Research Mentoring A and B Guidelines

The Research Mentoring A/B project is the capstone activity that all doctoral students complete prior to entering Candidacy and their dissertation. The purpose of this activity is to develop your skills in reviewing and synthesizing a body of literature or conducting a meta-analysis. There are specific activities that you will be expected to engage in, with your Academic Adviser, during Research Mentoring A and B, respectively.

Research Mentoring A:

All of the below activities should be conducted in collaboration with your Academic Adviser

• Identify your topic
• Conceptualize your study and identify your research question (either a systematic review or synthesis of the literature; or, a meta-analysis)
• Create an abstract that describes your study and submit to the Graduate Adviser*. Your abstract will summarize the work to be accomplished.
• Design your study (determine your procedures, e.g., search terms, coding procedures, IOA)
• Execute your study (conduct your search of the literature; code the studies you identify for inclusion)
• Draft your synthesis or meta-analysis and polish to the extent possible

*We recommend that you send your abstract to the Graduate Adviser by the mid-semester point. When the Graduate Adviser receives your abstract, they will circulate it among the faculty for the purpose of organizing your Research Mentoring Committee. Your Research Mentoring Committee will consist of your Academic Adviser and two other faculty committee members. The Graduate Adviser will inform you of your committee prior to the end of RMA (depending on when you are able to submit your abstract)

Research Mentoring B:

• Finalize and polish your paper as needed.
• When you and your Academic Adviser determine that your paper is finalized, disperse it to your RMB committee. You should share your RMB paper with your committee at least 2 weeks in advance to your anticipated oral defense
• When submitted, your Academic Adviser and two faculty members will evaluate your synthesis.
  • Schedule your RMB defense. Work with the SPE Senior Business Services Coordinator, Rosie Garza, to reserve a room. If zoom option is required, organize.
  • RMB defense is typically a 1-hour meeting in which you present your project to your committee as part of an oral defense.
  • Defense presentations (typically 20-25 minutes) are delivered with PowerPoint slides (or other presentation program of your choice) and should be comprehensive (i.e., include an introduction, description of methods, results, and discussion).
  • After your presentation during the oral defense, a Q/A portion will occur in which you will be asked to respond to questions from your committee.
• Subsequent to your oral defense, your committee will provide feedback on your paper as well as your presentation. The committee will also provide a recommendation to your Academic Advisor.
  • Please submit the RMB Evaluation Committee Recommendation to begin routing to your committee for their feedback. 
  • You may also request individual feedback from your committee members using the RMB Individual Committee Feedback. This is OPTIONAL and for your personal use only. 

Important Information about RMA/B

It is anticipated that students will begin the Research Mentoring sequence in their final 2 semesters of coursework so that Research Mentoring B is completed in conjunction with their final semester of coursework. In the first semester of the Research Mentoring sequence (Research Mentoring A) you will register for SED 696-A Research Mentoring. In the second semester of the Research Mentoring sequence (Research Mentoring B) you will register for SED 696-B Research Mentoring. It is possible that your RMA/B topic can form the basis of your dissertation research and that the resulting comprehensive synthesis or meta-analysis will be useful to you when you are writing Chapters 1 and 2 of the Dissertation. However, it is NOT a requirement that your RMA/B paper will form the basis for your Chapters 1 and 2 of your dissertation. You can make this determination in collaboration with your Academic Adviser/Dissertation Chair.

IMPORTANT: Summer enrollment for Research Mentoring is contingent upon faculty availability. You are encouraged to consult with your Research Mentoring Supervisor to determine if summer enrollment is advisable, depending on his/her availability and the likelihood that faculty members will be available to serve on the Research Mentoring committee 

Guidelines for Writing the Synthesis 

1. The length of the synthesis is not prescribed, but typically these reviews will be 40-60 pages in length, excluding references, tables, and figures.
2. Organization and style should follow the format of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2020, 8th ed.) including font, font size, and margins.
3. Your synthesis should be presented in a form suitable for possible submission to a peer-reviewed journal.
4. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have taken the necessary background coursework to be able to produce an acceptable synthesis of the literature and pass the associated oral examination. For example, if you are undertaking a review of qualitative studies, then is it imperative that you have taken coursework on qualitative methodology. If, in contrast, you are undertaking a meta-analytic review of the literature then it would seem logical and necessary for you to have taken coursework or completed an independent study course to gain competence in meta-analytic techniques.
5. Your supervisor provides guidance on the intellectual arguments and may offer advice on how to undertake and write a “good” synthesis.
6. A good synthesis should aim to meet the criteria proposed by Schlosser (2003, p. 230).
1. The topic has to be carefully defined and delimited, so that the inclusion and exclusion of studies can be replicated.
2. Previous reviews or syntheses need to be described and distinguished from the current synthesis.
3. The procedures for searching the literature to identify studies and for including them in the synthesis must be operationally defined and described in replicable terms.
4. The degree to which the studies share the same dependent and independent variables must be reported.
5. The criteria used to arrive at judgments of effectiveness should be stated so that the reader can replicate the analysis and arrive at the same conclusion.
6. The co-variation of study outcomes with study characteristics must be examined.
7. The conclusions of the synthesis need to be supported by the data from the studies reviewed.
8. Your synthesis should end with directions for future research and specific research questions that remain to be addressed. It is anticipated the student in his or her dissertation research would then pursue one or more of these research questions.

References

American Psychological Association (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (8^th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Schlosser, R. W. (2003). Synthesizing efficacy research in AAC. In R. W. Schlosser (Ed.), The efficacy of augmentative and alternative communication (pp. 229-257). New York: Academic Press.