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Unit 1: Designing a Research Inquiry

8 dot points across 8 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do you choose a research method that aligns with your question and that another researcher could replicate?

Choosing and justifying a research method: selecting an approach that aligns with the research question and discipline, designing it to be detailed and replicable, and defending the alignment of method to purpose rather than picking a method by convenience.
How AP Research students select a research method that genuinely aligns with their question and discipline, design it to be detailed and replicable, and justify the alignment of method to the purpose of the inquiry, the criterion the Academic Paper rubric rewards most in the method section.
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What does ethical research require, and when must a study be reviewed before it can begin?

Conducting ethical research: protecting human participants through informed consent, confidentiality, and minimizing harm, and recognizing when an inquiry involving human subjects requires institutional review board (IRB) or equivalent approval before data collection begins.
How AP Research students conduct ethical research with human participants: informed consent, confidentiality and data protection, minimizing harm, and recognizing when an inquiry must be reviewed and approved (by an institutional review board or equivalent) before any data is collected, a non-negotiable expectation of the course.
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How do you find a genuine gap in existing scholarship and turn it into a focused, researchable question?

Identifying a research gap and framing a researchable question: narrowing a broad interest, recognizing what scholars have not yet settled, and writing a feasible, focused question (and any hypothesis) that an original method can actually answer.
How AP Research students move from a broad interest to a genuine gap in the scholarship, then frame a focused, feasible, researchable question (and where appropriate a hypothesis) that an original method can answer, avoiding questions that are too broad, already answered, or impossible to investigate.
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What are quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, and which one fits which kind of question?

Distinguishing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods: understanding the kind of data and question each suits, common designs within each (survey, experiment, interview, content analysis, observation), and matching the methodological approach to the inquiry.
How AP Research students tell quantitative from qualitative from mixed methods, recognize the common designs within each (surveys and experiments, interviews and content analysis, and combinations), and match the right methodological family to the kind of question they are asking, before designing the specific method.
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How do you choose who or what to study, and design the inquiry to support valid, defensible conclusions?

Sampling and research design: defining the population and selecting a sample, recognizing sampling and design choices that affect validity and reliability, and designing the inquiry (variables, controls, instruments) so the data can actually support the conclusion.
How AP Research students define a population and select a sample, recognize the validity and reliability consequences of sampling and design choices, and structure the inquiry (variables, controls, instruments) so that the data they gather can genuinely support the conclusions they will draw.
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How do you plan and document an inquiry, and why does keeping a process record matter?

Planning and documenting the inquiry: writing a coherent inquiry proposal that aligns question, method, and ethics, and maintaining a process and reflection record throughout the year that evidences decisions, revisions, and learning.
How AP Research students write an inquiry proposal that aligns research question, method, and ethics into one coherent plan, and keep a process and reflection record (the PREP) throughout the year that documents their decisions, revisions, and learning, which feeds the reflection questions of the oral defense.
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What is a literature review, and how do you write one that maps a field and justifies your study?

Writing a literature review: synthesizing existing scholarship into a thematic account of what is known, where scholars disagree, and which methods the field uses, in order to locate and justify your own research gap and question.
How AP Research students write a literature review that synthesizes rather than lists sources: organizing scholarship thematically, mapping agreement, disagreement, and methods across the field, and using that map to justify the gap their own study fills, building the introduction and the scholarly grounding of the Academic Paper.
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What is AP Research, and how does a year-long inquiry move from a question to an academic paper and oral defense?

The AP Research inquiry overview: the year-long arc, the QUEST skills carried from AP Seminar, and the two scored components (the Academic Paper at 75 percent and the Presentation and Oral Defense at 25 percent).
An orientation to AP Research, the second AP Capstone course: how a year-long independent investigation runs from identifying a gap through method, data, and argument to a 4,000 to 5,000 word Academic Paper and a 15 to 20 minute Presentation and Oral Defense, and how the QUEST skills from AP Seminar deepen into genuine scholarship.
11 min answer →