Vitamin D deficiency on cardiovascular health are not well understood.

The relationship between gender, race, and income inequality has yet to be closely studied in the context of the millennial gig economy.

Historians of Scottish nationalism disagree about the role of the British Empire in the development of Scotland’s national identity.

Next, you have to find out what is already known about the problem, and pinpoint the exact aspect that your research will address.

Context and background

• Who does the problem affect?
• Is it a newly-discovered problem, or a well-established one?
• What research has already been done?
• What, if any, solutions have been proposed?
• What are the current debates about the problem? What is missing from these debates?

Specificity and relevance

• What particular place, time, and/or group of people will you focus on?
• What aspects will you not be able to tackle?
• What will the consequences be if the problem is not resolved?

Example of a specific research problem

A local non-profit organization focused on alleviating food insecurity has always fundraised from its existing support base. It lacks understanding of how best to target potential new donors. To be able to continue its work, the organization requires research into more effective fundraising strategies.

Once you have narrowed down your research problem, the next step is to formulate a problem statement , as well as your research questions or hypotheses .

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

All research questions should be:

• Focused on a single problem or issue
• Researchable using primary and/or secondary sources
• Feasible to answer within the timeframe and practical constraints
• Specific enough to answer thoroughly
• Complex enough to develop the answer over the space of a paper or thesis
• Relevant to your field of study and/or society more broadly

Research questions anchor your whole project, so it’s important to spend some time refining them.

In general, they should be:

• Focused and researchable
• Answerable using credible sources
• Complex and arguable
• Feasible and specific
• Relevant and original

Your research objectives indicate how you’ll try to address your research problem and should be specific:

A research aim is a broad statement indicating the general purpose of your research project. It should appear in your introduction at the end of your problem statement , before your research objectives.

Research objectives are more specific than your research aim. They indicate the specific ways you’ll address the overarching aim.

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45 Research Problem Examples & Inspiration

A research problem is an issue of concern that is the catalyst for your research. It demonstrates why the research problem needs to take place in the first place.

Generally, you will write your research problem as a clear, concise, and focused statement that identifies an issue or gap in current knowledge that requires investigation.

The problem will likely also guide the direction and purpose of a study. Depending on the problem, you will identify a suitable methodology that will help address the problem and bring solutions to light.

Research Problem Examples

In the following examples, I’ll present some problems worth addressing, and some suggested theoretical frameworks and research methodologies that might fit with the study. Note, however, that these aren’t the only ways to approach the problems. Keep an open mind and consult with your dissertation supervisor!

Psychology Problems

1. Social Media and Self-Esteem: “How does prolonged exposure to social media platforms influence the self-esteem of adolescents?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Comparison Theory
• Methodology : Longitudinal study tracking adolescents’ social media usage and self-esteem measures over time, combined with qualitative interviews.

2. Sleep and Cognitive Performance: “How does sleep quality and duration impact cognitive performance in adults?”

• Theoretical Framework : Cognitive Psychology
• Methodology : Experimental design with controlled sleep conditions, followed by cognitive tests. Participant sleep patterns can also be monitored using actigraphy.

3. Childhood Trauma and Adult Relationships: “How does unresolved childhood trauma influence attachment styles and relationship dynamics in adulthood?

• Theoretical Framework : Attachment Theory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative measures of attachment styles with qualitative in-depth interviews exploring past trauma and current relationship dynamics.

4. Mindfulness and Stress Reduction: “How effective is mindfulness meditation in reducing perceived stress and physiological markers of stress in working professionals?”

• Theoretical Framework : Humanist Psychology
• Methodology : Randomized controlled trial comparing a group practicing mindfulness meditation to a control group, measuring both self-reported stress and physiological markers (e.g., cortisol levels).

5. Implicit Bias and Decision Making: “To what extent do implicit biases influence decision-making processes in hiring practices?

• Theoretical Framework : Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Methodology : Experimental design using Implicit Association Tests (IAT) to measure implicit biases, followed by simulated hiring tasks to observe decision-making behaviors.

6. Emotional Regulation and Academic Performance: “How does the ability to regulate emotions impact academic performance in college students?”

• Theoretical Framework : Cognitive Theory of Emotion
• Methodology : Quantitative surveys measuring emotional regulation strategies, combined with academic performance metrics (e.g., GPA).

7. Nature Exposure and Mental Well-being: “Does regular exposure to natural environments improve mental well-being and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression?”

• Theoretical Framework : Biophilia Hypothesis
• Methodology : Longitudinal study comparing mental health measures of individuals with regular nature exposure to those without, possibly using ecological momentary assessment for real-time data collection.

8. Video Games and Cognitive Skills: “How do action video games influence cognitive skills such as attention, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving?”

• Theoretical Framework : Cognitive Load Theory
• Methodology : Experimental design with pre- and post-tests, comparing cognitive skills of participants before and after a period of action video game play.

9. Parenting Styles and Child Resilience: “How do different parenting styles influence the development of resilience in children facing adversities?”

• Theoretical Framework : Baumrind’s Parenting Styles Inventory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative measures of resilience and parenting styles with qualitative interviews exploring children’s experiences and perceptions.

10. Memory and Aging: “How does the aging process impact episodic memory , and what strategies can mitigate age-related memory decline?

• Theoretical Framework : Information Processing Theory
• Methodology : Cross-sectional study comparing episodic memory performance across different age groups, combined with interventions like memory training or mnemonic strategies to assess potential improvements.

Education Problems

11. Equity and Access : “How do socioeconomic factors influence students’ access to quality education, and what interventions can bridge the gap?

• Theoretical Framework : Critical Pedagogy
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative data on student outcomes with qualitative interviews and focus groups with students, parents, and educators.

12. Digital Divide : How does the lack of access to technology and the internet affect remote learning outcomes, and how can this divide be addressed?

• Theoretical Framework : Social Construction of Technology Theory
• Methodology : Survey research to gather data on access to technology, followed by case studies in selected areas.

13. Teacher Efficacy : “What factors contribute to teacher self-efficacy, and how does it impact student achievement?”

• Theoretical Framework : Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory
• Methodology : Quantitative surveys to measure teacher self-efficacy, combined with qualitative interviews to explore factors affecting it.

14. Curriculum Relevance : “How can curricula be made more relevant to diverse student populations, incorporating cultural and local contexts?”

• Theoretical Framework : Sociocultural Theory
• Methodology : Content analysis of curricula, combined with focus groups with students and teachers.

15. Special Education : “What are the most effective instructional strategies for students with specific learning disabilities?

• Theoretical Framework : Social Learning Theory
• Methodology : Experimental design comparing different instructional strategies, with pre- and post-tests to measure student achievement.

16. Dropout Rates : “What factors contribute to high school dropout rates, and what interventions can help retain students?”

• Methodology : Longitudinal study tracking students over time, combined with interviews with dropouts.

17. Bilingual Education : “How does bilingual education impact cognitive development and academic achievement?

• Methodology : Comparative study of students in bilingual vs. monolingual programs, using standardized tests and qualitative interviews.

18. Classroom Management: “What reward strategies are most effective in managing diverse classrooms and promoting a positive learning environment?

• Theoretical Framework : Behaviorism (e.g., Skinner’s Operant Conditioning)
• Methodology : Observational research in classrooms , combined with teacher interviews.

19. Standardized Testing : “How do standardized tests affect student motivation, learning, and curriculum design?”

• Theoretical Framework : Critical Theory
• Methodology : Quantitative analysis of test scores and student outcomes, combined with qualitative interviews with educators and students.

20. STEM Education : “What methods can be employed to increase interest and proficiency in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields among underrepresented student groups?”

• Theoretical Framework : Constructivist Learning Theory
• Methodology : Experimental design comparing different instructional methods, with pre- and post-tests.

21. Social-Emotional Learning : “How can social-emotional learning be effectively integrated into the curriculum, and what are its impacts on student well-being and academic outcomes?”

• Theoretical Framework : Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence Theory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative measures of student well-being with qualitative interviews.

22. Parental Involvement : “How does parental involvement influence student achievement, and what strategies can schools use to increase it?”

• Theoretical Framework : Reggio Emilia’s Model (Community Engagement Focus)
• Methodology : Survey research with parents and teachers, combined with case studies in selected schools.

23. Early Childhood Education : “What are the long-term impacts of quality early childhood education on academic and life outcomes?”

• Theoretical Framework : Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
• Methodology : Longitudinal study comparing students with and without early childhood education, combined with observational research.

24. Teacher Training and Professional Development : “How can teacher training programs be improved to address the evolving needs of the 21st-century classroom?”

• Theoretical Framework : Adult Learning Theory (Andragogy)
• Methodology : Pre- and post-assessments of teacher competencies, combined with focus groups.

25. Educational Technology : “How can technology be effectively integrated into the classroom to enhance learning, and what are the potential drawbacks or challenges?”

• Theoretical Framework : Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)
• Methodology : Experimental design comparing classrooms with and without specific technologies, combined with teacher and student interviews.

Sociology Problems

26. Urbanization and Social Ties: “How does rapid urbanization impact the strength and nature of social ties in communities?”

• Theoretical Framework : Structural Functionalism
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative surveys on social ties with qualitative interviews in urbanizing areas.

27. Gender Roles in Modern Families: “How have traditional gender roles evolved in families with dual-income households?”

• Theoretical Framework : Gender Schema Theory
• Methodology : Qualitative interviews with dual-income families, combined with historical data analysis.

28. Social Media and Collective Behavior: “How does social media influence collective behaviors and the formation of social movements?”

• Theoretical Framework : Emergent Norm Theory
• Methodology : Content analysis of social media platforms, combined with quantitative surveys on participation in social movements.

29. Education and Social Mobility: “To what extent does access to quality education influence social mobility in socioeconomically diverse settings?”

• Methodology : Longitudinal study tracking educational access and subsequent socioeconomic status, combined with qualitative interviews.

30. Religion and Social Cohesion: “How do religious beliefs and practices contribute to social cohesion in multicultural societies?”

• Methodology : Quantitative surveys on religious beliefs and perceptions of social cohesion, combined with ethnographic studies.

31. Consumer Culture and Identity Formation: “How does consumer culture influence individual identity formation and personal values?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Identity Theory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining content analysis of advertising with qualitative interviews on identity and values.

32. Migration and Cultural Assimilation: “How do migrants negotiate cultural assimilation and preservation of their original cultural identities in their host countries?”

• Theoretical Framework : Post-Structuralism
• Methodology : Qualitative interviews with migrants, combined with observational studies in multicultural communities.

33. Social Networks and Mental Health: “How do social networks, both online and offline, impact mental health and well-being?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Network Theory
• Methodology : Quantitative surveys assessing social network characteristics and mental health metrics, combined with qualitative interviews.

34. Crime, Deviance, and Social Control: “How do societal norms and values shape definitions of crime and deviance, and how are these definitions enforced?”

• Theoretical Framework : Labeling Theory
• Methodology : Content analysis of legal documents and media, combined with ethnographic studies in diverse communities.

35. Technology and Social Interaction: “How has the proliferation of digital technology influenced face-to-face social interactions and community building?”

• Theoretical Framework : Technological Determinism
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative surveys on technology use with qualitative observations of social interactions in various settings.

Nursing Problems

36. Patient Communication and Recovery: “How does effective nurse-patient communication influence patient recovery rates and overall satisfaction with care?”

• Methodology : Quantitative surveys assessing patient satisfaction and recovery metrics, combined with observational studies on nurse-patient interactions.

37. Stress Management in Nursing: “What are the primary sources of occupational stress for nurses, and how can they be effectively managed to prevent burnout?”

• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative measures of stress and burnout with qualitative interviews exploring personal experiences and coping mechanisms.

38. Hand Hygiene Compliance: “How effective are different interventions in improving hand hygiene compliance among nursing staff, and what are the barriers to consistent hand hygiene?”

• Methodology : Experimental design comparing hand hygiene rates before and after specific interventions, combined with focus groups to understand barriers.

39. Nurse-Patient Ratios and Patient Outcomes: “How do nurse-patient ratios impact patient outcomes, including recovery rates, complications, and hospital readmissions?”

• Methodology : Quantitative study analyzing patient outcomes in relation to staffing levels, possibly using retrospective chart reviews.

40. Continuing Education and Clinical Competence: “How does regular continuing education influence clinical competence and confidence among nurses?”

• Methodology : Longitudinal study tracking nurses’ clinical skills and confidence over time as they engage in continuing education, combined with patient outcome measures to assess potential impacts on care quality.

Communication Studies Problems

41. Media Representation and Public Perception: “How does media representation of minority groups influence public perceptions and biases?”

• Theoretical Framework : Cultivation Theory
• Methodology : Content analysis of media representations combined with quantitative surveys assessing public perceptions and attitudes.

42. Digital Communication and Relationship Building: “How has the rise of digital communication platforms impacted the way individuals build and maintain personal relationships?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Penetration Theory
• Methodology : Mixed methods, combining quantitative surveys on digital communication habits with qualitative interviews exploring personal relationship dynamics.

43. Crisis Communication Effectiveness: “What strategies are most effective in managing public relations during organizational crises, and how do they influence public trust?”

• Theoretical Framework : Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT)
• Methodology : Case study analysis of past organizational crises, assessing communication strategies used and subsequent public trust metrics.

44. Nonverbal Cues in Virtual Communication: “How do nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and gestures, influence message interpretation in virtual communication platforms?”

• Theoretical Framework : Social Semiotics
• Methodology : Experimental design using video conferencing tools, analyzing participants’ interpretations of messages with varying nonverbal cues.

45. Influence of Social Media on Political Engagement: “How does exposure to political content on social media platforms influence individuals’ political engagement and activism?”

• Theoretical Framework : Uses and Gratifications Theory
• Methodology : Quantitative surveys assessing social media habits and political engagement levels, combined with content analysis of political posts on popular platforms.

Before you Go: Tips and Tricks for Writing a Research Problem

This is an incredibly stressful time for research students. The research problem is going to lock you into a specific line of inquiry for the rest of your studies.

So, here’s what I tend to suggest to my students:

• Start with something you find intellectually stimulating – Too many students choose projects because they think it hasn’t been studies or they’ve found a research gap. Don’t over-estimate the importance of finding a research gap. There are gaps in every line of inquiry. For now, just find a topic you think you can really sink your teeth into and will enjoy learning about.
• Take 5 ideas to your supervisor – Approach your research supervisor, professor, lecturer, TA, our course leader with 5 research problem ideas and run each by them. The supervisor will have valuable insights that you didn’t consider that will help you narrow-down and refine your problem even more.
• Trust your supervisor – The supervisor-student relationship is often very strained and stressful. While of course this is your project, your supervisor knows the internal politics and conventions of academic research. The depth of knowledge about how to navigate academia and get you out the other end with your degree is invaluable. Don’t underestimate their advice.

I’ve got a full article on all my tips and tricks for doing research projects right here – I recommend reading it:

• 9 Tips on How to Choose a Dissertation Topic

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
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Home » Research Problem – Examples, Types and Guide

Research Problem – Examples, Types and Guide

Table of Contents

Research Problem

Definition:

Research problem is a specific and well-defined issue or question that a researcher seeks to investigate through research. It is the starting point of any research project, as it sets the direction, scope, and purpose of the study.

Types of Research Problems

Types of Research Problems are as follows:

Descriptive problems

These problems involve describing or documenting a particular phenomenon, event, or situation. For example, a researcher might investigate the demographics of a particular population, such as their age, gender, income, and education.

Exploratory problems

These problems are designed to explore a particular topic or issue in depth, often with the goal of generating new ideas or hypotheses. For example, a researcher might explore the factors that contribute to job satisfaction among employees in a particular industry.

Explanatory Problems

These problems seek to explain why a particular phenomenon or event occurs, and they typically involve testing hypotheses or theories. For example, a researcher might investigate the relationship between exercise and mental health, with the goal of determining whether exercise has a causal effect on mental health.

Predictive Problems

These problems involve making predictions or forecasts about future events or trends. For example, a researcher might investigate the factors that predict future success in a particular field or industry.

Evaluative Problems

These problems involve assessing the effectiveness of a particular intervention, program, or policy. For example, a researcher might evaluate the impact of a new teaching method on student learning outcomes.

How to Define a Research Problem

Defining a research problem involves identifying a specific question or issue that a researcher seeks to address through a research study. Here are the steps to follow when defining a research problem:

• Identify a broad research topic : Start by identifying a broad topic that you are interested in researching. This could be based on your personal interests, observations, or gaps in the existing literature.
• Conduct a literature review : Once you have identified a broad topic, conduct a thorough literature review to identify the current state of knowledge in the field. This will help you identify gaps or inconsistencies in the existing research that can be addressed through your study.
• Refine the research question: Based on the gaps or inconsistencies identified in the literature review, refine your research question to a specific, clear, and well-defined problem statement. Your research question should be feasible, relevant, and important to the field of study.
• Develop a hypothesis: Based on the research question, develop a hypothesis that states the expected relationship between variables.
• Define the scope and limitations: Clearly define the scope and limitations of your research problem. This will help you focus your study and ensure that your research objectives are achievable.
• Get feedback: Get feedback from your advisor or colleagues to ensure that your research problem is clear, feasible, and relevant to the field of study.

Components of a Research Problem

The components of a research problem typically include the following:

• Topic : The general subject or area of interest that the research will explore.
• Research Question : A clear and specific question that the research seeks to answer or investigate.
• Objective : A statement that describes the purpose of the research, what it aims to achieve, and the expected outcomes.
• Hypothesis : An educated guess or prediction about the relationship between variables, which is tested during the research.
• Variables : The factors or elements that are being studied, measured, or manipulated in the research.
• Methodology : The overall approach and methods that will be used to conduct the research.
• Scope and Limitations : A description of the boundaries and parameters of the research, including what will be included and excluded, and any potential constraints or limitations.
• Significance: A statement that explains the potential value or impact of the research, its contribution to the field of study, and how it will add to the existing knowledge.

Research Problem Examples

Following are some Research Problem Examples:

Research Problem Examples in Psychology are as follows:

• Exploring the impact of social media on adolescent mental health.
• Investigating the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy for treating anxiety disorders.
• Studying the impact of prenatal stress on child development outcomes.
• Analyzing the factors that contribute to addiction and relapse in substance abuse treatment.
• Examining the impact of personality traits on romantic relationships.

Research Problem Examples in Sociology are as follows:

• Investigating the relationship between social support and mental health outcomes in marginalized communities.
• Studying the impact of globalization on labor markets and employment opportunities.
• Analyzing the causes and consequences of gentrification in urban neighborhoods.
• Investigating the impact of family structure on social mobility and economic outcomes.
• Examining the effects of social capital on community development and resilience.

Research Problem Examples in Economics are as follows:

• Studying the effects of trade policies on economic growth and development.
• Analyzing the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on labor markets and employment opportunities.
• Investigating the factors that contribute to economic inequality and poverty.
• Examining the impact of fiscal and monetary policies on inflation and economic stability.
• Studying the relationship between education and economic outcomes, such as income and employment.

Political Science

Research Problem Examples in Political Science are as follows:

• Analyzing the causes and consequences of political polarization and partisan behavior.
• Investigating the impact of social movements on political change and policymaking.
• Studying the role of media and communication in shaping public opinion and political discourse.
• Examining the effectiveness of electoral systems in promoting democratic governance and representation.
• Investigating the impact of international organizations and agreements on global governance and security.

Environmental Science

Research Problem Examples in Environmental Science are as follows:

• Studying the impact of air pollution on human health and well-being.
• Investigating the effects of deforestation on climate change and biodiversity loss.
• Analyzing the impact of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems and food webs.
• Studying the relationship between urban development and ecological resilience.
• Examining the effectiveness of environmental policies and regulations in promoting sustainability and conservation.

Research Problem Examples in Education are as follows:

• Investigating the impact of teacher training and professional development on student learning outcomes.
• Studying the effectiveness of technology-enhanced learning in promoting student engagement and achievement.
• Analyzing the factors that contribute to achievement gaps and educational inequality.
• Examining the impact of parental involvement on student motivation and achievement.
• Studying the effectiveness of alternative educational models, such as homeschooling and online learning.

Research Problem Examples in History are as follows:

• Analyzing the social and economic factors that contributed to the rise and fall of ancient civilizations.
• Investigating the impact of colonialism on indigenous societies and cultures.
• Studying the role of religion in shaping political and social movements throughout history.
• Analyzing the impact of the Industrial Revolution on economic and social structures.
• Examining the causes and consequences of global conflicts, such as World War I and II.

Research Problem Examples in Business are as follows:

• Studying the impact of corporate social responsibility on brand reputation and consumer behavior.
• Investigating the effectiveness of leadership development programs in improving organizational performance and employee satisfaction.
• Analyzing the factors that contribute to successful entrepreneurship and small business development.
• Examining the impact of mergers and acquisitions on market competition and consumer welfare.
• Studying the effectiveness of marketing strategies and advertising campaigns in promoting brand awareness and sales.

Research Problem Example for Students

An Example of a Research Problem for Students could be:

“How does social media usage affect the academic performance of high school students?”

This research problem is specific, measurable, and relevant. It is specific because it focuses on a particular area of interest, which is the impact of social media on academic performance. It is measurable because the researcher can collect data on social media usage and academic performance to evaluate the relationship between the two variables. It is relevant because it addresses a current and important issue that affects high school students.

To conduct research on this problem, the researcher could use various methods, such as surveys, interviews, and statistical analysis of academic records. The results of the study could provide insights into the relationship between social media usage and academic performance, which could help educators and parents develop effective strategies for managing social media use among students.

Another example of a research problem for students:

“Does participation in extracurricular activities impact the academic performance of middle school students?”

This research problem is also specific, measurable, and relevant. It is specific because it focuses on a particular type of activity, extracurricular activities, and its impact on academic performance. It is measurable because the researcher can collect data on students’ participation in extracurricular activities and their academic performance to evaluate the relationship between the two variables. It is relevant because extracurricular activities are an essential part of the middle school experience, and their impact on academic performance is a topic of interest to educators and parents.

To conduct research on this problem, the researcher could use surveys, interviews, and academic records analysis. The results of the study could provide insights into the relationship between extracurricular activities and academic performance, which could help educators and parents make informed decisions about the types of activities that are most beneficial for middle school students.

Applications of Research Problem

Applications of Research Problem are as follows:

• Academic research: Research problems are used to guide academic research in various fields, including social sciences, natural sciences, humanities, and engineering. Researchers use research problems to identify gaps in knowledge, address theoretical or practical problems, and explore new areas of study.
• Business research : Research problems are used to guide business research, including market research, consumer behavior research, and organizational research. Researchers use research problems to identify business challenges, explore opportunities, and develop strategies for business growth and success.
• Healthcare research : Research problems are used to guide healthcare research, including medical research, clinical research, and health services research. Researchers use research problems to identify healthcare challenges, develop new treatments and interventions, and improve healthcare delivery and outcomes.
• Public policy research : Research problems are used to guide public policy research, including policy analysis, program evaluation, and policy development. Researchers use research problems to identify social issues, assess the effectiveness of existing policies and programs, and develop new policies and programs to address societal challenges.
• Environmental research : Research problems are used to guide environmental research, including environmental science, ecology, and environmental management. Researchers use research problems to identify environmental challenges, assess the impact of human activities on the environment, and develop sustainable solutions to protect the environment.

Purpose of Research Problems

The purpose of research problems is to identify an area of study that requires further investigation and to formulate a clear, concise and specific research question. A research problem defines the specific issue or problem that needs to be addressed and serves as the foundation for the research project.

Identifying a research problem is important because it helps to establish the direction of the research and sets the stage for the research design, methods, and analysis. It also ensures that the research is relevant and contributes to the existing body of knowledge in the field.

A well-formulated research problem should:

• Clearly define the specific issue or problem that needs to be investigated
• Be specific and narrow enough to be manageable in terms of time, resources, and scope
• Be relevant to the field of study and contribute to the existing body of knowledge
• Be feasible and realistic in terms of available data, resources, and research methods
• Be interesting and intellectually stimulating for the researcher and potential readers or audiences.

Characteristics of Research Problem

The characteristics of a research problem refer to the specific features that a problem must possess to qualify as a suitable research topic. Some of the key characteristics of a research problem are:

• Clarity : A research problem should be clearly defined and stated in a way that it is easily understood by the researcher and other readers. The problem should be specific, unambiguous, and easy to comprehend.
• Relevance : A research problem should be relevant to the field of study, and it should contribute to the existing body of knowledge. The problem should address a gap in knowledge, a theoretical or practical problem, or a real-world issue that requires further investigation.
• Feasibility : A research problem should be feasible in terms of the availability of data, resources, and research methods. It should be realistic and practical to conduct the study within the available time, budget, and resources.
• Novelty : A research problem should be novel or original in some way. It should represent a new or innovative perspective on an existing problem, or it should explore a new area of study or apply an existing theory to a new context.
• Importance : A research problem should be important or significant in terms of its potential impact on the field or society. It should have the potential to produce new knowledge, advance existing theories, or address a pressing societal issue.
• Manageability : A research problem should be manageable in terms of its scope and complexity. It should be specific enough to be investigated within the available time and resources, and it should be broad enough to provide meaningful results.

Advantages of Research Problem

The advantages of a well-defined research problem are as follows:

• Focus : A research problem provides a clear and focused direction for the research study. It ensures that the study stays on track and does not deviate from the research question.
• Clarity : A research problem provides clarity and specificity to the research question. It ensures that the research is not too broad or too narrow and that the research objectives are clearly defined.
• Relevance : A research problem ensures that the research study is relevant to the field of study and contributes to the existing body of knowledge. It addresses gaps in knowledge, theoretical or practical problems, or real-world issues that require further investigation.
• Feasibility : A research problem ensures that the research study is feasible in terms of the availability of data, resources, and research methods. It ensures that the research is realistic and practical to conduct within the available time, budget, and resources.
• Novelty : A research problem ensures that the research study is original and innovative. It represents a new or unique perspective on an existing problem, explores a new area of study, or applies an existing theory to a new context.
• Importance : A research problem ensures that the research study is important and significant in terms of its potential impact on the field or society. It has the potential to produce new knowledge, advance existing theories, or address a pressing societal issue.
• Rigor : A research problem ensures that the research study is rigorous and follows established research methods and practices. It ensures that the research is conducted in a systematic, objective, and unbiased manner.

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Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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4 Preparing for Action Research in the Classroom: Practical Issues

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

• What sort of considerations are necessary to take action in your educational context?
• How do you facilitate an action plan without disrupting your teaching?
• How do you respond when the unplanned happens during data collection?

An action research project is a practical endeavor that will ultimately be shaped by your educational context and practice. Now that you have developed a literature review, you are ready to revise your initial plans and begin to plan your project. This chapter will provide some advice about your considerations when undertaking an action research project in your classroom.

Maintain Focus

Hopefully, you found a lot a research on your topic. If so, you will now have a better understanding of how it fits into your area and field of educational research. Even though the topic and area you are researching may not be small, your study itself should clearly focus on one aspect of the topic in your classroom. It is important to maintain clarity about what you are investigating because a lot will be going on simultaneously during the research process and you do not want to spend precious time on erroneous aspects that are irrelevant to your research.

Even though you may view your practice as research, and vice versa, you might want to consider your research project as a projection or megaphone for your work that will bring attention to the small decisions that make a difference in your educational context. From experience, our concern is that you will find that researching one aspect of your practice will reveal other interconnected aspects that you may find interesting, and you will disorient yourself researching in a confluence of interests, commitments, and purposes. We simply want to emphasize – don’t try to research everything at once. Stay focused on your topic, and focus on exploring it in depth, instead of its many related aspects. Once you feel you have made progress in one aspect, you can then progress to other related areas, as new research projects that continue the research cycle.

Identify a Clear Research Question

Your literature review should have exposed you to an array of research questions related to your topic. More importantly, your review should have helped identify which research questions we have addressed as a field, and which ones still need to be addressed . More than likely your research questions will resemble ones from your literature review, while also being distinguishable based upon your own educational context and the unexplored areas of research on your topic.

Regardless of how your research question took shape, it is important to be clear about what you are researching in your educational context. Action research questions typically begin in ways related to “How does … ?” or “How do I/we … ?”, for example:

Research Question Examples

• How does a semi-structured morning meeting improve my classroom community?
• How does historical fiction help students think about people’s agency in the past?
• How do I improve student punctuation use through acting out sentences?
• How do we increase student responsibility for their own learning as a team of teachers?

I particularly favor questions with I or we, because they emphasize that you, the actor and researcher, will be clearly taking action to improve your practice. While this may seem rather easy, you need to be aware of asking the right kind of question. One issue is asking a too pointed and closed question that limits the possibility for analysis. These questions tend to rely on quantitative answers, or yes/no answers. For example, “How many students got a 90% or higher on the exam, after reviewing the material three times?

Another issue is asking a question that is too broad, or that considers too many variables. For example, “How does room temperature affect students’ time-on-task?” These are obviously researchable questions, but the aim is a cause-and-effect relationship between variables that has little or no value to your daily practice.

I also want to point out that your research question will potentially change as the research develops. If you consider the question:

As you do an activity, you may find that students are more comfortable and engaged by acting sentences out in small groups, instead of the whole class. Therefore, your question may shift to:

• How do I improve student punctuation use through acting out sentences, in small groups ?

By simply engaging in the research process and asking questions, you will open your thinking to new possibilities and you will develop new understandings about yourself and the problematic aspects of your educational context.

Understand Your Capabilities and Know that Change Happens Slowly

Similar to your research question, it is important to have a clear and realistic understanding of what is possible to research in your specific educational context. For example, would you be able to address unsatisfactory structures (policies and systems) within your educational context? Probably not immediately, but over time you potentially could. It is much more feasible to think of change happening in smaller increments, from within your own classroom or context, with you as one change agent. For example, you might find it particularly problematic that your school or district places a heavy emphasis on traditional grades, believing that these grades are often not reflective of the skills students have or have not mastered. Instead of attempting to research grading practices across your school or district, your research might instead focus on determining how to provide more meaningful feedback to students and parents about progress in your course. While this project identifies and addresses a structural issue that is part of your school and district context, to keep things manageable, your research project would focus the outcomes on your classroom. The more research you do related to the structure of your educational context the more likely modifications will emerge. The more you understand these modifications in relation to the structural issues you identify within your own context, the more you can influence others by sharing your work and enabling others to understand the modification and address structural issues within their contexts. Throughout your project, you might determine that modifying your grades to be standards-based is more effective than traditional grades, and in turn, that sharing your research outcomes with colleagues at an in-service presentation prompts many to adopt a similar model in their own classrooms. It can be defeating to expect the world to change immediately, but you can provide the spark that ignites coordinated changes. In this way, action research is a powerful methodology for enacting social change. Action research enables individuals to change their own lives, while linking communities of like-minded practitioners who work towards action.

Plan Thoughtfully

Planning thoughtfully involves having a path in mind, but not necessarily having specific objectives. Due to your experience with students and your educational context, the research process will often develop in ways as you expected, but at times it may develop a little differently, which may require you to shift the research focus and change your research question. I will suggest a couple methods to help facilitate this potential shift. First, you may want to develop criteria for gauging the effectiveness of your research process. You may need to refine and modify your criteria and your thinking as you go. For example, we often ask ourselves if action research is encouraging depth of analysis beyond my typical daily pedagogical reflection. You can think about this as you are developing data collection methods and even when you are collecting data. The key distinction is whether the data you will be collecting allows for nuance among the participants or variables. This does not mean that you will have nuance, but it should allow for the possibility. Second, criteria are shaped by our values and develop into standards of judgement. If we identify criteria such as teacher empowerment, then we will use that standard to think about the action contained in our research process. Our values inform our work; therefore, our work should be judged in relation to the relevance of our values in our pedagogy and practice.

Does Your Timeline Work?

While action research is situated in the temporal span that is your life, your research project is short-term, bounded, and related to the socially mediated practices within your educational context. The timeline is important for bounding, or setting limits to your research project, while also making sure you provide the right amount of time for the data to emerge from the process.

For example, if you are thinking about examining the use of math diaries in your classroom, you probably do not want to look at a whole semester of entries because that would be a lot of data, with entries related to a wide range of topics. This would create a huge data analysis endeavor. Therefore, you may want to look at entries from one chapter or unit of study. Also, in terms of timelines, you want to make sure participants have enough time to develop the data you collect. Using the same math example, you would probably want students to have plenty of time to write in the journals, and also space out the entries over the span of the chapter or unit.

In relation to the examples, we think it is an important mind shift to not think of research timelines in terms of deadlines. It is vitally important to provide time and space for the data to emerge from the participants. Therefore, it would be potentially counterproductive to rush a 50-minute data collection into 20 minutes – like all good educators, be flexible in the research process.

Involve Others

It is important to not isolate yourself when doing research. Many educators are already isolated when it comes to practice in their classroom. The research process should be an opportunity to engage with colleagues and open up your classroom to discuss issues that are potentially impacting your entire educational context. Think about the following relationships:

Research participants

You may invite a variety of individuals in your educational context, many with whom you are in a shared situation (e.g. colleagues, administrators). These participants may be part of a collaborative study, they may simply help you develop data collection instruments or intervention items, or they may help to analyze and make sense of the data. While the primary research focus will be you and your learning, you will also appreciate how your learning is potentially influencing the quality of others’ learning.

We always tell educators to be public about your research, or anything exciting that is happening in your educational context, for that matter. In terms of research, you do not want it to seem mysterious to any stakeholder in the educational context. Invite others to visit your setting and observe your research process, and then ask for their formal feedback. Inviting others to your classroom will engage and connect you with other stakeholders, while also showing that your research was established in an ethic of respect for multiple perspectives.

Critical friends or validators

Using critical friends is one way to involve colleagues and also validate your findings and conclusions. While your positionality will shape the research process and subsequently your interpretations of the data, it is important to make sure that others see similar logic in your process and conclusions. Critical friends or validators provide some level of certification that the frameworks you use to develop your research project and make sense of your data are appropriate for your educational context. Your critical friends and validators’ suggestions will be useful if you develop a report or share your findings, but most importantly will provide you confidence moving forward.

Potential researchers

As an educational researcher, you are involved in ongoing improvement plans and district or systemic change. The flexibility of action research allows it to be used in a variety of ways, and your initial research can spark others in your context to engage in research either individually for their own purposes, or collaboratively as a grade level, team, or school. Collaborative inquiry with other educators is an emerging form of professional learning and development for schools with school improvement plans. While they call it collaborative inquiry, these schools are often using an action research model. It is good to think of all of your colleagues as potential research collaborators in the future.

Prioritize Ethical Practice

Try to always be cognizant of your own positionality during the action research process, its relation to your educational context, and any associated power relation to your positionality. Furthermore, you want to make sure that you are not coercing or engaging participants into harmful practices. While this may seem obvious, you may not even realize you are harming your participants because you believe the action is necessary for the research process.

For example, commonly teachers want to try out an intervention that will potentially positively impact their students. When the teacher sets up the action research study, they may have a control group and an experimental group. There is potential to impair the learning of one of these groups if the intervention is either highly impactful or exceedingly worse than the typical instruction. Therefore, teachers can sometimes overlook the potential harm to students in pursuing an experimental method of exploring an intervention.

If you are working with a university researcher, ethical concerns will be covered by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). If not, your school or district may have a process or form that you would need to complete, so it would beneficial to check your district policies before starting. Other widely accepted aspects of doing ethically informed research, include:

Confirm Awareness of Study and Negotiate Access – with authorities, participants and parents, guardians, caregivers and supervisors (with IRB this is done with Informed Consent).

• Promise to Uphold Confidentiality – Uphold confidentiality, to your fullest ability, to protect information, identity and data. You can identify people if they indicate they want to be recognized for their contributions.
• Ensure participants’ rights to withdraw from the study at any point .
• Make sure data is secured, either on password protected computer or lock drawer .

Prepare to Problematize your Thinking

Educational researchers who are more philosophically-natured emphasize that research is not about finding solutions, but instead is about creating and asking new and more precise questions. This is represented in the action research process shown in the diagrams in Chapter 1, as Collingwood (1939) notes the aim in human interaction is always to keep the conversation open, while Edward Said (1997) emphasized that there is no end because whatever we consider an end is actually the beginning of something entirely new. These reflections have perspective in evaluating the quality in research and signifying what is “good” in “good pedagogy” and “good research”. If we consider that action research is about studying and reflecting on one’s learning and how that learning influences practice to improve it, there is nothing to stop your line of inquiry as long as you relate it to improving practice. This is why it is necessary to problematize and scrutinize our practices.

Ethical Dilemmas for Educator-Researchers

Classroom teachers are increasingly expected to demonstrate a disposition of reflection and inquiry into their own practice. Many advocate for schools to become research centers, and to produce their own research studies, which is an important advancement in acknowledging and addressing the complexity in today’s schools. When schools conduct their own research studies without outside involvement, they bypass outside controls over their studies. Schools shift power away from the oversight of outside experts and ethical research responsibilities are shifted to those conducting the formal research within their educational context. Ethics firmly grounded and established in school policies and procedures for teaching, becomes multifaceted when teaching practice and research occur simultaneously. When educators conduct research in their classrooms, are they doing so as teachers or as researchers, and if they are researchers, at what point does the teaching role change to research? Although the notion of objectivity is a key element in traditional research paradigms, educator-based research acknowledges a subjective perspective as the educator-researcher is not viewed separately from the research. In action research, unlike traditional research, the educator as researcher gains access to the research site by the nature of the work they are paid and expected to perform. The educator is never detached from the research and remains at the research site both before and after the study. Because studying one’s practice comprises working with other people, ethical deliberations are inevitable. Educator-researchers confront role conflict and ambiguity regarding ethical issues such as informed consent from participants, protecting subjects (students) from harm, and ensuring confidentiality. They must demonstrate a commitment toward fully understanding ethical dilemmas that present themselves within the unique set of circumstances of the educational context. Questions about research ethics can feel exceedingly complex and in specific situations, educator- researchers require guidance from others.

Think about it this way. As a part-time historian and former history teacher I often problematized who we regard as good and bad people in history. I (Clark) grew up minutes from Jesse James’ childhood farm. Jesse James is a well-documented thief, and possibly by today’s standards, a terrorist. He is famous for daylight bank robberies, as well as the sheer number of successful robberies. When Jesse James was assassinated, by a trusted associate none-the-less, his body travelled the country for people to see, while his assailant and assailant’s brother reenacted the assassination over 1,200 times in theaters across the country. Still today in my hometown, they reenact Jesse James’ daylight bank robbery each year at the Fall Festival, immortalizing this thief and terrorist from our past. This demonstrates how some people saw him as somewhat of hero, or champion of some sort of resistance, both historically and in the present. I find this curious and ripe for further inquiry, but primarily it is problematic for how we think about people as good or bad in the past. Whatever we may individually or collectively think about Jesse James as a “good” or “bad” person in history, it is vitally important to problematize our thinking about him. Talking about Jesse James may seem strange, but it is relevant to the field of action research. If we tell people that we are engaging in important and “good” actions, we should be prepared to justify why it is “good” and provide a theoretical, epistemological, or ontological rationale if possible. Experience is never enough, you need to justify why you act in certain ways and not others, and this includes thinking critically about your own thinking.

Educators who view inquiry and research as a facet of their professional identity must think critically about how to design and conduct research in educational settings to address respect, justice, and beneficence to minimize harm to participants. This chapter emphasized the due diligence involved in ethically planning the collection of data, and in considering the challenges faced by educator-researchers in educational contexts.

Planning Action

After the thinking about the considerations above, you are now at the stage of having selected a topic and reflected on different aspects of that topic. You have undertaken a literature review and have done some reading which has enriched your understanding of your topic. As a result of your reading and further thinking, you may have changed or fine-tuned the topic you are exploring. Now it is time for action. In the last section of this chapter, we will address some practical issues of carrying out action research, drawing on both personal experiences of supervising educator-researchers in different settings and from reading and hearing about action research projects carried out by other researchers.

Engaging in an action research can be a rewarding experience, but a beneficial action research project does not happen by accident – it requires careful planning, a flexible approach, and continuous educator-researcher reflection. Although action research does not have to go through a pre-determined set of steps, it is useful here for you to be aware of the progression which we presented in Chapter 2. The sequence of activities we suggested then could be looked on as a checklist for you to consider before planning the practical aspects of your project.

We also want to provide some questions for you to think about as you are about to begin.

• Have you identified a topic for study?
• What is the specific context for the study? (It may be a personal project for you or for a group of researchers of which you are a member.)
• Have you read a sufficient amount of the relevant literature?
• Have you developed your research question(s)?
• Have you assessed the resource needed to complete the research?

As you start your project, it is worth writing down:

• a working title for your project, which you may need to refine later;
• the background of the study , both in terms of your professional context and personal motivation;
• the aims of the project;
• the specific outcomes you are hoping for.

Although most of the models of action research presented in Chapter 1 suggest action taking place in some pre-defined order, they also allow us the possibility of refining our ideas and action in the light of our experiences and reflections. Changes may need to be made in response to your evaluation and your reflections on how the project is progressing. For example, you might have to make adjustments, taking into account the students’ responses, your observations and any observations of your colleagues. All this is very useful and, in fact, it is one of the features that makes action research suitable for educational research.

Action research planning sheet

In the past, we have provided action researchers with the following planning list that incorporates all of these considerations. Again, like we have said many times, this is in no way definitive, or lock-in-step procedure you need to follow, but instead guidance based on our perspective to help you engage in the action research process. The left column is the simplified version, and the right column offers more specific advice if need.

Figure 4.1 Planning Sheet for Action Research

Action Research Copyright © by J. Spencer Clark; Suzanne Porath; Julie Thiele; and Morgan Jobe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How educational research could play a greater role in K-12 school improvement

Clinical Professor of Applied Human Development, Boston University

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For the past 20 years, I have taught research methods in education to students here in the U.S. and in other countries. While the purpose of the course is to show students how to do effective research, the ultimate goal of the research is to get better academic results for the nation’s K-12 students and schools.

Vast resources are already being spent on this goal. Between 2019 and 2022, the Institute of Educational Sciences , the research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Education Department, distributed US$473 million in 255 grants to improve educational outcomes.

In 2021, colleges and universities spent approximately $1.6 billion on educational research .

The research is not hard to find. The Educational Research Information Center, a federally run repository, houses 1.6 million educational research sources in over 1,000 scholarly journals.

And there are plenty of opportunities for educational researchers to network and collaborate. Each year, for instance, more than 15,000 educators and researchers gather to present or discuss educational research findings at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association .

Yet, for all the time, money and effort that have been spent on producing research in the field of education, the nation seems to have little to show for it in terms of improvements in academic achievement.

Growing gaps

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, test scores were beginning to decline. Results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, , or NAEP – the most representative assessment of what elementary and middle school students know across specific subjects – show a widening gap between the highest and lowest achievement levels on the NAEP for fourth grade mathematics and eighth grade reading between 2017-19. During the same period, NAEP outcomes show stagnated growth in reading achievement among fourth graders. By eighth grade, there is a greater gap in reading achievement between the highest- and lowest-achieving students.

Some education experts have even suggested that the chances for progress get dimmer for students as they get older. For instance, in a 2019-2020 report to Congress , Mark Schneider, the Institute of Educational Sciences director, wrote: “for science and math, the longer students stay in school, the more likely they are to fail to meet even NAEP’s basic performance level.”

Scores on the International Assessment of Adult Competencies , a measure of literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills, suggest a similar pattern of achievement. Achievement levels on the assessment show a slight decline in literacy and numeracy between 2012-14 and 2017. Fewer Americans are scoring at the highest levels of proficiency in literacy and numeracy.

As an educational researcher who focuses on academic outcomes for low-income students and students of color , I believe these troubling results raise serious questions about whether educational research is being put to use.

Are school leaders and policymakers actually reading any of the vast amount of educational research that exists? Or does it go largely unnoticed in voluminous virtual vaults? What, if anything, can be done to make sure that educational research findings and recommendations are actually being tried?

Here are four things I believe can be done in order to make sure that educational research is actually being applied.

1. Build better relationships with school leaders

Educational researchers can reach out to school leaders before doing their research in order to design research based on the needs of schools and schoolchildren. If school leaders can see how educational research can specifically benefit their school community, they may be more likely to implement findings and recommendations from the research.

2. Make policy and practice part of the research process

By implementing new policies and practices based on research findings, researchers can work with school leaders to do further research to see if the new policies and practices actually work.

For example, The Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund was established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to fund the implementation and evaluation of education interventions with a record of improving student achievement. Through the fund, $679 million was distributed through 67 grants – and 12 of those 67 funded projects improved student outcomes. The key to success? Having a “tight implementation” plan, which was shown to produce at least one positive student outcome.

3. Rethink how research impact is measured

As part of the national rankings for colleges of education – that is, the schools that prepare schoolteachers for their careers – engagement with public schools could be made a factor in the rankings. The rankings could also include measurable educational impact.

4. Rethink and redefine how research is distributed

Evidence-based instruction can improve student outcomes . However, public school teachers often can’t afford to access the evidence or the time to make sense of it. Research findings written in everyday language could be distributed at conferences frequented by public school teachers and in the periodicals that they read.

If research findings are to make a difference, I believe there has to be a stronger focus on using research to bring about real-world change in public schools.

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The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2020

We reviewed hundreds of educational studies in 2020 and then highlighted 10 of the most significant—covering topics from virtual learning to the reading wars and the decline of standardized tests.

In the month of March of 2020, the year suddenly became a whirlwind. With a pandemic disrupting life across the entire globe, teachers scrambled to transform their physical classrooms into virtual—or even hybrid—ones, and researchers slowly began to collect insights into what works, and what doesn’t, in online learning environments around the world.

Meanwhile, neuroscientists made a convincing case for keeping handwriting in schools, and after the closure of several coal-fired power plants in Chicago, researchers reported a drop in pediatric emergency room visits and fewer absences in schools, reminding us that questions of educational equity do not begin and end at the schoolhouse door.

1. To Teach Vocabulary, Let Kids Be Thespians

When students are learning a new language, ask them to act out vocabulary words. It’s fun to unleash a child’s inner thespian, of course, but a 2020 study concluded that it also nearly doubles their ability to remember the words months later.

Researchers asked 8-year-old students to listen to words in another language and then use their hands and bodies to mimic the words—spreading their arms and pretending to fly, for example, when learning the German word flugzeug , which means “airplane.” After two months, these young actors were a remarkable 73 percent more likely to remember the new words than students who had listened without accompanying gestures. Researchers discovered similar, if slightly less dramatic, results when students looked at pictures while listening to the corresponding vocabulary. 

It’s a simple reminder that if you want students to remember something, encourage them to learn it in a variety of ways—by drawing it , acting it out, or pairing it with relevant images , for example.

2. Neuroscientists Defend the Value of Teaching Handwriting—Again

For most kids, typing just doesn’t cut it. In 2012, brain scans of preliterate children revealed crucial reading circuitry flickering to life when kids hand-printed letters and then tried to read them. The effect largely disappeared when the letters were typed or traced.

More recently, in 2020, a team of researchers studied older children—seventh graders—while they handwrote, drew, and typed words, and concluded that handwriting and drawing produced telltale neural tracings indicative of deeper learning.

“Whenever self-generated movements are included as a learning strategy, more of the brain gets stimulated,” the researchers explain, before echoing the 2012 study: “It also appears that the movements related to keyboard typing do not activate these networks the same way that drawing and handwriting do.”

It would be a mistake to replace typing with handwriting, though. All kids need to develop digital skills, and there’s evidence that technology helps children with dyslexia to overcome obstacles like note taking or illegible handwriting, ultimately freeing them to “use their time for all the things in which they are gifted,” says the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.

3. The ACT Test Just Got a Negative Score (Face Palm)

A 2020 study found that ACT test scores, which are often a key factor in college admissions, showed a weak—or even negative —relationship when it came to predicting how successful students would be in college. “There is little evidence that students will have more college success if they work to improve their ACT score,” the researchers explain, and students with very high ACT scores—but indifferent high school grades—often flamed out in college, overmatched by the rigors of a university’s academic schedule.

Just last year, the SAT—cousin to the ACT—had a similarly dubious public showing. In a major 2019 study of nearly 50,000 students led by researcher Brian Galla, and including Angela Duckworth, researchers found that high school grades were stronger predictors of four-year-college graduation than SAT scores.

The reason? Four-year high school grades, the researchers asserted, are a better indicator of crucial skills like perseverance, time management, and the ability to avoid distractions. It’s most likely those skills, in the end, that keep kids in college.

4. A Rubric Reduces Racial Grading Bias

A simple step might help undercut the pernicious effect of grading bias, a new study found: Articulate your standards clearly before you begin grading, and refer to the standards regularly during the assessment process.

In 2020, more than 1,500 teachers were recruited and asked to grade a writing sample from a fictional second-grade student. All of the sample stories were identical—but in one set, the student mentions a family member named Dashawn, while the other set references a sibling named Connor.

Teachers were 13 percent more likely to give the Connor papers a passing grade, revealing the invisible advantages that many students unknowingly benefit from. When grading criteria are vague, implicit stereotypes can insidiously “fill in the blanks,” explains the study’s author. But when teachers have an explicit set of criteria to evaluate the writing—asking whether the student “provides a well-elaborated recount of an event,” for example—the difference in grades is nearly eliminated.

5. What Do Coal-Fired Power Plants Have to Do With Learning? Plenty

When three coal-fired plants closed in the Chicago area, student absences in nearby schools dropped by 7 percent, a change largely driven by fewer emergency room visits for asthma-related problems. The stunning finding, published in a 2020 study from Duke and Penn State, underscores the role that often-overlooked environmental factors—like air quality, neighborhood crime, and noise pollution—have in keeping our children healthy and ready to learn.

At scale, the opportunity cost is staggering: About 2.3 million children in the United States still attend a public elementary or middle school located within 10 kilometers of a coal-fired plant.

The study builds on a growing body of research that reminds us that questions of educational equity do not begin and end at the schoolhouse door. What we call an achievement gap is often an equity gap, one that “takes root in the earliest years of children’s lives,” according to a 2017 study . We won’t have equal opportunity in our schools, the researchers admonish, until we are diligent about confronting inequality in our cities, our neighborhoods—and ultimately our own backyards.

6. Students Who Generate Good Questions Are Better Learners

Some of the most popular study strategies—highlighting passages, rereading notes, and underlining key sentences—are also among the least effective. A 2020 study highlighted a powerful alternative: Get students to generate questions about their learning, and gradually press them to ask more probing questions.

In the study, students who studied a topic and then generated their own questions scored an average of 14 percentage points higher on a test than students who used passive strategies like studying their notes and rereading classroom material. Creating questions, the researchers found, not only encouraged students to think more deeply about the topic but also strengthened their ability to remember what they were studying.

There are many engaging ways to have students create highly productive questions : When creating a test, you can ask students to submit their own questions, or you can use the Jeopardy! game as a platform for student-created questions.

7. Did a 2020 Study Just End the ‘Reading Wars’?

One of the most widely used reading programs was dealt a severe blow when a panel of reading experts concluded that it “would be unlikely to lead to literacy success for all of America’s public schoolchildren.”

In the 2020 study , the experts found that the controversial program—called “Units of Study” and developed over the course of four decades by Lucy Calkins at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project—failed to explicitly and systematically teach young readers how to decode and encode written words, and was thus “in direct opposition to an enormous body of settled research.”

The study sounded the death knell for practices that de-emphasize phonics in favor of having children use multiple sources of information—like story events or illustrations—to predict the meaning of unfamiliar words, an approach often associated with “balanced literacy.” In an internal memo obtained by publisher APM, Calkins seemed to concede the point, writing that “aspects of balanced literacy need some ‘rebalancing.’”

8. A Secret to High-Performing Virtual Classrooms

In 2020, a team at Georgia State University compiled a report on virtual learning best practices. While evidence in the field is "sparse" and "inconsistent," the report noted that logistical issues like accessing materials—and not content-specific problems like failures of comprehension—were often among the most significant obstacles to online learning. It wasn’t that students didn’t understand photosynthesis in a virtual setting, in other words—it was that they didn’t find (or simply didn't access) the lesson on photosynthesis at all.

That basic insight echoed a 2019 study that highlighted the crucial need to organize virtual classrooms even more intentionally than physical ones. Remote teachers should use a single, dedicated hub for important documents like assignments; simplify communications and reminders by using one channel like email or text; and reduce visual clutter like hard-to-read fonts and unnecessary decorations throughout their virtual spaces.

Because the tools are new to everyone, regular feedback on topics like accessibility and ease of use is crucial. Teachers should post simple surveys asking questions like “Have you encountered any technical issues?” and “Can you easily locate your assignments?” to ensure that students experience a smooth-running virtual learning space.

9. Love to Learn Languages? Surprisingly, Coding May Be Right for You

Learning how to code more closely resembles learning a language such as Chinese or Spanish than learning math, a 2020 study found—upending the conventional wisdom about what makes a good programmer.

In the study, young adults with no programming experience were asked to learn Python, a popular programming language; they then took a series of tests assessing their problem-solving, math, and language skills. The researchers discovered that mathematical skill accounted for only 2 percent of a person’s ability to learn how to code, while language skills were almost nine times more predictive, accounting for 17 percent of learning ability.

That’s an important insight because all too often, programming classes require that students pass advanced math courses—a hurdle that needlessly excludes students with untapped promise, the researchers claim.

10. Researchers Cast Doubt on Reading Tasks Like ‘Finding the Main Idea’

“Content is comprehension,” declared a 2020 Fordham Institute study , sounding a note of defiance as it staked out a position in the ongoing debate over the teaching of intrinsic reading skills versus the teaching of content knowledge.

While elementary students spend an enormous amount of time working on skills like “finding the main idea” and “summarizing”—tasks born of the belief that reading is a discrete and trainable ability that transfers seamlessly across content areas—these young readers aren’t experiencing “the additional reading gains that well-intentioned educators hoped for,” the study concluded.

So what works? The researchers looked at data from more than 18,000 K–5 students, focusing on the time spent in subject areas like math, social studies, and ELA, and found that “social studies is the only subject with a clear, positive, and statistically significant effect on reading improvement.” In effect, exposing kids to rich content in civics, history, and law appeared to teach reading more effectively than our current methods of teaching reading. Perhaps defiance is no longer needed: Fordham’s conclusions are rapidly becoming conventional wisdom—and they extend beyond the limited claim of reading social studies texts. According to Natalie Wexler, the author of the well-received 2019 book  The Knowledge Gap , content knowledge and reading are intertwined. “Students with more [background] knowledge have a better chance of understanding whatever text they encounter. They’re able to retrieve more information about the topic from long-term memory, leaving more space in working memory for comprehension,” she recently told Edutopia .

The Research Problem & Statement

What they are & how to write them (with examples)

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewed By: Eunice Rautenbach (DTech) | March 2023

If you’re new to academic research, you’re bound to encounter the concept of a “ research problem ” or “ problem statement ” fairly early in your learning journey. Having a good research problem is essential, as it provides a foundation for developing high-quality research, from relatively small research papers to a full-length PhD dissertations and theses.

In this post, we’ll unpack what a research problem is and how it’s related to a problem statement . We’ll also share some examples and provide a step-by-step process you can follow to identify and evaluate study-worthy research problems for your own project.

Overview: Research Problem 101

What is a research problem.

• What is a problem statement?

Where do research problems come from?

• How to find a suitable research problem
• Key takeaways

A research problem is, at the simplest level, the core issue that a study will try to solve or (at least) examine. In other words, it’s an explicit declaration about the problem that your dissertation, thesis or research paper will address. More technically, it identifies the research gap that the study will attempt to fill (more on that later).

Let’s look at an example to make the research problem a little more tangible.

To justify a hypothetical study, you might argue that there’s currently a lack of research regarding the challenges experienced by first-generation college students when writing their dissertations [ PROBLEM ] . As a result, these students struggle to successfully complete their dissertations, leading to higher-than-average dropout rates [ CONSEQUENCE ]. Therefore, your study will aim to address this lack of research – i.e., this research problem [ SOLUTION ].

A research problem can be theoretical in nature, focusing on an area of academic research that is lacking in some way. Alternatively, a research problem can be more applied in nature, focused on finding a practical solution to an established problem within an industry or an organisation. In other words, theoretical research problems are motivated by the desire to grow the overall body of knowledge , while applied research problems are motivated by the need to find practical solutions to current real-world problems (such as the one in the example above).

As you can probably see, the research problem acts as the driving force behind any study , as it directly shapes the research aims, objectives and research questions , as well as the research approach. Therefore, it’s really important to develop a very clearly articulated research problem before you even start your research proposal . A vague research problem will lead to unfocused, potentially conflicting research aims, objectives and research questions .

What is a research problem statement?

As the name suggests, a problem statement (within a research context, at least) is an explicit statement that clearly and concisely articulates the specific research problem your study will address. While your research problem can span over multiple paragraphs, your problem statement should be brief , ideally no longer than one paragraph . Importantly, it must clearly state what the problem is (whether theoretical or practical in nature) and how the study will address it.

Here’s an example of a statement of the problem in a research context:

Rural communities across Ghana lack access to clean water, leading to high rates of waterborne illnesses and infant mortality. Despite this, there is little research investigating the effectiveness of community-led water supply projects within the Ghanaian context. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effectiveness of such projects in improving access to clean water and reducing rates of waterborne illnesses in these communities.

As you can see, this problem statement clearly and concisely identifies the issue that needs to be addressed (i.e., a lack of research regarding the effectiveness of community-led water supply projects) and the research question that the study aims to answer (i.e., are community-led water supply projects effective in reducing waterborne illnesses?), all within one short paragraph.

Need a helping hand?

Wherever there is a lack of well-established and agreed-upon academic literature , there is an opportunity for research problems to arise, since there is a paucity of (credible) knowledge. In other words, research problems are derived from research gaps . These gaps can arise from various sources, including the emergence of new frontiers or new contexts, as well as disagreements within the existing research.

Let’s look at each of these scenarios:

New frontiers – new technologies, discoveries or breakthroughs can open up entirely new frontiers where there is very little existing research, thereby creating fresh research gaps. For example, as generative AI technology became accessible to the general public in 2023, the full implications and knock-on effects of this were (or perhaps, still are) largely unknown and therefore present multiple avenues for researchers to explore.

New contexts – very often, existing research tends to be concentrated on specific contexts and geographies. Therefore, even within well-studied fields, there is often a lack of research within niche contexts. For example, just because a study finds certain results within a western context doesn’t mean that it would necessarily find the same within an eastern context. If there’s reason to believe that results may vary across these geographies, a potential research gap emerges.

Disagreements – within many areas of existing research, there are (quite naturally) conflicting views between researchers, where each side presents strong points that pull in opposing directions. In such cases, it’s still somewhat uncertain as to which viewpoint (if any) is more accurate. As a result, there is room for further research in an attempt to “settle” the debate.

Of course, many other potential scenarios can give rise to research gaps, and consequently, research problems, but these common ones are a useful starting point. If you’re interested in research gaps, you can learn more here .

How to find a research problem

Given that research problems flow from research gaps , finding a strong research problem for your research project means that you’ll need to first identify a clear research gap. Below, we’ll present a four-step process to help you find and evaluate potential research problems.

If you’ve read our other articles about finding a research topic , you’ll find the process below very familiar as the research problem is the foundation of any study . In other words, finding a research problem is much the same as finding a research topic.

Step 1 – Identify your area of interest

Naturally, the starting point is to first identify a general area of interest . Chances are you already have something in mind, but if not, have a look at past dissertations and theses within your institution to get some inspiration. These present a goldmine of information as they’ll not only give you ideas for your own research, but they’ll also help you see exactly what the norms and expectations are for these types of projects.

At this stage, you don’t need to get super specific. The objective is simply to identify a couple of potential research areas that interest you. For example, if you’re undertaking research as part of a business degree, you may be interested in social media marketing strategies for small businesses, leadership strategies for multinational companies, etc.

Depending on the type of project you’re undertaking, there may also be restrictions or requirements regarding what topic areas you’re allowed to investigate, what type of methodology you can utilise, etc. So, be sure to first familiarise yourself with your institution’s specific requirements and keep these front of mind as you explore potential research ideas.

Step 2 – Review the literature and develop a shortlist

Once you’ve decided on an area that interests you, it’s time to sink your teeth into the literature . In other words, you’ll need to familiarise yourself with the existing research regarding your interest area. Google Scholar is a good starting point for this, as you can simply enter a few keywords and quickly get a feel for what’s out there. Keep an eye out for recent literature reviews and systematic review-type journal articles, as these will provide a good overview of the current state of research.

At this stage, you don’t need to read every journal article from start to finish . A good strategy is to pay attention to the abstract, intro and conclusion , as together these provide a snapshot of the key takeaways. As you work your way through the literature, keep an eye out for what’s missing – in other words, what questions does the current research not answer adequately (or at all)? Importantly, pay attention to the section titled “ further research is needed ”, typically found towards the very end of each journal article. This section will specifically outline potential research gaps that you can explore, based on the current state of knowledge (provided the article you’re looking at is recent).

Take the time to engage with the literature and develop a big-picture understanding of the current state of knowledge. Reviewing the literature takes time and is an iterative process , but it’s an essential part of the research process, so don’t cut corners at this stage.

As you work through the review process, take note of any potential research gaps that are of interest to you. From there, develop a shortlist of potential research gaps (and resultant research problems) – ideally 3 – 5 options that interest you.

Step 3 – Evaluate your potential options

Once you’ve developed your shortlist, you’ll need to evaluate your options to identify a winner. There are many potential evaluation criteria that you can use, but we’ll outline three common ones here: value, practicality and personal appeal.

Value – a good research problem needs to create value when successfully addressed. Ask yourself:

• Who will this study benefit (e.g., practitioners, researchers, academia)?
• How will it benefit them specifically?
• How much will it benefit them?

Practicality – a good research problem needs to be manageable in light of your resources. Ask yourself:

• What data will I need access to?
• What knowledge and skills will I need to undertake the analysis?
• What equipment or software will I need to process and/or analyse the data?
• How much time will I need?
• What costs might I incur?

Personal appeal – a research project is a commitment, so the research problem that you choose needs to be genuinely attractive and interesting to you. Ask yourself:

• How appealing is the prospect of solving this research problem (on a scale of 1 – 10)?
• Why, specifically, is it attractive (or unattractive) to me?
• Does the research align with my longer-term goals (e.g., career goals, educational path, etc)?

Depending on how many potential options you have, you may want to consider creating a spreadsheet where you numerically rate each of the options in terms of these criteria. Remember to also include any criteria specified by your institution . From there, tally up the numbers and pick a winner.

Step 4 – Craft your problem statement

Once you’ve selected your research problem, the final step is to craft a problem statement. Remember, your problem statement needs to be a concise outline of what the core issue is and how your study will address it. Aim to fit this within one paragraph – don’t waffle on. Have a look at the problem statement example we mentioned earlier if you need some inspiration.

Key Takeaways

We’ve covered a lot of ground. Let’s do a quick recap of the key takeaways:

• A research problem is an explanation of the issue that your study will try to solve. This explanation needs to highlight the problem , the consequence and the solution or response.
• A problem statement is a clear and concise summary of the research problem , typically contained within one paragraph.
• Research problems emerge from research gaps , which themselves can emerge from multiple potential sources, including new frontiers, new contexts or disagreements within the existing literature.
• To find a research problem, you need to first identify your area of interest , then review the literature and develop a shortlist, after which you’ll evaluate your options, select a winner and craft a problem statement .

Psst… there’s more (for free)

This post is part of our dissertation mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project. 

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364 Education Research Topics about School Issues, Special Education, and More

The field of education encompasses diverse areas of study, ranging from elementary school to higher education. It includes curriculum development, teaching policy-making, and the application of psychology and technology in learning.

Education research explores learning theories and effective teaching practices, examines the impact of sociocultural elements on teaching, and addresses concerns of equality and inclusion. This dynamic discipline continually evolves, driven by innovations and the desire to enhance learning outcomes for all students while creating new avenues for fundamental research.

In this article, you’ll find many education research topics for your projects. You can also find additional ideas in our free essay database .

🏫 15 Controversial School Topics

🔎 research areas & topics in education, 🎒 elementary education research topics, 👩‍🎓 adult education research topics, 🧮 action research topics in education, 🔕 special education research topics, 🚌 school issues topics, 📒 more controversial school topics, 🧠 school psychology research topics, 🔗 references.

• The role of school counselors’ support for students considering abortion.
• Psychedelic therapy: The impact on students’ mental health.
• The role of school religion classes in promoting cultural understanding.
• How do economic policies impact teacher retention and job satisfaction?
• Sexual harassment in schools: Prevalence, structure, and perceptions.
• Free education and its role in reducing educational inequality.
• Why is parental support crucial in achieving academic success?
• Bullying and cyberbullying: The influence on the school environment.
• The effectiveness of school-based sex education programs.
• Promoting school safety for LGBTQ students.
• Inclusive curriculum as a path to better educational performance.
• Cultural diversity in secondary school classrooms.
• The link between alcohol consumption and educational performance.
• Gambling behavior and risk factors in preadolescent students.
• Final exams as the main reason for student depression and anxiety.

Research in education seeks to improve learning outcomes, address the issues of equity and inclusion , and integrate innovative technology into the educational process. Look at the table below to learn what different research areas in education deal with!

• The influence of modern technologies on elementary school education.
• Elementary education: Methods and strategies.
• Elementary School: Picture Communication at the Lesson .
• Promotion of the healthy diet program in elementary schools.
• The role of physical education in elementary schools.
• Addressing Bullying in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms .
• Social studies in the elementary school.
• How to increase motivation among students in elementary school?
• Math Methodology for Elementary Teachers .
• The value of community and family involvement in elementary schools.
• Dominant learning styles among elementary school students.
• Teacher Efficacy of Pre-service Elementary Teachers .
• Elementary education principles: Europe vs. the US.
• The problem of bullying among elementary school students.
• Departmentalization in American Elementary Schools .
• The impact of laptops on elementary school students’ performance.
• The history of elementary education development in Europe.
• Yorktown Elementary School Improvement Plan .
• Corporal punishment as a way of dealing with elementary-level aggressive children.
• Pedagogical Skills in Elementary School .
• Effects of obesity on elementary school students’ development.
• Elementary-level art education and its importance.
• Students’ Academic Performance: Elementary Homework Policies .
• The standards of learning at the elementary educational level.
• Modern approaches to self-studying in elementary school.
• Task-Based Language Teaching Applied in Elementary Classroom .
• Learning English in bilingual elementary schools.
• Lack of proper grooming as a cause of violence among elementary students.
• Proposal for Providing Healthier Food Choices for Elementary Students .
• The need for sexual education in elementary school.
• Differences between adult and child education.
• Main types of adult education and their features.
• Adult Education: Reasons to Continue Studying .
• The most popular adult education agencies and institutions in Europe.
• Adult education: Purpose and theories.
• Adult Education in the “Real World” Classroom .
• Challenges and motivating factors in education for adults.
• Greater social inclusion as one of the crucial benefits of adult education.
• Adult Education for Canadian Immigrants .
• Adult-education movements in the UK.
• What sets adult education apart from traditional education?
• Interaction Strategies in Adult Education .
• Albert Mansbridge and his role in adult education development.
• Adult education in Canada: Key features.
• Adult Educational Pedagogical Philosophies, Theories .
• Peculiarities of learning environment for adult students.
• Critical resources for adult education and training.
• Importance of Adult Education: Risks and Rewards .
• Adult education as a tool for developing leadership capabilities.
• The role of critical thinking in adult education.
• Adult Education: McClusky’s Power-Load-Margin .
• What theories of adult learning are used in UK education?
• Modern technology and its impact on adult learning improvement.
• Michael Collins “Adult Education as Vocation”: Theoretical Positions .
• Theories of adult learning in the context of clinical teaching nurses.
• Adult education: Opportunities and limitations.
• Concept of Lifelong Learning .
• The aid of volunteers in adult education.
• Teaching skills that play a vital role in adult education.

Action research seeks to identify problems, weaknesses, or areas for improvement in different dimensions of the education system — instructional, academic, or organizational. It is a cyclical process, the goal of which is to equip teachers with a mechanism for problem resolution in schools to enhance student learning and teacher effectiveness.

• William Barry: A theory-based educational approach to action research.
• The Effects of Cyberbullying on Students’ Academic Performance .
• Educators’ challenges in conducting action research in classrooms.
• Action research’s importance in teacher education courses.
• Inclusion Policies in Education and Their Effects .
• Primary school education: Action research plan.
• The benefits of using action research in the classroom.
• Learning Disabilities and Intervention Methods .
• The role of action research in college education.
• Parental involvement in student’s education with the help of action research.
• Online Learning and Students’ Mental Health .
• The influence of action research on curriculum development.
• Action research in education: Characteristics and working principles.
• How Is Social Media Affecting College Students?
• Why is action research one of the best ways to improve academic performance?
• Action research for educational reform: Remodeling action research theories.
• College Students’ Weight Gain and Its Causes .
• The use of action research in higher education and its outcomes.
• International educational perspectives through action research.
• Inclusion and Individual Differences in Classroom .
• The contribution of action research to investigating classroom practice.
• How does action research support the development of inclusive classroom environments?
• Homeschooling: Argumentation For and Against .

School & Classroom Management

• Peculiarities of educational management in primary and elementary schools.
• Classroom Management and Techniques to Incorporate in Student’s Reinforcement Plan .
• Preventive approaches to classroom management.
• Educational management: The blue vs. orange card theory.
• Teaching Strategies and Classroom Management .
• What is the role of corporal punishment in educational management?
• Classroom management system: Effective classroom rules.
• Dominance and Cooperation as Classroom Management Strategies .
• Culturally responsive classroom management: Definition and features.
• The influence of school management on student well-being and engagement.
• Blended Learning and Flipped Classrooms .
• Use of information communication technology in school management.
• The problems of classroom management with high school students.
• The Role of Computers in the Classroom .
• Assessment of the role of teachers in school management.
• Online vs. Traditional Classroom Education .

Educational Policies

• Why are education policies and strategies crucial for teachers and students?
• The effectiveness of implementing educational policies.
• Implementation of Federal Educational Policies .
• State policies to increase teacher retention.
• Policies and laws promoting gender equality in education.
• The Separate But Equal Education and Racial Segregation .
• Education policy issues in 2020: Consequences of Covid-19.
• Educational policies for students with disabilities.
• Higher Education Should Be Free for Everyone .
• What education policies and practices does UNESCO prioritize?
• Education policies as a way to improve the school system in the Philippines.
• Where and How Sex Education Should Be Conducted Among the Young People?
• The education policy fellowship program and its value and goal.
• Should Schools Distribute Condoms?
• European education policy regarding the education of adults.
• The main features of the special education process.
• Use of assistive technology in improving education for students with special needs.
• Special Education in New York City .
• Special education: Transforming America’s classrooms.
• The issues faced by parents of students with disabilities.
• Functional Curriculum Goals in Special Education .
• The role of social skills training in the development of special education.
• Paraeducators: Assisting students with special needs in their studies.
• Labeling in Special Education .
• Physical class as a vital part of special education.
• Effects of co-teaching approaches on the academic performance of students with disabilities.
• English Language Learning in Special Education .
• Behavioral strategies for dealing with autism spectrum conditions during lessons.
• Natural Readers Website as Assistive Technology in Education .
• Trauma-informed teaching as a trending issue in special education.
• Special education: The main concepts and legal background.
• Learning Disabilities: Speech and Language Disorders .
• Use of cultural resonance in special education.
• Current issues in special education for children with disabilities.
• Related Services for Students with Disabilities .
• The special education profession and its value.
• Special education: Teaching children with mental disorders.
• Exclusion of Students with Learning Disabilities .
• How to create a perfect curriculum for students with special needs?
• The importance of collaboration between parents and special education teachers.
• General Curriculum for Students with Severe Disabilities .
• The Netherlands as a leader in supporting intellectual disabilities programs.
• Effective Strategies for Students With Learning Disabilities
• The role of cultural sensitivity in multicultural special education.
• Special education: The main aspects and conflicts.
• New Technologies for the Students with Disabilities .
• The frequency and consequences of firearm-related incidents in schools.
• Gun Control and School Shootings .
• The impact of political ideology on educational policies and practices.
• Why is sexual assault a serious problem on American campuses?
• Negative Impact of Media Attention to School Shooting .
• Regulations and procedures for preventing unauthorized access to weapons in schools.
• College accreditation and student loan forgiveness.
• Discrimination in School and Its Effects on Students .
• Modern technologies as a real threat to student privacy and security.
• The issue with learning accommodation for non-traditional students.
• Discrimination and Inequality in the Education System
• Why is standardized testing one of the biggest problems in education?
• The prevalence and patterns of alcohol consumption among students.
• The Early Education Issues: Development and Importance .
• Student poverty and its connection to academic performance and success.
• Teacher salaries: A critical education issue of the 21st century.
• School Bullying and Legal Responsibility .
• What effect does the size of the class have on student outcomes?
• School violence: Dealing with it and minimizing the danger.
• Adolescent Mental Health: Depression .
• Analyzing the impact of technology integration on the increased level of cheating.
• Teacher burnout and its impact on student achievement.
• Adolescent Drug Abuse, Their Awareness, and Prevention .
• What is the influence of socioeconomic status on educational achievement gaps?
• Social Inequality at School .
• High-stakes testing as the main reason for increasing student stress levels.
• Homework: The main disadvantages of self-studying at home.
• Social Inequality and Juvenile Delinquency .
• The effects of drug education campaigns on student knowledge and attitudes.
• Why do college students often become addicted to gambling?

School Bullying

• A method to prevent bias and discrimination in the school system.
• Cyberbullying Among University Students .
• The social consequences of cyberbullying and cyberstalking for students.
• What is the influence of bullying on the academic performance of students?
• School Bullying and Problems in Adult Life .
• Bullying and suicide: Understanding the link and dealing with it.
• School Bullying: Causes and Effects .
• The issue of bullying of children with special needs in school.
• The impact of bullying on school communities.
• Prevention of Bullying in Schools .
• What effect does bullying have on high school-aged students?
• Parenting Style and Bullying Among Children .
• School bullying: Government strategies for managing the problem.
• What steps can parents take to stop bullying at school?
• Cyberbullying of Children in Canada .
• The importance of the anti-bullying program for schools.
• The contribution of technology to the occurrence or prevention of bullying.
• Student Dropouts in Bully-Friendly Schools .
• Bullying and its influence on school climate.
• Bullying and violence in schools: Social psychology perspective.
• The Long-Term Consequences of Being Bullied or Bullying Others in Childhood .
• What are the leading causes of bullying in school?
• Investigating the consequences of online bullying among school-aged children.
• Bullying of Learners with Disabilities .

Lack of Funding

• The impact of school funding issues on the performance of students.
• Children Education. Federal Funding of Preschool .
• School funding issues: Methods and strategies to overcome the problem.
• Why is school funding a key to equitable education?
• The Role of External Funding in Academic Projects .
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on school funding.
• How can an increase in spending on education help boost economic recovery?
• School-Funding System in New Jersey .
• Investigating the link between financial disparities and educational inequality.
• How Misuse of Funding Could Affect Education .
• The influence of budget cuts on teacher recruitment and retention.
• Inadequate funding as one of the biggest problems in education.
• Free College Education: Arguments in Support .
• Problems of insufficient funding for elementary education in Asia.
• The role of private sector partnerships in education funding.
• Should College Education Be Free for All US Citizens?
• Public education funding in the US: Peculiarities.
• The importance of educating children in poor countries.
• Should College Athletes Be Paid or Not?
• How can the issue of improper funding for schools be solved?
• New school funding model in Kenya: Benefits and main problems.
• Evidence-Based Model and Solving Problems with School Funding .
• How do decreasing budgets affect student learning and achievement?

Mental Health of Students

• Why do many college students experience symptoms of severe mental health conditions?
• University Students’ Mental Health in 2000-2020 .
• Depression as a common mental health issue in US students.
• Suicidal ideation and intent in students: The leading causes and symptoms.
• The Effect of Mental Health Programs on Students Academic Performance .
• American Psychological Association and its role in helping students with anxiety.
• Eating disorders: The female college students’ problem.
• Mental Health Issues in College Students .
• Substance misuse and its influence on the social life of students.
• What are the long-term effects of academic stress on student mental health?
• Strategies to Decrease Nursing Student Anxiety .
• Factors contributing to the rise in student anxiety and depression rates.
• Social media use and its connection to the mental health of high school students.
• Adolescent Depression: Modern Issues and Resources .
• Sleep quality and duration’s influence on student mental health.
• How does parental involvement influence the mental health and well-being of students?
• The Problem of Adolescent Suicide .
• Physical activity and its contribution to students’ mental health.
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student mental health.
• Mental Health Well-Being Notion: Its Effect on Education .
• The effectiveness of school-based mental health programs for students in Europe.
• Education and Motivation for At-Risk Students .
• Creative approaches to support teenagers with mental disorders.

Inclusivity

• The value of inclusive education for high school students.
• Diversity and Inclusivity as Teaching Philosophy .
• Government measures to advance inclusive education.
• Inclusive education: Essential elements, related laws, and strategies.
• Inclusive Education for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder .
• Inclusive teaching principles at Columbia schools.
• How do open society foundations support inclusive education?
• Student-Teacher Interaction in Inclusive Education .
• Inclusive education and its benefits for students with disabilities.
• Non-competitive learning as the main concept of inclusive education.
• Inclusive Education for Students With Disabilities .
• Increasing inclusivity in the classroom: The main benefits and methods.
• How can parents build an inclusive behavioral model for their children in elementary school?
• Effective Practice in Inclusive and Special Needs Education .
• The role of government in funding inclusive education in the US.
• Respectful language as a key to teaching students to be more tolerant.
• Early Childhood: Inclusive Programs and Social Interactions .
• Diverse groups and their contribution to increasing inclusivity in the classroom.
• The value of inclusive education: Socialization and academic progress.
• Creating Inclusive Classrooms for Diverse Learners .
• Peculiarities of curriculum and pedagogy in inclusive education.
• What are the critical challenges in implementing inclusive education policies?

Other School Issues

• Traditional teaching methods and their negative impact on student performance.
• Shooting in Schools: Trends and Definition .
• The main teaching issues: Constant pressure and a lot of paperwork.
• The lack of effective communication between teachers and students in high school.
• Alcohol Abuse Among Students: Reforming College Drinking .
• Students’ behavior as one of the relevant issues in elementary school.
• The risk of burning out in college students: Causes and symptoms.
• Dormitory Life and Its Tough Sides for Students .
• How does a lack of support outside of the classroom influence students’ grades?
• The connection between administrative workload and teacher retention rates.
• Changes in Diet and Lifestyle for Students .
• Changing educational trends as one of the challenges faced by teachers.
• What are the main limitations of disciplining students?
• Homeschooling Disadvantages for Students and Parents .
• The issue of using mobile devices in the classroom.
• The potential drawbacks and limitations of redundant teaching techniques.
• Dealing With Procrastination Among Students .
• How to deal with the growing discipline problem in US classrooms?
• The effects of educational technology use on college student learning.
• Teaching Students With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder .
• The emotional and mental toll of lesson planning on teachers.
• What is the impact of pressure from school administrators on teacher performance?
• Cybersecurity Threats for Students & How to Fight Them .
• The community perceptions and concerns regarding armed guards in schools.
• Small-Group Counseling for the High-School Students .
• The need for bilingual education for students in England.
• LGBT+ inclusive sex education: Advantages and disadvantages.
• Challenges Faced by Foreign Students in Adapting to University Culture .
• Why should school uniforms in middle and high school be mandatory?
• The influence of teaching salaries on teacher motivation and performance.
• The Problem of Technology Addiction Among College Students .
• The role of teachers in navigating religious diversity in classrooms.
• What makes private schools in the US better than public ones?
• Why Some Students Cheat .
• The impact of free colleges on the quality of higher education.
• Dissection in school: The value and impact on student’s attitudes toward science.
• How Inclusive Learning Affects Other Students .
• The social and emotional development of students in homeschooling and traditional schooling.
• Why is it necessary to implement college courses in state prisons?
• How to Keep Young Students Engaged and Disciplined in Classroom .
• The effectiveness of school-supplied condoms in preventing teenage pregnancy.
• The impact of implicit bias on racial segregation in education.
• The Problem of Anxiety Among the College Students .
• Race-based school discipline in high school: For and against.
• What are the cons and pros of single-sex schools?
• The Need for Curriculum Change Among African American Students .
• Corporal punishment in schools as a way of controlling undisciplined behavior.
• The role of online education in student-teacher interaction.
• Self-Esteem and Self-Anxiety in Nursing Students .
• The problem of sexually or socially provocative clothes at school and methods of solving it.
• Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP) For Anxious Students .
• Corruption and emotional manipulations in the educational system.
• How can social and religious issues uniquely affect education?
• Mandatory Drug Tests for Nursing Students .
• What are the main aspects and goals of school psychology?
• Adlerian Theory for School Counseling .
• Historical foundations of American school psychology.
• The role of school psychologists in conceptualizing children’s development.
• Solution-Focused Brief Therapy in School Counseling .
• School psychology: The helping hand in overcoming school crisis.
• The value of professional development programs in high school.
• Therapy Modality for Transformational P-12 School Counselors .
• Job prospects in school psychology in the United States.
• What is the role of school psychologists in supporting students with special needs?
• The McMartin Preschool and Forensic Psychology .
• School psychology in the 21st century: Foundations and practices.
• How do the social-emotional learning programs impact student well-being?
• The effects of school-based crisis interventions on students’ post-traumatic recovery.
• Cognitive Distortions in Middle-School Students.
• School psychology science: Skills and procedures.
• What are the most effective psychological strategies for reducing bullying in schools?
• Instruction Development for Students with Cognitive Disability .
• The effects of crisis intervention work on school psychologists.
• National Association of School Psychologists: Standards and practices.
• The influence of psychologists on the formulation of school policies in the UK.
• Risky Sexual Behaviors Among College Students .
• Counseling students with a sexual abuse history and its impact on academic success.
• Religion and spirituality as diverse topics in school psychology publications.
• Social-Behavioral Skills of Elementary Students with Physical Disabilities .
• School-based considerations for supporting American youths’ mental health.
• The practices for increasing cross-cultural competency in school.
• Classroom Management Ideas: Behavioral Crises and Promotion of Friendship Between Students .
• School psychologists: Principles of professional ethics .

Educational research advances knowledge across diverse disciplines, employing scientific methods to address real-world challenges within the realm of education. By exploring various topics , from innovative pedagogies to the impact of technology, we gain valuable insights to enhance educational practices, ensure inclusivity, and empower future generations with the tools for success.

❓ Educational Research Topics FAQ

What are good research topics for education.

An effective topic is one you can explore in-depth within the length of your assignment. Here are some crucial characteristics of a good research topic:

• Relevant and clear.
• Not too broad or narrow.
• Interesting for the author and target audience.

For example:

• Project-based learning in the classroom: Pros and cons.
• What role did technology play in the development of online tutoring?

How do I find a research topic in education?

You should take 3 simple steps to find a research topic in education:

• Determine the area in education that interests you the most.
• Read all the relevant information to understand the hot issues in your field.
• If you still cannot find the one that suits you best, use our base of the most exciting research topics in education!

What are the top 5 most researched topics?

• Bullying and cyberbullying as significant issues in US schools.
• Why are modern technologies more of a distraction than a helper in education?
• The benefits of inclusive classrooms for students with disabilities.
• How did COVID-19 affect student mental health and the school environment?
• The barriers to education access in underserved communities.
• 10 Challenges Facing Public Education Today | National Education Association
• Education Issues, Explained | EducationWeek
• The Education Crisis: Being in School Is Not the Same as Learning | The World Bank
• The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2021 | Edutopia
• Special Education Topics | Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
• Social Issues That Special Education Teachers Face | Chron
• How Teachers Can Learn Through Action Research | Edutopia
• School Psychology | American Psychological Association
• Issues and Problems in Education | Sociology by University of Minnesota
• Educational Research Design | University of Pittsburgh
• Global Education Issues: Making a Difference Through Policy | American University
• Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education | Brookings
• Higher Education | George Mason University
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction: Research Topics | University of Minnesota
• A Six Step Process to Developing an Educational Research Plan | East Carolina University
• Teaching and Learning Topics | University of Oregon
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110+ Exceptional Education Research Topics Ideas

Topics for education research usually comprise school research topics, research problems in education, qualitative research topics in education, and concept paper topics about education to mention a few.

If you’re looking for research titles about education,  you’re reading the right post! This article contains 110 of the best education research topics that will come in handy when you need to choose one for your research. From sample research topics in education, to research titles examples for high school students about education – we have it all.

Educational Research Topics

Research title examples for college students, quantitative research titles about education, topics related to education for thesis, research titles about school issues, ph.d. research titles in education, elementary education research topics, research title examples about online class, research titles about modular learning, examples of research questions in education, special education research titles.

The best research titles about education must be done through the detailed process of exploring previous works and improving personal knowledge.

Here are some good research topics in education to consider.

What Are Good Research Topics Related to Education?

• The role of Covid-19 in reinvigorating online learning
• The growth of cognitive abilities through leisure experiences
• The merits of group study in education
• Merits and demerits of traditional learning methods
• The impact of homework on traditional and modern education
• Student underdevelopment as a result of larger class volumes
• Advantages of digital textbooks in learning
• The struggle of older generations in computer education
• The standards of learning  in the various academic levels
• Bullying and its effects on educational and mental health
• Exceptional education tutors: Is the need for higher pay justifiable?

The following examples of research titles about education for college students are ideal for a project that will take a long duration to complete. Here are some education topics for research that you can consider for your degree.

• Modern classroom difficulties of students and teachers
• Strategies to reform the learning difficulties within schools
• The rising cost of tuition and its burden on middle-class parents
• The concept of creativity among public schools and how it can be harnessed
• Major difficulties experienced in academic staff training
• Evaluating the learning cultures of college students
• Use of scientific development techniques in student learning
• Research of skill development in high school and college students
• Modern grading methods in underdeveloped institutions
• Dissertations and the difficulties surrounding their completion
• Integration of new gender categories in personalized learning

These research topics about education require a direct quantitative analysis and study of major ideas and arguments. They often contain general statistics and figures to back up regular research. Some of such research topics in education include:

• The relationship between poor education and increased academic fees
• Creating a social link between homeschool and traditional schoolgoers
• The relationship between teacher satisfaction and student performance
• The divide between public and private school performance
• The merits of parental involvement in students’ cognitive growth.
• A study on child welfare and its impact on educational development
• The relationship between academic performance and economic growth
• Urbanization in rural areas and its contribution to institutional growth
• The relationship between students and professors in dissertation writing
• The link between debt accumulation and student loans
• Boarding schools and regular schools: The role these two school types play in cognitive development

Educational-related topics used for a thesis normally require a wide aspect of study and enough educational materials.  Here are some education research topics you can use for write my thesis .

• The difficulties of bilingual education in private universities
• Homework and its impact on learning processes in college education
• Dissertation topic selection: Key aspects and research obligations
• Social media research topics and their educational functions
• A detailed educational review of student learning via virtual reality techniques
• Ethnicities in universities and their participation in group activities
• The modern approach to self-studying for college students
• Developing time management skills in modern education
• Guidelines for teacher development in advanced educational institutions
• The need for religious education in boarding schools
• A measure of cognitive development using digital learning methods

A research title about school issues focuses on activities surrounding the school environment and its effects on students, teachers, parents, and education in general. Below are some sample research titles in education, relating to school issues.

• Learning English in bilingual schools
• A study of teachers’ role as parent figures on school grounds
• Addressing the increased use of illegal substances and their effects in schools
• The benefits of after-class activities for foreign students
• Assessing student and teacher relationships
• A study of the best methods to implement safety rules in school
• Major obstacles in meeting school schedules using boarding students as a case study
• The need for counseling in public and private schools: Which is greater?
• Academic volunteering in understaffed public schools
• Modern techniques for curbing school violence among college students
• The advantages and disadvantages of teacher unions in schools

As you create your proposed list of research topics in education, consider scientific journals for referencing purposes. Here are some Ph.D. research titles for education.

• The modern methods of academic research writing
• The role of colleges in advanced mental care
• The merits and demerits of Ph.D. studies in Europe and Africa
• Interpersonal relationships between students and professors in advanced institutions
• A review of community colleges: merits and demerits
• Assessing racism in academic ethnic minorities
• The psychological changes of students in higher education
• The questionable standards of student loan provisions
• The merits of personalized teaching techniques in colleges
• The wage gap between private and public university teachers
• Teacher responsibilities in private universities versus public universities

The research topics in elementary education in 2023 are very different from the elementary education research topics from five or ten years ago. This creates interesting grounds for different research titles for elementary education.

Here are some elementary education title research ideas.

• Assessing quick computer literacy among elementary school pupils.
• The role of video games in childhood brain development
• Male vs female role models in early education periods
• The advantages of digital textbooks in elementary schools
• The impact of modern curriculums on elementary education
• Lack of proper school grooming is a cause of violence.
• Should elementary school children be taught about LGBTQ?
• A review of the need for sexual education in elementary schools
• The effects of emotional dependence in early childhood learners.
• The need for constant technology supervision of elementary school students
• Advantages of computer-guided education in elementary schools

Here are some research title examples for students taking online classes.

• The academic difficulties experienced by online students.
• A study of decreased attention in online classes
• The upsides and downsides of online education
• The rising fees of online and traditional education in universities
• A detailed study on the necessity of college internships
• The need to provide college scholarships based on environmental achievements
• How online education terminates university fraternities and sororities.
• The role of academic supervisors in career selection
• Why interactive assignments improved learning capabilities during the pandemic
• Merits of education in online learning environments
• Why online lessons are the least effective for some college students

The modular learning approach focuses primarily on learning outcomes. Here are some examples of research titles about modular learning.

• Modular learning and the role of teachers in its execution
• Teaching techniques of religious institutions
• Potential risks of accelerated learning
• Modular learning on students’ future performances
• The general overview of modular learning amongst students
• The modern Advantages and disadvantages of inclusive classes
• Observing student developments in modular learning
• Music therapy for fostering modular learning techniques
• The creation of a personalized curriculum for students.
• Applications of modular learning both in home-schooling?
• The benefits of modular learning towards creating a more holistic educational system

These research title examples about education answer important questions and they can also be argumentative essay topics .

Here are some titles of research about education questions.

• What impacts do learning approaches provide for students?
• How can schools manage their increasing gender differences?
• What fosters the provision of learning needs?
• What are the best educational recruitment methods?
• How can cognitive development improve education?
• How can you assess the moral growth of institutions?
• What are the primary causes of educational differences in geographical locations?
• How can institutions address increasing mental health needs?
• Why is early intervention essential in students with mental health setbacks?
• What are the characteristics of mental health deterioration among students?
• What techniques are acceptable in regulating the violence of students in institutions

Some of the research title examples about education include:

• How do schools create more personalized learning methods?
• Evaluating mental health setbacks during education
• The impact of modern technology on special education
• The cognitive improvements via specialized learning in dyslexic children
• The psychological link between dyslexia and bullying in high school
• Impact of social isolation in special education classes
• The difficulties in providing specialized learning environments
• A study of orphan students with disabilities and their aptitudes for learning
• How special classes improve the self-esteem of disabled students.
• How to use modern teaching techniques in unique learning environments.
• A study of the application of digital games to autistic learning

Final words about education research topics

We have provided some reliable examples of a research topic about education you can use for write my thesis . You can use these research titles in education to cultivate your ideas, create inspiration, or for online research. Remember always to select a topic that you’re naturally passionate about and do diligent research, and reach out to our professional writing services if you need any help.

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• USC Libraries
• Research Guides

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• 1. Choosing a Research Problem
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Generative AI and Writing
• USC Libraries Tutorials and Other Guides
• Bibliography

In the social and behavioral sciences, the subject of analysis is most often framed as a problem that must be researched in order to obtain a greater understanding, formulate a set of solutions or recommended courses of action, and/or develop a better approach to practice. The research problem, therefore, is the main organizing principle guiding the analysis of your research. The problem under investigation establishes an occasion for writing and a focus that governs what you want to say. It represents the core subject matter of scholarly communication and the means by which scholars arrive at other topics of conversation and the discovery of new knowledge and understanding.

Alvesson, Mats and Jörgen Sandberg. Constructing Research Questions: Doing Interesting Research . London: Sage, 2013; Jacobs, Ronald L. “Developing a Dissertation Research Problem: A Guide for Doctoral Students in Human Resource Development and Adult Education.” New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development 25 (Summer 2013): 103-117; Chapter 1: Research and the Research Problem. Nicholas Walliman . Your Research Project: Designing and Planning Your Work . 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2011.

Choosing a Research Problem / How to Begin

Do not assume that identifying a research problem to investigate will be a quick and easy task! You should be thinking about it during the beginning of the course. There are generally three ways you are asked to write about a research problem : 1) your professor provides you with a general topic from which you study a particular aspect; 2) your professor provides you with a list of possible topics to study and you choose a topic from that list; or, 3) your professor leaves it up to you to choose a topic and you only have to obtain permission to write about it before beginning your investigation. Here are some strategies for getting started for each scenario.

I.  How To Begin:  You are given the topic to write about

Step 1 : Identify concepts and terms that make up the topic statement . For example, your professor wants the class to focus on the following research problem: “Is the European Union a credible security actor with the capacity to contribute to confronting global terrorism?" The main concepts in this problem are: European Union, security, global terrorism, credibility [ hint : focus on identifying proper nouns, nouns or noun phrases, and action verbs in the assignment description]. Step 2 : Review related literature to help refine how you will approach examining the topic and finding a way to analyze it . You can begin by doing any or all of the following: reading through background information from materials listed in your course syllabus; searching the USC Libraries Catalog to find a recent book on the topic and, if appropriate, more specialized works about the topic; conducting a preliminary review of the research literature using multidisciplinary databases such as ProQuest or subject-specific databases from the " By Subject Area " drop down menu located above the list of databases.

Choose the advanced search option in the database and enter into each search box the main concept terms you developed in Step 1. Also consider using their synonyms to retrieve additional relevant records. This will help you refine and frame the scope of the research problem. You will likely need to do this several times before you can finalize how to approach writing about the topic. NOTE : Always review the references from your most relevant research results cited by the authors in footnotes, endnotes, or a bibliography to locate related research on your topic. This is a good strategy for identifying important prior research about the topic because titles that are repeatedly cited indicate their significance in laying a foundation for understanding the problem. However, if you’re having trouble at this point locating relevant research literature, ask a librarian for help!

ANOTHER NOTE :  If you find an article from a database that's particularly helpful, paste it into Google Scholar , placing the title of the article in quotes. If the article record appears, look for a "cited by" reference followed by a number [e.g., C ited by 37] just below the record. This link indicates how many times other scholars have subsequently cited that article in their own research since it was first published. This is an effective strategy for identifying more current, related research on your topic. Finding additional cited by references from your original list of cited by references helps you navigate through the literature and, by so doing, understand the evolution of thought around a particular research problem. Step 3 : Since social science research papers are generally designed to encourage you to develop your own ideas and arguments, look for sources that can help broaden, modify, or strengthen your initial thoughts and arguments. For example, if you decide to argue that the European Union is inadequately prepared to take on responsibilities for broader global security because of the debt crisis in many EU countries, then focus on identifying sources that support as well as refute this position. From the advanced search option in ProQuest , a sample search would use "European Union" in one search box, "global security" in the second search box, and adding a third search box to include "debt crisis."

There are least four appropriate roles your related literature plays in helping you formulate how to begin your analysis :

• Sources of criticism -- frequently, you'll find yourself reading materials that are relevant to your chosen topic, but you disagree with the author's position. Therefore, one way that you can use a source is to describe the counter-argument, provide evidence from your own review of the literature as to why the prevailing argument is unsatisfactory, and to discuss how your approach is more appropriate based upon your interpretation of the evidence.
• Sources of new ideas -- while a general goal in writing college research papers in the social sciences is to examine a research problem with some basic idea of what position you'd like to take and on what basis you'd like to defend your position, it is certainly acceptable [and often encouraged] to read the literature and extend, modify, and refine your own position in light of the ideas proposed by others. Just make sure that you cite the sources !
• Sources for historical context -- another role your related literature plays in formulating how to begin your analysis is to place issues and events in proper historical context. This can help to demonstrate familiarity with developments in relevant scholarship about your topic, provide a means of comparing historical versus contemporary issues and events, and identifying key people, places, and events that had an important role related to the research problem. Given its archival journal coverage, a good multidisciplnary database to use in this case is JSTOR .
• Sources of interdisciplinary insight -- an advantage of using databases like ProQuest to begin exploring your topic is that it covers publications from a variety of different disciplines. Another way to formulate how to study the topic is to look at it from different disciplinary perspectives. If the topic concerns immigration reform, for example, ask yourself, how do studies from sociological journals found by searching ProQuest vary in their analysis from those in political science journals. A goal in reviewing related literature is to provide a means of approaching a topic from multiple perspectives rather than the perspective offered from just one discipline.

NOTE : Remember to keep careful notes at every stage or utilize a citation management system like EndNotes or RefWorks . You may think you'll remember what you have searched and where you found things, but it’s easy to forget or get confused. Most databases have a search history feature that allows you to go back and see what searches you conducted previously as long as you haven't closed your session. If you start over, that history could be deleted.

Step 4 : Assuming you have done an effective job of synthesizing and thinking about the results of your initial search for related literature, you're ready to prepare a detailed outline for your paper that lays the foundation for a more in-depth and focused review of relevant research literature [after consulting with a librarian, if needed!]. How will you know you haven't done an effective job of synthesizing and thinking about the results of our initial search for related literature? A good indication is that you start composing the outline and gaps appear in how you want to approach the study. This indicates the need to gather further background information and analysis about the research problem.

II.  How To Begin:  You are provided a list of possible topics to choose from Step 1 : I know what you’re thinking--which topic on this list will be the easiest to find the most information on? An effective instructor would never include a topic that is so obscure or complex that no research is available to examine and from which to design an effective study. Therefore, don't approach a list of possible topics to study from the perspective of trying to identify the path of least resistance; choose a topic that you find interesting in some way, that is controversial and that you have a strong opinion about, that has some personal meaning for you, or relates to your major or a minor. You're going to be working on the topic for quite some time, so choose one that you find interesting and engaging or that motivates you to take a position. Embrace the opportunity to learn something new! Once you’ve settled on a topic of interest from the list provided by your professor, follow Steps 1 - 4 listed above to further develop it into a research paper.

NOTE : It’s ok to review related literature to help refine how you will approach analyzing a topic, and then discover that the topic isn’t all that interesting to you. In that case, choose a different topic from the list. Just don’t wait too long to make a switch and, of course, be sure to inform your professor that you are changing your topic.

III.  How To Begin:  Your professor leaves it up to you to choose a topic

Step 1 : Under this scenario, the key process is turning an idea or general thought into a topic that can be configured into a research problem. When given an assignment where you choose the topic, don't begin by thinking about what to write about, but rather, ask yourself the question, "What do I want to understand or learn about?" Treat an open-ended research assignment as an opportunity to gain new knowledge about something that's important or exciting to you in the context of the overall subject of the course.

Step 2 : If you lack ideas, or wish to gain focus, try any or all of the following strategies:

• Review your course readings, particularly the suggested readings, for topic ideas. Don't just review what you've already read, but jump ahead in the syllabus to readings that have not been covered yet.
• Search the USC Libraries Catalog for a recently published book and, if appropriate, more specialized works related to the discipline area of the course [e.g., for the course SOCI 335: Society and Population, search for books on "population and society" or "population and social impact"]. Reviewing the contents of a book about your area of interest can give you insight into what conversations scholars are having about the topic and, thus, how you might want to contribute your own ideas to these conversations through the research paper you write for the class.
• Browse through some current scholarly [a.k.a., academic, peer reviewed] journals in your subject discipline. Even if most of the articles are not relevant, you can skim through the contents quickly. You only need one to be the spark that begins the process of wanting to learn more about a topic. Consult with a librarian and/or your professor about what constitutes the core journals within the subject area of the writing assignment.
• Think about essays you have written for other courses you have taken or academic lectures and programs you have attended outside of class. Thinking back, ask yourself why did you want to take this class or attend this event? What interested you the most? What would you like to know more about? Place this question in the context of the current course assignment. Note that this strategy also applies to anything you've watched on TV or has been shared on social media.
• Search online news media sources, such as CNN , the Los Angeles Times , Huffington Post , MSNBC , Fox News , or Newsweek , to see if your idea has been covered by the media. Use this coverage to refine your idea into something that you'd like to investigate further, but in a more deliberate, scholarly way in relation to a particular problem that needs to be researched.

Step 3 : To build upon your initial idea, use the suggestions under this tab to help narrow , broaden , or increase the timeliness of your idea so you can write it out as a research problem.

Once you are comfortable with having turned your idea into a research problem, follow Steps 1 - 4 listed in Part I above to further develop it into an outline for a research paper.

Alderman, Jim. "Choosing a Research Topic." Beginning Library and Information Systems Strategies. Paper 17. Jacksonville, FL: University of North Florida Digital Commons, 2014; Alvesson, Mats and Jörgen Sandberg. Constructing Research Questions: Doing Interesting Research . London: Sage, 2013; Chapter 2: Choosing a Research Topic. Adrian R. Eley. Becoming a Successful Early Career Researcher . New York: Routledge, 2012; Answering the Question. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Brainstorming. Department of English Writing Guide. George Mason University; Brainstorming. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Chapter 1: Research and the Research Problem. Nicholas Walliman . Your Research Project: Designing and Planning Your Work . 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2011; Choosing a Topic. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University;  Mullaney, Thomas S. and Christopher Rea. Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World) . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2022; Coming Up With Your Topic. Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; How To Write a Thesis Statement. Writing Tutorial Services, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Indiana University; Identify Your Question. Start Your Research. University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz; The Process of Writing a Research Paper. Department of History. Trent University; Trochim, William M.K. Problem Formulation. Research Methods Knowledge Base. 2006.

Resources for Identifying a Topic

Resources for Identifying a Research Problem

If you are having difficulty identifying a topic to study or need basic background information, the following web resources and databases can be useful:

• CQ Researcher -- a collection of single-themed public policy reports that provide an overview of an issue. Each report includes background information, an assessment of the current policy situation, statistical tables and maps, pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions, and a bibliography of key sources.
• New York Times Topics -- each topic page collects news articles, reference and archival information, photos, graphics, audio and video files. Content is available without charge on articles going back to 1981.
• Opposing Viewpoints In Context -- an online resource covering a wide range of social issues from a variety of perspectives. The database contains a media-rich collection of materials, including pro/con viewpoint essays, topic overviews, primary source materials, biographies of social activists and reformers, journal articles, statistical tables, charts and graphs, images, videos, and podcasts.
• Policy Commons -- platform for objective, fact-based research from the world’s leading policy experts, nonpartisan think tanks, and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The database provides advanced searching across millions of pages of books, articles, working papers, reports, policy briefs, data sets, tables, charts, media, case studies, and statistical publications, including archived reports from more than 200 defunct think tanks. Coverage is international in scope.

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.

Writing Tip

Not Finding Anything on Your Topic? Ask a Librarian!

Don't assume or jump to the conclusion that your topic is too narrowly defined or obscure just because your initial search has failed to identify relevant research. Librarians are experts in locating and critically assessing information and how it is organized. This knowledge will help you develop strategies for analyzing existing knowledge in new ways. Therefore, always consult with a librarian before you consider giving up on finding information about the topic you want to investigate. If there isn't a lot of information about your topic, a librarian can help you identify a closely related topic that you can study. Use the Ask-A-Librarian link above to identify a librarian in your subject area.

Another Writing Tip

Don't be a Martyr!

In thinking about what to study, don't adopt the mindset of pursuing an esoteric or overly complicated topic just to impress your professor but that, in reality, does not have any real interest to you. Choose a topic that is challenging but that has at least some interest to you or that you care about. Obviously, this is easier for courses within your major, but even for those nasty prerequisite classes that you must take in order to graduate [and that provide an additional tuition revenue for the university], try to apply issues associated with your major to the general topic given to you. For example, if you are an international relations major taking a GE philosophy class where the assignment asks you to apply the question of "what is truth" to some aspect of life, you could choose to study how government leaders attempt to shape truth through the use of nationalistic propaganda.

Still Another Writing Tip

A Research Problem is Not a Thesis Statement

A thesis statement and a research problem are two different parts of the introduction section of your paper. The thesis statement succinctly describes in one or two sentences, usually in the last paragraph of the introduction, what position you have reached about a topic. It includes an assertion that requires evidence and support along with your opinion or argument about what you are researching. There are three general types of thesis statements: analytical statements that break down and evaluate the topic; argumentative statements that make a claim about the topic and defend that claim; and, expository statements that present facts and research about the topic. Each are intended to set forth a claim that you will seek to validate through the research you describe in your paper.

Before the thesis statement, your introduction must include a description of a problem that describes either a key area of concern, a condition to be improved upon, a difficulty to be eliminated, or a troubling issue that exists . The research problem describes something that can be empirically verified and measured; it is often followed by a set of questions that underpin how you plan to approach investigating that problem. In short, the thesis statement states your opinion or argument about the research problem and summarizes how you plan to address it.

Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Write a Strong Thesis Statement! The Writing Center, University of Evansville; Thesis Statements. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Tutorial #26: Thesis Statements and Topic Sentences. Writing Center, College of San Mateo; Creswell,  John W. and J. David Creswell. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches . 5th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2017.

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• A Research Guide
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35 Research Paper Problem Topics & Examples

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Education's Research Problem

The "Threshold of Certainty" and Other Dilemmas

Overpromising: exuberance for evidence-poor practices, underdelivering: ignoring science that might help, causes of misjudgment in the use of science, of values, science, and education, making it better.

Premium Resource

Adams, M. J. (2009). The challenge of advanced texts. In E. Hiedert (Ed.) Reading more, reading better (pp. 163–189). New York, Guilford.

Backes, B., & Hansen, M. (2018). The impact of Teach for America on non-test academic outcomes. Education Finance and Policy, 13 (2), 168–193.

Center for Research on Education Outcomes. (2015). Urban charter school study report on 41 regions . Stanford, CA: Author.

Clark, M. A., Chiang, H. S., Silva, T., McConnell, S., Sonnenfeld, K., Erbe, A., et al. (2013). The effectiveness of secondary math teachers from Teach for America and the teaching fellows programs (NCEE 2013-4015). Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Cuevas, J., & Dawson, B. L. (2018). A test of two alternative cognitive processing models: Learning styles and dual coding. Theory and Research in Education, 16 , 40–64.

Dee, T. S., & Wyckoff, J. (2015). Incentives, selection, and teacher performance: Evidence from IMPACT. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 34 (2), 267–297.

Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92 , 1087–1101.

Fleming, N. D., & Mills., C. (1992). Not another inventory, rather a catalyst for reflection. To Improve the Academy, 11 , 137–155.

International Literacy Association. (2019). Meeting the challenges of early literacy phonics Instruction [Literacy Leadership Brief]. Newark, DE: Author.

Kane, T. J., Rockoff, J. E., & Staiger, D. O. (2008). What does certification tell us about teacher effectiveness? Evidence from New York City. Economics of Education Review, 27 (6), 615–631.

Kennedy, B. (Oct. 18, 2016). "Most Americans trust the military and scientists to act in the public's interests." Pew Research Center.

Mayer, R. E. (2004). Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? American Psychologist, 59 (1), 14.

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9 (3), 105–119.

Rousseau, J. J. (1909). Emile: Or, on education . (W. H. Payne, Trans.) New York: Appleton & Co. (Originally published 1762).

Weisberg, D., Sexton, S., Mulhern, J., & Keeling, D. (2009). "The widget effect: Our national failure to acknowledge and act on differences in teacher effectiveness." The New Teacher Project.

Willingham, D. T. (2018) Does tailoring instruction to "learning styles" help students learn? American Educator, 42 (2), 28–36.

Daniel T. Willingham is professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books, including Why Don’t Students Like School? (Jossey-Bass, 2010) and most recently Outsmart Your Brain (Gallery, 2023).

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

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Threats of Student Violence and Misbehavior Are Rising, Many School Leaders Report

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As the pandemic drags on toward the end of its second year, many educators say they are facing an uptick in student misbehavior that appears to be associated with challenges related to the return to in-person learning after extended periods of remote or hybrid instruction.

Nearly half of all school and district leaders (44 percent) say they are receiving more threats of violence by students now than they did in the fall of 2019, according to the most recent EdWeek Research Center monthly survey.

More generally, two out of three teachers, principals, and district leaders say students are misbehaving more these days than they did in the fall of 2019.

The findings of the survey—which was administered Dec. 15-29 to 286 district leaders, 199 principals, and 725 teachers—echo anecdotal reports this fall that pointed to an increase in student threats and discipline problems. Some of that behavior was inspired by online challenges, spread via social media sites such as TikTok, to slap teachers and vandalize restrooms .

In addition, many students have struggled with the transition back to in-person schooling after spending much of the past year and a half learning from home.

EdWeek Research Center survey results suggest these struggles may be leading them to act out: Educators in districts where all or some of the instruction was provided online last school year are more likely to report that student threats and misbehavior have risen since 2019.

In districts in which nearly all the learning was remote or hybrid in 2020-21, 51 percent of principals and district leaders reported rising rates of student threats of violence. That rate was 30 percent for school and district leaders where most of the learning was in person the previous school year.

A similar connection exists for student misbehavior. In districts that were offering mostly remote or hybrid instruction last school year, 71 percent of survey respondents said students are misbehaving more this school year, compared with 52 percent from districts that had offered mostly in-person instruction the previous year.

The transition back to more typical in-person instruction may have been more challenging in larger districts of 10,000 or more students. In those districts, just 16 percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders who participated in last month’s survey said that most of the instruction was provided in-person in 2020-21. In smaller districts with fewer than 2,500 students, 36 percent of leaders said most of last year’s learning was in-person.

Sixty-six percent of principals and district leaders in these larger districts report an uptick in student threats of violence, compared with 34 percent of their peers in districts with enrollments under 2,500. Similarly, 73 percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders in larger districts say student misbehavior is on the rise, compared with 60 percent in smaller districts.

In-person instruction was also more prevalent last school year in rural areas and towns: Thirty-five percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders in these locales reported that most of their 2020-21 instruction was in-person. The rate was 11 percent for urban educators and 19 percent for those working in suburban schools.

This may help explain why 56 percent of suburban principals and district leaders and 54 percent of their urban peers reported an increase in student threats, compared with 35 percent of administrators in rural areas or small towns.

Compared with their counterparts in rural areas and towns, urban and suburban teachers, principals, and district leaders were also more likely to say student misbehavior is on the rise. Rising rates of student misbehavior are reported by 73 percent of suburban administrators, 69 percent for urban, and 61 percent for those from rural areas or small towns.

This school year, a high-profile school shooting in Michigan and other incidents put a greater focus among many school and district leaders on how to assess and react to threats of violence.

Widely accepted best practices for threat assessment have been adapted from U.S. Secret Service guidance developed in the years since the 1999 Columbine school massacre, according to the Associated Press. The agency’s National Threat Assessment Center recommends multi-disciplinary teams of school administrators, and security and mental health professionals be established to assess whether a student would be helped by counseling, should be reported to police, sent back to class or something in between.

Education Week tracks the number of school shootings across the country here.

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Researcher says high screen time associated with social, emotional problems in children

Children who spend too much time in front of a screen can develop poor social skills and low emotional intelligence well into adolescence, researchers have found.

University of Sunshine Coast Associate Professor Michael Nagel said the effects of excessive screen time could be similar to some symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Dr Nagel, co-author of the book Becoming Autistic which cites his own and others' research, said affected children showed poor theory of mind — the ability to understand the thoughts or emotions of others.

The developmental psychologist said children with "virtual autism" — which is not a recognised clinical diagnosis — often had difficulty maintaining eye contact, paying attention, and regulating emotion.

The term "virtual autism" was coined by clinical psychologist Marius Zamfir, from Romania's Spiru Haret University, but is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).

Dr Zamfir's  2018 paper published in the Journal of Romanian Literary Studies  looked at children under three who had more than four hours of screen time per day. 

The peer-reviewed paper found declines in language, cognition, and social skills in those children. 

It also found a "recovery therapeutic process" — consisting of occupational therapy, play therapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, language stimulation, and other treatments — could improve symptoms in heavy screen users.

More research needed

Dr Nagel said screens had a "displacement" effect, reducing the amount of time spent interacting with other humans during a child's critical development phase.

He said the early years of life were particularly crucial for developing social and emotional skills.

"We're seeing too many young people with no history or clinical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder looking like, acting like, and engaging in the world like people who actually do have autism," Dr Nagel said.

"This is not to say that it's making people autistic, but it seems to create situations where that's what it looks like.

"Fortunately, it seems we can wean kids and adolescents off [screen time]."

Research and development manager at Autism Queensland Jill Ashburner said research had explored the correlation between excessive screen time and developmental issues. 

However, she said more research would be needed to prove causation. 

"We are aware there has been some recent research exploring the links between excessive screen time in children under the age of three years and with language delay and issues with attention," Dr Ashburner said.

"However, further research is needed to establish a causal link."

Autism CRC was contacted for comment.

How gaming can harm the body

A University of Queensland paper has found gaming for more than three hours a day can also harm physical health.

Author Daniel Stjepanovic, from the National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, found heavy gamers had higher rates of eye fatigue, back pain, and wrist strain than casual gamers.

Dr Stjepanovic said aspiring eSport gamers had higher rates of body fat and decreased bone mineral density.

The study of 955 gamers, published in the Computers in Human Behaviour journal, found young people were also susceptible to back pain and spine mobility problems, despite those being symptoms typically associated with older people.

Dr Stjepanovic said, as a child, he had partaken in long gaming marathons on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

However, he said gamers should try to keep their gaming sessions shorter in length to avoid physical harm.

"We know that video gaming play is an important part of many people's lives. It brings a lot of joy and entertainment to people," he said.

"However the main takeaway message is it would be good for individuals to moderate how much time they spent in an individual sitting."

Generational changes

Dr Nagel said the problem of excessive screen time was not likely to go away in the short term.

He said younger generations were increasingly spending more time in front of screens, disrupting a critical period of emotional development.

Dr Nagel said this could explain why internet users often showed low empathy, vehemence, poor perspective-taking, and the inability to put themselves in other people's shoes. 

"We speculated if this was one of the reasons why we see such a polarisation of opinion in the current sociocultural context where it's my way or the highway," he said.

"If you're a baby boomer or gen Y you grew up in a time when there weren't screens, and now your brain is fully matured.

"We now have a generation of kids who have grown up with these devices."

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Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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Q&A: Researchers warn of danger, call for pause in bringing AI to schools

by Daniel Strain, University of Colorado at Boulder

In K-12 schools across the country, a new gold rush of sorts is underway: Classrooms nationwide are racing to bring the latest artificial intelligence tools, such as platforms powered by the chat bot ChatGPT, into the classroom.

Alex Molnar, a director of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at CU Boulder, sees a danger in this hurry to introduce AI to schools. These platforms, he said, use opaque and usually proprietary algorithms—making their inner workings mysterious to educators, parents and students alike.

"What you have is a pocketful of promises that AI will deliver as promised," said Molnar, a research professor in the School of Education. "The problem is there is currently no way to independently evaluate the claims being made."

In a new report, Molnar and his colleagues highlight the potential pitfalls of AI in education and call for an indefinite "pause" in integrating AI into K-12 learning. Co-authors included Ben Williamson of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom and Faith Boninger, assistant research professor of education at CU Boulder.

Molnar gives his take on why AI is a risky gamble for education—and what concerned parents and others can do to get involved.

Does new technology pose risks to K-12 education?

There have been all kinds of issues associated with the use of digital platforms in schools, even before the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence.

Student data are often not properly protected. For example, there have been all kinds of leaks from third-party vendors, and there's no law or effective policy that holds them accountable. You also have an awful lot of beta testing going on in schools. Marketing claims sound good, but digital platforms often don't produce the promised results and are riddled with technical issues .

Digital technologies have made it difficult or impossible to answer fundamental questions, such as: Who's deciding the curriculum content that gets built into these platforms? Who's reviewing their work?

Could AI make those issues worse?

All of the issues related to digital technologies tend to be amplified by artificial intelligence.

So-called AI uses algorithms and massive amounts of computing power to produce results based on countless calculations of probabilities. For example, what is the probability that the next word in a sequence will be 'juice'? These calculations do not produce 'truth' or even, necessarily, accuracy. They produce probabilistic output.

Currently, the construction and operation of AI algorithms is largely outside of public view and without any public accountability. Nevertheless, school people are being pushed, both by marketers and government entities, to be seen to be in the forefront of this alleged digital revolution—turning more and more school processes over to technologists with little or no knowledge of pedagogy or school curriculum.

A lot of people call AI tools a 'black box." What does that mean?

To use an old-world explanation, imagine if you said, "I'd like to see my child's geography textbook." You might say, "I have some issues here." You could talk to somebody about it, somebody who could possibly explain those issues. But with AI, you can't do that.

You can't go in and say, for example, "How did the scoring on this work?" The answer would be, "Well, we don't know." "How do we know that this content is accurate?" "Well, we don't know that, either."

Is the concern, then, that AI might make decisions in place of educators or parents?

You can use AI to assist you in determining if a child cheated. You use it to determine whether or not a child should be in this program or that program. You can use AI to decide all kinds of things about a child, and the child is locked in with little or no recourse.

Parents can complain all they want. They still can't get the information about the basis for a decision made by AI because the principal doesn't have it. The teacher doesn't have it. The superintendent doesn't have it. It's hidden behind a proprietary curtain by a private vendor.

You advocate for a 'pause' in the use of AI in schools. What would that look like?

The solution would be for state legislatures to, by statute, say, in essence: Public schools in this state may not adopt artificial intelligence programs unless and until those programs are certified by this governmental entity—they'd have to create the entity. It has reviewed these programs. It has said they are safe for use, and it defines what the appropriate uses of the program are and for whom.

In other words, nothing goes in the schools until we have the statutory and regulatory framework and institutional capacity in place to independently assess AI platforms that are proposed for school use.

What can parents, or anyone else, who are concerned about this issue do?

Demand that your representatives take these issues seriously—first of all, to legislate a pause in the adoption of AI in schools. Period. Then they can ask their representatives to create a state entity that is designed to regulate the use of AI in schools.

This is a political problem. This is not a technical problem.

We have a long history of tech companies failing to follow their own rules, which are themselves laughably inadequate. For anybody who's seriously trying to figure out how to responsibly use AI in education, if they're not talking political action, they're not really talking. The technologists won't save us.

Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder

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What the Data Says About Pandemic School Closures, Four Years Later

The more time students spent in remote instruction, the further they fell behind. And, experts say, extended closures did little to stop the spread of Covid.

By Sarah Mervosh ,  Claire Cain Miller and Francesca Paris

Four years ago this month, schools nationwide began to shut down, igniting one of the most polarizing and partisan debates of the pandemic.

Some schools, often in Republican-led states and rural areas, reopened by fall 2020. Others, typically in large cities and states led by Democrats, would not fully reopen for another year.

A variety of data — about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 — has accumulated in the time since. Today, there is broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.

While poverty and other factors also played a role, remote learning was a key driver of academic declines during the pandemic, research shows — a finding that held true across income levels.

Source: Fahle, Kane, Patterson, Reardon, Staiger and Stuart, “ School District and Community Factors Associated With Learning Loss During the COVID-19 Pandemic .” Score changes are measured from 2019 to 2022. In-person means a district offered traditional in-person learning, even if not all students were in-person.

“There’s fairly good consensus that, in general, as a society, we probably kept kids out of school longer than we should have,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who helped write guidance for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommended in June 2020 that schools reopen with safety measures in place.

There were no easy decisions at the time. Officials had to weigh the risks of an emerging virus against the academic and mental health consequences of closing schools. And even schools that reopened quickly, by the fall of 2020, have seen lasting effects.

But as experts plan for the next public health emergency, whatever it may be, a growing body of research shows that pandemic school closures came at a steep cost to students.

The longer schools were closed, the more students fell behind.

At the state level, more time spent in remote or hybrid instruction in the 2020-21 school year was associated with larger drops in test scores, according to a New York Times analysis of school closure data and results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress , an authoritative exam administered to a national sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students.

At the school district level, that finding also holds, according to an analysis of test scores from third through eighth grade in thousands of U.S. districts, led by researchers at Stanford and Harvard. In districts where students spent most of the 2020-21 school year learning remotely, they fell more than half a grade behind in math on average, while in districts that spent most of the year in person they lost just over a third of a grade.

( A separate study of nearly 10,000 schools found similar results.)

Such losses can be hard to overcome, without significant interventions. The most recent test scores, from spring 2023, show that students, overall, are not caught up from their pandemic losses , with larger gaps remaining among students that lost the most ground to begin with. Students in districts that were remote or hybrid the longest — at least 90 percent of the 2020-21 school year — still had almost double the ground to make up compared with students in districts that allowed students back for most of the year.

Some time in person was better than no time.

As districts shifted toward in-person learning as the year went on, students that were offered a hybrid schedule (a few hours or days a week in person, with the rest online) did better, on average, than those in places where school was fully remote, but worse than those in places that had school fully in person.

Students in hybrid or remote learning, 2020-21

80% of students

Some schools return online, as Covid-19 cases surge. Vaccinations start for high-priority groups.

Teachers are eligible for the Covid vaccine in more than half of states.

Most districts end the year in-person or hybrid.

Source: Burbio audit of more than 1,200 school districts representing 47 percent of U.S. K-12 enrollment. Note: Learning mode was defined based on the most in-person option available to students.

Income and family background also made a big difference.

A second factor associated with academic declines during the pandemic was a community’s poverty level. Comparing districts with similar remote learning policies, poorer districts had steeper losses.

But in-person learning still mattered: Looking at districts with similar poverty levels, remote learning was associated with greater declines.

A community’s poverty rate and the length of school closures had a “roughly equal” effect on student outcomes, said Sean F. Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford, who led a district-level analysis with Thomas J. Kane, an economist at Harvard.

Score changes are measured from 2019 to 2022. Poorest and richest are the top and bottom 20% of districts by percent of students on free/reduced lunch. Mostly in-person and mostly remote are districts that offered traditional in-person learning for more than 90 percent or less than 10 percent of the 2020-21 year.

But the combination — poverty and remote learning — was particularly harmful. For each week spent remote, students in poor districts experienced steeper losses in math than peers in richer districts.

That is notable, because poor districts were also more likely to stay remote for longer .

Some of the country’s largest poor districts are in Democratic-leaning cities that took a more cautious approach to the virus. Poor areas, and Black and Hispanic communities , also suffered higher Covid death rates, making many families and teachers in those districts hesitant to return.

“We wanted to survive,” said Sarah Carpenter, the executive director of Memphis Lift, a parent advocacy group in Memphis, where schools were closed until spring 2021 .

“But I also think, man, looking back, I wish our kids could have gone back to school much quicker,” she added, citing the academic effects.

Other things were also associated with worse student outcomes, including increased anxiety and depression among adults in children’s lives, and the overall restriction of social activity in a community, according to the Stanford and Harvard research .

Even short closures had long-term consequences for children.

While being in school was on average better for academic outcomes, it wasn’t a guarantee. Some districts that opened early, like those in Cherokee County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, and Hanover County, Va., lost significant learning and remain behind.

At the same time, many schools are seeing more anxiety and behavioral outbursts among students. And chronic absenteeism from school has surged across demographic groups .

These are signs, experts say, that even short-term closures, and the pandemic more broadly, had lasting effects on the culture of education.

“There was almost, in the Covid era, a sense of, ‘We give up, we’re just trying to keep body and soul together,’ and I think that was corrosive to the higher expectations of schools,” said Margaret Spellings, an education secretary under President George W. Bush who is now chief executive of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Closing schools did not appear to significantly slow Covid’s spread.

Perhaps the biggest question that hung over school reopenings: Was it safe?

That was largely unknown in the spring of 2020, when schools first shut down. But several experts said that had changed by the fall of 2020, when there were initial signs that children were less likely to become seriously ill, and growing evidence from Europe and parts of the United States that opening schools, with safety measures, did not lead to significantly more transmission.

“Infectious disease leaders have generally agreed that school closures were not an important strategy in stemming the spread of Covid,” said Dr. Jeanne Noble, who directed the Covid response at the U.C.S.F. Parnassus emergency department.

Politically, though, there remains some disagreement about when, exactly, it was safe to reopen school.

Republican governors who pushed to open schools sooner have claimed credit for their approach, while Democrats and teachers’ unions have emphasized their commitment to safety and their investment in helping students recover.

“I do believe it was the right decision,” said Jerry T. Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which resisted returning to school in person over concerns about the availability of vaccines and poor ventilation in school buildings. Philadelphia schools waited to partially reopen until the spring of 2021 , a decision Mr. Jordan believes saved lives.

“It doesn’t matter what is going on in the building and how much people are learning if people are getting the virus and running the potential of dying,” he said.

Pandemic school closures offer lessons for the future.

Though the next health crisis may have different particulars, with different risk calculations, the consequences of closing schools are now well established, experts say.

In the future, infectious disease experts said, they hoped decisions would be guided more by epidemiological data as it emerged, taking into account the trade-offs.

“Could we have used data to better guide our decision making? Yes,” said Dr. Uzma N. Hasan, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at RWJBarnabas Health in Livingston, N.J. “Fear should not guide our decision making.”

Source: Fahle, Kane, Patterson, Reardon, Staiger and Stuart, “ School District and Community Factors Associated With Learning Loss During the Covid-19 Pandemic. ”

The study used estimates of learning loss from the Stanford Education Data Archive . For closure lengths, the study averaged district-level estimates of time spent in remote and hybrid learning compiled by the Covid-19 School Data Hub (C.S.D.H.) and American Enterprise Institute (A.E.I.) . The A.E.I. data defines remote status by whether there was an in-person or hybrid option, even if some students chose to remain virtual. In the C.S.D.H. data set, districts are defined as remote if “all or most” students were virtual.

An earlier version of this article misstated a job description of Dr. Jeanne Noble. She directed the Covid response at the U.C.S.F. Parnassus emergency department. She did not direct the Covid response for the University of California, San Francisco health system.

How we handle corrections

Sarah Mervosh covers education for The Times, focusing on K-12 schools. More about Sarah Mervosh

Claire Cain Miller writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot. She joined The Times in 2008 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. More about Claire Cain Miller

Francesca Paris is a Times reporter working with data and graphics for The Upshot. More about Francesca Paris

Parents think their kids are doing well in school. More often than not, they're wrong.

LaShanta Mire’s daughter was, at least on paper, thriving at her public school in Fort Worth, Texas. Her grades were good. The then-second grader was ostensibly learning to read and was performing at the level expected of kids her age . 

But the child’s assessments told a different story: She did not yet know how to read. She was missing out on crucial content. She wasn’t performing at grade level. 

Mire, like possibly millions of parents across the U.S., received flawed information about her daughter and her two other school-age children. After realizing there was a mismatch between her perceptions and the realities of how her child was faring academically, the single mother of five took it upon herself to find a parents group to help her navigate school bureaucracies, engage with educators and seek information such as test scores. As soon as she got the information she needed, Mire transferred the three oldest children to new schools last fall. 

Now they’re getting grades that offer a more accurate – if sometimes disappointing – picture of their achievement. “I felt like I was failing my child because the school was failing her,” Mire said of her now-9-year-old daughter. Her new school, she said, “doesn’t just give you (good) grades. … You have to earn them.”

Mire's daughter is among a generation of children who missed lots of class time and lost significant academic ground during the pandemic. Four years after the onset of COVID-19, schools are still struggling to catch kids up. They’re also struggling to get young people to show up. Chronic absenteeism – when students miss at least 10% of the school year – remains rampant and in some cases has gotten worse.

Yet schools aren’t adequately communicating these challenges to families and often, in fact, mistakenly communicate that all is well. Research suggests parents are getting limited, if not inaccurate, messages about their kids’ performance. 

New survey findings , shared exclusively with USA TODAY, underscore the problem: Nearly half of parents say they want better communication from their kids’ schools – especially about attendance.

One-third of parents do not feel well informed about their children’s academic progress and school success, according to the survey from a K-12 communication and data analytics platform called SchoolStatus. The survey among roughly 1,050 parents and caregivers of children 6 to 18 complements separate polls that asked parents about their kids’ performance since the pandemic. The latest findings illustrate the stubborn disconnect between families and schools when experts say it’s crucial they be in sync. 

“It’s crazy that schools have all this data and parents don’t,” said Russ Davis, founder of SchoolStatus. “Parents assume no news is good news” – but that’s seldom the case. 

Distracted students, stressed teachers: What an American school day looks like post-COVID

Amid widespread grade inflation, parents demand better information

Nearly half (45%) of the respondents in the SchoolStatus survey said communication wasn’t frequent enough, and a similar percentage said they didn’t get messages about the importance of attendance until after their kids missed school.

The findings about a gaping disconnect are more glaring given growing evidence that chronic absenteeism can take an immense toll on learning for all students and that proactive communication with parents about their kids’ attendance patterns and the benefits of class time can markedly reduce absences. 

Most parents said they got some updates about their children’s academic progress, but fewer than a quarter said they received information and resources to support learning at home. 

“There’s a real erosion of connection between school and home,” said Kara Stern, the director of education and engagement at SchoolStatus. The survey findings, she said, “can be summed up into one sentence: Parents want to know.” And they want to know not just what their kids’ grades are but also how those students are progressing and where they’re lagging – and how to take action when needed. 

Other research also shows a gap between students’ marks on their report cards and those on standardized assessments. 

Grade inflation is nothing new: Schools have long tended to overstate how well kids are faring, said Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford University who studies education. But it has become an especially popular tactic in the COVID-19 era and its aftermath as schools work hard “to say, ‘We’re back up to where we were before,’” he said.

Research conducted by Gallup in partnership with Learning Heroes, a nonprofit that supports family engagement, has shown that nearly 9 in 10 parents believe their children are performing at or above grade level. 

But other measures indicate the rate of students achieving what’s expected for their age group is far lower. Few parents in the Gallup and Learning Heroes survey were aware their children were behind. More than a third of the small percentage who said their kids were below grade level believed their students received mostly Bs or higher. Nearly 2 in 3 parents cited report cards as an important source of information about whether their kids were at grade level.

Parents are desperate for accurate information, no matter how demoralizing. As Mire, the mother who relocated her children, put it, “I just need my babies to do better.”

‘After the fact is too late’

Thomas Kane, a Harvard University scholar researching COVID-19 learning loss, said accurate information also needs to arrive swiftly. Parents should be able to act on that information – by signing their children up for summer school or intensive tutoring, for example – before the resources are no longer available. 

Shareeda Jones, another single mother of five, had an experience similar to Mire's. She also wasn’t informed until recently that her fifth grade daughter was reading at a second grade level. The Washington, D.C., public schooler is doing daily phonics lessons and trying to catch up, but Jones worries she has already lost precious time. She now faces the prospect of being held back. 

Parents such as Jones – a product of Washington's public schools who felt she was pigeonholed into special education – care deeply about ensuring their children are spared any of the educational neglect they experienced.  “A lot of us just don’t understand how to care, don’t know where to look to care,” Jones said. But she said getting the information she needed to intervene after the fact was too late.

Jones managed to find a summer program for her daughter last year but realized a few weeks in that she wasn’t learning much. She has pleaded with the school: “Help me help you all to help my child.”

Kane’s research on pandemic learning has shown that kids in the past school year made up about one-third of their pandemic-era math losses and one-quarter of their reading losses. That, in some ways, was “a remarkable achievement” given that it required learning at a faster pace than normal. But even if students have continued that pace this school year, they still won’t have recovered all their learning when summer comes. The unprecedented infusion of COVID-19 relief funding schools received – which supported massive interventions including summer school and tutoring – expires this fall. 

“We’ve got to get as many students as possible signed up for summer learning, and that means making sure parents are aware their kids are behind grade level,” Kane said. “Somehow, somewhere, the message is not getting through.”

Who’s to blame for the communication gap?

Few, if any, teachers intend to set up students for failure or mislead families. 

The communication mismatch partly stems from the public’s fatigue over pandemic learning losses. Even when they hear about the dire circumstances schools are facing since COVID-19, many parents are inclined to believe the narrative doesn’t apply to their kids. “They see stories about how achievement has gone down and (think), ‘It must be those other guys,’” Hanushek said. Separate research has shown parents often give the nation’s K-12 system mediocre or bad grades but assign high marks to their children’s schools. 

Attending school was hard during COVID Why aren’t kids (or teachers) returning to class?

Beyond that, experts say, systemic challenges are at play. Educators are expected to track, compile and analyze overwhelming amounts of data, often using a patchwork of systems.

“This is not about a failure of teachers,” said SchoolStatus’s Stern. “We’re talking about a failure of systems, about teachers being so overburdened and so overwhelmed and systems being so inefficient that nobody can keep up.”

The SchoolStatus platform, which compiles all kinds of data into one place and sends it in customized messages to parents, is one solution to those systemic failures, she and founder Davis said.

Either way, Hanushek says, families need a wake-up call – and facing this urgent gap would benefit the nation’s economy. One of his studies found that recent achievement declines among students in the COVID-19 generation could result in them earning 6% less in their lifetime than other Americans. 

“The schools are saying, ‘Well, we’re working to get back to where we were, but things are coming along,’” Hanushek said. Such a sanguine approach, he said, often means students don’t get the opportunity to catch up to where they should be. And if that doesn’t happen, “They’re going to be saddled with these losses forever."

Contact Alia Wong at (202) 507-2256 or [email protected]. Follow her on X at @aliaemily.

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Everyday Donors of Color

Everyday donors of color: giving trends and patterns.

Americans continue to demonstrate generosity. However, there was a steady decline in the percentage of households that give to charity between 2000 and 2018. The United States population is more racially and ethnically diverse now than before, while economic downturns and wealth disparities continue to have disproportionate impacts on communities of color. These shifts have significant implications for philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.

The Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy conducted two phases of research to understand everyday donors of color and their giving trends and patterns, funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal of the Everyday Donors of Color report series is to provide data and analysis to better understand the patterns and trends surrounding the decline in donor participation across communities of color.

The first phase report, Everyday Donors of Color: Diverse Philanthropy During Times of Change highlights the importance of departing from a one-size-fits-all philanthropic approach in the COVID-19 pandemic’s aftermath. The second phase reports, The Giving Environment: Giving Trends by Race and Ethnicity and The Speed of Trust: An Experiment Examining the Effect of Trust on Giving among Members of Diverse Racial/Ethnic Groups explore the impact of wealth, income, and trust on giving patterns within communities of color and the effect of trust in a charitable organization on donation behavior, respectively.

The Giving Environment: Giving Trends by Race and Ethnicity

This is one of the two reports in the second phase of the Everyday Donors of Color report series, published in November 2023. It expands previous research by the school on declining donors and explores how factors such as wealth, income, and trust may be associated with giving patterns and trends within communities of color by analyzing the Philanthropy Panel Study (PPS), a longitudinal panel study that surveys households biannually on giving behaviors, and the General Social Survey (GSS), a cross-sectional survey which provides explanatory insights about trust and people’s general social behaviors and opinions. This report’s findings shed light on philanthropy across diverse communities and prove timely due to the uncertainties caused by economic shocks and the rise of social movements advocating for equity.

Access the Giving Trends report

Everyday Donors of Color: Diverse Philanthropy During Times of Change

This is the sole report released in the first phase of the Everyday Donors of Color report series, published in August 2021. The Everyday Donors of Color: Diverse Philanthropy During Times of Change report shares findings on the motivations and behaviors of donors of color in recent years. These findings highlight the importance of developing a more inclusive set of philanthropic practices for organizations in the COVID-19 pandemic’s aftermath. The report incorporates a systematic review of existing literature, data from a national survey of American households, insights from focus groups with diverse donors, and two case studies on the impact of mutual aid.

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The Speed of Trust: An Experiment Examining the Effect of Trust on Giving among Members of Diverse Racial/Ethnic Groups

This is another report in the second phase of the Everyday Donors of Color report series, published in November 2023. It is experimental research exploring the interlink between different levels of donors’ trust (high trust vs. low trust) in a charitable organization and their donation behavior, including giving directly to the organization and giving directly to its beneficiaries. This experimental study stands out from existing literature as it examines the effects of participants’ race and ethnicity. It builds on the findings from the first phase report, Everyday Donors of Color: Diverse Philanthropy During Times of Change , that a lack of trust may help explain why many donors of color choose not to engage with nonprofit organizations.

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Guest column: Worcester schools' SAFE group doing homework on school safety

The very existence of public education is to create learning experiences and to be a model of continuous growth and improvement. It’s important, as a school district, that the Worcester Public Schools continues to examine and enhance its existing programs, policies and practices for all.

That is why the Worcester Public Schools recently initiated the Safety Advisory for Education (SAFE) Workgroup . This collaborative effort brings together a diverse range of voices to delve into evidence-based research and industry standards regarding safety in schools. 

With almost 100 volunteers, the workgroup concentrates on two pivotal aspects:

1. Physical safety and training

2. Fostering a sense of belonging for our students, staff and families

These two groups will learn together and provide recommendations for policy and procedural changes through a lens of prevention and early intervention. 

As we embark upon this important work, it is crucial that WPS remains committed to the belief that “all means all.” When we consider our youth, “all means all” expects every adult to ask how we provide every scholar what they need to thrive, regardless of their current circumstances, life experiences or ZIP code.

As a district committed to the education of children, we must continue to examine whether our policies, practices and programs align with “all means all,” or whether we have exclusionary layers that need to be peeled away.

At the first meeting, members were tasked with prioritizing key areas of focus for the next six months. First, our attention will be directed toward examining policies and practices that influence the culture of safety and belonging in schools. This encompasses evaluating school policies, infrastructure, communication methods and disciplinary measures.

Second, the group will analyze student experience data to identify successful interventions, disparities across schools, and factors influencing decision-making processes.

The SAFE workgroup consists of individuals who are committed to learning together, problem solving and creating physically safe environments that are responsive to any emergency, while also fostering nurturing learning spaces that meet the needs of all scholars. This is complex work that takes a collective effort with a variety of perspectives. 

I cannot think of another learning organization that has the gumption to solve this work together. Worcester is the community that can and will make this happen.

“All means all” does not mean it is one or the other. We can have inclusionary policies and discipline children when they make a poor decision and restore them back into the learning community. We can train for emergencies and nurture a sense of security. We can have a fight in a school and still be a safe school. Life does not have to be lived through a binary lens.

We can embrace the idea of "and," not "or."

Public education requires us to meet children where they are and lift them to new levels of excellence. All of the adults in the organization must work together to meet the varying needs of all youth.

The role of a leader is to build and inspire a vision of what can be. Now is the time to examine and improve upon our policies, practices and programs that have unintentionally hurt children by excluding some.

As your superintendent, I will continue to lead through a lens of inclusion while working diligently to transform outdated exclusionary programs and practices into transformative, inclusionary ones — all while ensuring our schools are safe. Our families, children and staff deserve nothing less. 

Rachel H. Monárrez, Ph.D., is superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools.