The purpose of this Major Assignment is to immerse you in the qualitative research process. The process includes hands-on opportunities for you to collect, organize, analyze, and interpret qualitative data. This qualitative research process begins with some items that have already been identified for you:

1. The research topic for this effort is the meaning of social change for graduate students. You have been examining videos and reading about social change as part of the course study. 
2. The knowledge you have gained plus your reflections on the meaning of social change will form the beginning of the inquiry. That is, the research question you will explore is “What is the meaning of social change for graduate students?”
3. The description of your efforts of gathering, organizing, and analyzing data will form the basis of your methods section. And, the results of those efforts—the analysis and interpretation of those data—will be summarized. 

This Major Assignment 2 is composed of four parts, each of which will be completed over four weeks. These parts include: Part 1: Introduction; Part 2, Role of the Researcher; Part 3: Results; and Part 4: Summary. 

For this week’s Major Assignment 2, you will complete Part 1. In this Part 1, you will begin to examine social change from a graduate student perspective, explore positive social change as a research problem, and explore the gap in research.

Part 1: Introduction

1. Write a background statement of approximately 1–2 pages that includes:
   1. What you have learned about social change as a social issue.
   2. What you have learned about social change as a research problem. Support your insights with academic citations from the Learning Resources. 
   3. Describe the gap that your study will address.
2. From the gap, create a brief purpose statement that is aligned with the following research question: 

What is the meaning of social change for graduate students?