Running head: TEACHER CANDIDATE ASSESSMENTS
University of Portland, School of Education Capstone Style Example
Jacqueline Waggoner
University of Portland, School of Education
Ed 598, Fall 2010
James Carroll, Advisor
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Running head: TEACHER CANDIDATE ASSESSMENTS
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Abstract
Abstracts are written after the study is completed. Good abstracts are difficult to
write. Abstracts are important because they may be the only thing a reader reads to decide
if an article may be valuable or not. Abstracts are normally limited in length by the
requirements of the journal to which the manuscript is being sent. Typically, they are 100
to 200 words in length. They should include a statement of the problem, a description of
the sample and methods of data collection, and a summary of the findings. That is a lot to
put into 100 words. Abstracts almost always require careful editing and rewriting.
Running head: TEACHER CANDIDATE ASSESSMENTS
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................... 4
Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................. 6
Level 2 Sub-Heading ...................................................................................... 7
Level 2 Sub-Heading ...................................................................................... 8
Chapter 3: Methods ................................................................................................ 9
Level 2 Sub-Heading ...................................................................................... 9
Level 2 Sub-Heading .................................................................................... 10
Level 3 sub-heading ...............................................................................11
Level 3 sub-heading .............................................................................. 12
Chapter 4: Results ................................................................................................ 13
Chapter 5: Conclusions ........................................................................................ 15
References ............................................................................................................ 20
Appendices
Appendix A .................................................................................................. 23
Appendix B ................................................................................................... 24
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Each section of your paper begins with a level 1 heading (title case, centered,
bold). Introductions can take many forms. Use the checklists that are provided by your
research advisor for deciding on the structure and content of the introduction. The main
point is that you are building a case that your research question is worth asking. Usually
that requires a description of the context in which the problem appeared, a description of
the issues that are impacting the problem, an explanation of why it would be valuable to
address this problem, and reference to what others are writing about this issue,
particularly the identification of the theoretical construct that surrounds your issue.
Note that all of this is written in the same text font (Times New Roman), 12 pt.
text, 1.25” margins, double line spacing, indented paragraphs, and no additional space
between paragraphs. Use this document as template and you will avoid all of the default
formatting choices that Microsoft Word makes.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Literature reviews are typically the longest section of your paper. Write literature
reviews from an outline. Decide what literature is important to your topic before you
begin searching. Then decide on a structure for organizing what you learn from what you
read. Usually this will be identifying the major ideas that inform your problem and then
organizing points of view and the references to those points of view for each of the major
ideas. Literature reviews usually require sub-headings to make it easier for the reader to
understand your organization of the section. Additionally, literature reviews require a
summary of the most important concepts that you want your reader to take forward into
the methods section.
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Level 2 Heading
Level 2 headings are the same as level 1 except that they are left justified. Do not
use sub-headings in your paper unless there are at least two sub-headings at any given
level that are required.
Level 2 Heading
This is just more text to represent what it looks like when you use multiple subheadings.
Summary
Summary sections don’t always require a sub-heading but it is a good idea to use
them if you are using other sub-headings in this section of your paper.
Methods
Methods sections are where you explain how you will gather and analyze data to
address your research problem. So, only elements that are pertinent to your research
problem go in this section. Typically those are context of the study, description of the
sample for the study and how it was drawn, what data will be gathered, how data will be
gathered, and how those data will be analyzed.
Level 2 Heading
When you are first writing methods sections it seems logical to write them in
future tense. Indeed, if you are writing a research proposal they must be written that way.
Remember that in the report of your study that text must all be changed to past tense.
Level 3 heading. Note that level 3 headings are a paragraph heading (paragraph
capitalization rules, bold, and they end in a period). The same rule applies about not using
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sub-headings unless there are at least two sections that require the same level of subheading.
Level 3 heading. This is just more text to represent what it looks like when you
use multiple sub-headings.
Level 2 Heading
This is just more text to represent what it looks like when you use multiple subheadings.
Results
Results sections include descriptions of the data you gathered and descriptions of
those data after the analysis strategies you described in the methods section are applied.
A common problem is that new researchers see things that they want to investigate in the
data that were gathered but include procedures not described in the methods section.
Make sure your methods and results match.
The art of results sections is to figure out how to summarize the data you have
gathered. With qualitative research this is usually done by identifying themes in the data
and attaching exemplars to the themes you describe. In quantitative research usually this
is done by including tables that summarize the data and then including a descriptive
paragraph or two that tells what is in the table. You need to be familiar with APA table
design. Here are some examples.
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Running head: TEACHER CANDIDATE ASSESSMENTS
Table 1
Pretest and Posttest Mean and Standard Deviation for Direct Instruction and
Problem-Based Learning
Direct instruction
Problem-based learninga
N = 27
N = 32
Test iteration
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Pretest
62.75*
5.43
59.22**
6.03
Posttest
84.67*
6.11
87.17**
5.48
Note. Test source, “Houghton Mifflin Science for All Learners,” 2003.
a
As defined by Slavin (1987).
*p < .05. **p < .01.

Table numbers are normal type and left justified.

Titles are Title Case, italic, and left justified. Titles do not end in a period.

Only the first letter of the first word in a column or row label is capitalized.

Statistical abbreviations are in italic.

A horizontal rule (line) is drawn between the title and the table.

A horizontal rule is drawn in between the headers and the data.

A horizontal rule is drawn below the data.

Other horizontal rules may be used to show data groupings.

Row headers are left justified.

All data columns and headers are center justified.

Data should be represented with consistent number of decimal points when possible.
Data should be decimal point aligned.
Running head: TEACHER CANDIDATE ASSESSMENTS

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Notes are placed below the bottom rule and are set in smaller type than the body of
the table. They do not need to be complete sentences.

Notes referring to the whole table (if needed) come first. Start with the word Note in
italic followed by a period.

Specific notes (if needed) come second. These notes are referenced with a lower case
letter set as a superscript. If there is more than one specific note they are listed in
alphabetical order.

Significance notes (if needed) are last. Each increasing significance level is indicated
by an additional asterisk. p is set as lower case italic. Each level of significance
statement ends with a period. Be careful to only list those levels of significance that
are represented in your table. If you are presenting multiple tables keep the level of
significance indicators (number of asterisks) the same across tables.

If you wish to indicate if a comparison is one-tailed or two-tailed it is added after the
indication of the p value: *p < .05, two-tailed.
In the sixth edition of the APA manual it is recommended that whenever possible
the actual p values are listed in the table. They recommend that the p < style is only used
if it would be confusing to put the actual values in the table. When the p < style is used
the actual p values should be listed in the text. When p values are listed in the table no
value smaller than .001 should be listed. Instead write <.001. APA recommends that all p
values of all comparisons that were done are listed in the table whether they are
significant or not.
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Running head: TEACHER CANDIDATE ASSESSMENTS
Table 2
Comparison by Gender of Posttest Scores for Fall and Spring Semester
Gender
Boys
Girls
n
Mean
SD
n
Mean
SD
p
Fall
1004
75.65
20.85
985
78.12
19.83
.007
Spring
936
73.47
21.65
965
76.18
21.59
.006
There is considerable acceptable variation when constructing tables. Here are a
few quotes from the Sixth Edition APA Manual that may help you make decisions about
table construction. “Tables should be integral to the text but should be designed so that
they can be understood in isolation” (p. 128). “Often the same data can be arranged in
different ways to emphasize different features of the data. [The] arrangement that is better
depends on your purpose” (p.128). “Keep graphical displays free of extraneous
materials” (p. 127).
Conclusions
The Conclusions section is where you compare your results to your problem
statement, the literature review, and your methods section. After that, this section usually
includes a discussion of this work in terms of the schools and classrooms in which you
work and to education in general.
References
Curtis, D. D., & Lawson, M. J. (2001). Exploring collaborative online learning. Journal
of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(1), 21-34.
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Keese, N., & Brown, T. (2003, August) Student teacher input and teacher work sample
as part of a teacher education unit accountability system. Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Association of Teacher Education, Santa Fe, NM.
Pankratz, R. S., & Petrosko, J. M. (Eds.) (2000). All children can learn: Lessons from the
Kentucky reform experience. New York: Jossey-Bass
Vallino, M. (2006, December). Social software, social revolution. Campus Technology.
Retrieved April 4, 2007 from http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/41720/
Above are examples of reference styles for a journal article, conference paper,
book, and an article downloaded from the web. They cover most of the typical references
you will find. If you carefully copy all of the style characteristics of these examples you
will be able to solve most APA style problems. More information about reference style
and writing in APA style are available from a variety of places: The APA manual, School
of Education APA Style Sheet
(http://teaching.up.edu/edresearch/researchprojects/apa.html), a list of common APA
problems (http://teaching.up.edu/edresearch/reminders.html), The Purdue Writing Lab
(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/).
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Appendices
Each appendix should start on a new page. Be sure that you and your research
advisor agree that an appendix is necessary. APA suggests using appendices because,
“sometimes, material that supplements article content would be distracting or
inappropriate in the body of the manuscript” (p. 38). If the material is important to
understanding the body of the paper then probably the material you would present in an
appendix should be incorporated into the paper. From the opposite point of view avoid
the temptation to include material that may serve as an example but isn’t necessary to
understanding how data were analyzed. For instance, it is unlikely you would ever
include raw data in a paper even if they were placed in an appendix.