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Optional Research Project
Choosing a topic for your optional research project
Are you considering doing an optional research project in order to complete your Agriculture course? If you are, you will be thinking about a project that you can do. This will bring you to choosing a topic or, more particularly, a research question which you might like to answer.
Information about how to write up your project can be found in the piece of work titled Writing up your optional research project.
In completing a research project you must achieve the following outcomes:
H3.4 evaluates the management of the processes in agricultural systems
H4.1 applies appropriate experimental techniques, technologies, research by methods and data presentation and analysis in relation to agricultural problems and situations
H5.1 evaluates the impact of innovation, ethics and current issues on Australian agricultural systems.
Choosing a topic
Identifying a research topic is not an easy task. The following list might help you get started in your discussion with your teacher and others:
- Factors affecting the quantity of plant or animal product.
- Factors affecting the quality of plant or animal product.
- The effect of different management systems on production.
- Comparing different techniques of production.
- Marketing trends due to consumer preferences.
- Marketing trends due to climate, export requirements.
- Factors that affect farmers' decision-making.
- Effectiveness of various promotional programs on marketing.
- Variables affecting sustainability of systems.
- Social values and perspectives on farming techniques and farming.
- Comparative case studies of farms and performances of farmers.
- Economic assessment of farms, enterprises or techniques.
- Land holding or land use patterns as they affect production or production decisions.
Listed below are some further things you might consider during the process of choosing:
- Are there sufficient resources available to carry out the project properly, e.g. enough animals to have reasonable randomisation and opportunities for replication?
- Can the setting up of the project and the data collecting be done in a reasonable amount of time? Remember you are doing other subjects as well as Agriculture, so time is precious for you.
- Is the project practicable and agricultural - Do the outcomes of the project have an implication for agriculture?
- Is the project too complex, making analysis difficult or impossible? For example, multi-factored experiments are very difficult to analyse, and hence making sense of the results can become quite hard. An experiment involving, say, 4 varieties of oats with 3 levels of nitrogen on 3 soil types with 2 different planting times, is very difficult to draw clear conclusions from. Any one of the factors (variables), oats, nitrogen, soil types or planting time, is a research project in itself.
At this point you may have a project in mind, for example:
- The effect of nitrogen levels on protein in rice grain
or - The effect on consumers' preferences of branded stickers on fruit
or - A comparison of two farmers' management of stubble in their farming rotation.
In order to focus the project and to choose the best method to use, it is best to frame a question for which you might find an answer. In this way your analysis and conclusion to the research you undertake become answers to the question asked at the start of the project.
So now we might have:
- What does the level of nitrogen do to the protein content of rice grain?
or - Does the use of branded stickers on fruit increase consumers' selection of the product?
or - What factors affect a farmer's decision to either burn or use stock as a means of managing stubble for subsequent crop planting?
Originality
Your project must be your own original work. This may be done in any one of the following ways:
- collecting your own data and analysing it in a meaningful manner
- using second-hand data e.g. farm records, government statistics, Group Breedplan figures, and analysing them in an attempt to answer a question.
- collaborating on a large-scale research project. If you choose to do this, you must make it clear in your writing up that you understand the research fully and that you participated in the research, and you must acknowledge any assistance you received.
Collaborative report writing is not permitted. Even if you use second-hand data or collaborate with a large-scale research project, you must write and submit your own project report.
Doing the research and completing the Process Diary
A "Process Diary" must be submitted with your final project report. The diary is designed for you to produce an ongoing semi-formal written dialogue between you and the teacher and to outline significant decisions made and the problems encountered during the project.
As a minimum, it should give the reader a dated sequence of events that took place during the research. This minimum does not help you with thinking about and planning the process. In order to assist your own learning, it is useful to keep a continuous diary of your thoughts, actions, decisions and future directions. It is expected that the teacher will read and make comments on your ideas as you complete the diary on a weekly or fortnightly basis. Entries in the diary should not be simple one-line comments like:
- "set up the experiment today"
- "finished literature review"
- "got statistics analysis back"
It is more important to provide the reader, yourself and the teacher with a sense of significant discussions and reflections associated with such things as:
- selection of the topic;
- research procedure to be used;
- resources planning;
- experimental design;
- significant conversations with others (e.g. district agronomist, maths teacher, farmer);
- important ideas from your literature search;
- your own ideas;
- field notes on observations, measurements.
It is very important to manage your time during the 'doing' phase of the project. Time is precious for all subjects, so balance your time so that you don't spend so much time on the project that other subjects suffer.
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