Sample Research Topics for a Master's in Education
- When choosing a topic for a research paper, select something that is of personal interest. Possible topics about issues in high schools could include causes of eating disorders, prevention of recreational drug use, effects of bullying, or the pressure put on athletes to be the best. Each of these topics allows for narrow research, which you could attain from first-hand research by interviewing local students.
- Keep your research choice relevant to the education field. Issues and controversies are constantly surrounding school systems. Specific school policies, national testing requirements for students, teacher competency tests, classroom funding vs. athletic funding, or one-room schoolhouses vs. separation by grade level are all relevant to educational practices. Each subject addresses an everyday issue for teachers, faculty, students and parents.
- Each individual school system has its own policies, such as boundaries between church and school. Allowing courses on religion, teaching of evolution theories, allowing religious clubs to meet on school property during school hours, public prayer at school activities, or allowing distribution of religious material during school events all relate to the separation (or lack thereof) of church and school. Compare and contrast these topics by geographical areas for a research paper on religious issues affecting education.
- Different universities teach different methods of teaching in their education programs, leaving an ongoing debate as to what works better in classrooms. Mixed-methods teaching vs. focusing on one method, visual or audio aids as a means of learning, and types of testing offer information and formal studies to serve research purposes. The topic of the effects of "re-teaching" certain topics to a whole class because less than five students do not understand may be difficult to research but it would offer an interesting account of teaching methods.
