Action Research from Concept to Presentation: a Practical Handbook to Writing Your Master's Thesis

Perhaps the most daunting graduate school requirement is the development of an action research Masters thesis. This capstone task requires unprecedented amounts of time, energy, and verbiage. Designed to take stress out of the thesis-writing equation, this student-friendly comprehensive handbook glides the reader through a 28-step process from developing a focal topic to defending a scholarly thesis. Framing each chapter as a one-week action assignment, the authors have broken down the process into manageable chunks to enable students writers to achieve an immediate sense of completion at every step. By using this scaffolding approach the the authors encourage the student researcher to focus on one part of the process rather than the total, sometimes overwhelming, final product. With the exception of the Review of the Literature section which takes several weeks to complete, all other thesis sections can and should be timed out for seven days. The Authors primary objective was to empower the student researcher to accomplish each of the steps in the process while never loosing site on the product that will help the children in their classrooms. Whether developing an Abstract or writing in-text citations, student researchers are guided throughout he nuances of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Associations, 6th Edition.