Research Assignment Ideas

Research Top Five

Assignment Ideas

• Sample research synthesis worksheet (University of Northern Colorado)
• Sample article analysis worksheet (University of Northern Colorado)
• Create a short annotated bibliography on a topic
• Find an article in American Psychologist and evaluate it.
• Find a book on a topic and evaluate it.
• Create a citation for a specific article.
• Create a short bibliography on a topic.
• Fact check a Wikipedia article. Not only does this assignment require research, it also teaches important lessons about the quality of information found online.
• Create a grant proposal for a project in your discipline. A good proposal will include a literature review, justification, budget, impact, etc.
• Create a research guide on a topic for other students that includes books, articles, and quality websites.
• Nominate someone or a group for a Nobel Prize (choose the prize most appropriate for your class) and justify the nomination.
• Create a problem scenario for your class; this could be a disease to diagnose for a health class, an engineering problem, or a case study. Students would need to justify their solutions with actual data and research.

Assignments Using Archives

• Using the student newspaper archive, have students trace the development of how Utah Valley University has addressed challenges such as parking, student diversity, engaged learning, tuition, and others. 
• Have students select an artifact from the Sutherland Archives and research its history and meaning. Our collection currently holds opium boxes, samurai swords, and a jade club. 
• Have students select an image from our photograph collections as a starting point for a research project on local, technological, or social history.
• Ask students to analyze the advertisements in the newspaper collections. How do they reflect changes in advertising, gender politics, or popular culture?
• Using our oral history collections as a model, have students create their own oral histories of fellow students, friends, or family. The theme and subject possibilities are endless.
• Using materials from our nineteenth century materials (letters, photos, diaries, maps, and so on), have students create short documentaries about Utah's pioneer period. 

Discussion Questions

• When do you know you have trustworthy information?
• What makes a good research question?
• Evaluate a journal to determine its scholarly value.
• What are some common problems with citation?
• What are some things you would look for when evaluating a source?
• Why are citations important?
• Why is it important to use scholarly sources? Why can't I just use Google or Wikipedia?
• Why use library databases and not just Google?

In-Class Activities

• Give students two websites to compare and evaluate.
• Scholarly vs. popular article—compare and evaluate
• Give students a list of articles and have the class create citations for them
• Have students find a list of articles using "Journals by Title"
• Jeopardy! style game (PSY 1010 only)
• Clicker (or phone poll) activity
• Bring in citation list from assignments and have students peer review citations
• Have students brainstorm topics and keywords
• Have students practice proper APA citation in a group activity
• Have students go through a works cited page to identify errors
• Game to find information the fastest from a list
• Quiz students about the tutorial's content (PSY 1010 only)