It's absolutely worthless, and an incredible waste of time.
Presumably, the high school research paper was invented to prepare students for the papers they would have to write in college. In practice, the value of the research paper, as opposed to other sorts of reports, is nil. Let me explain.
In college, one's studies are very concentrated, and few students write papers outside of their major after the introductory years, if at all. The key difference here: college papers are almost always on a topic the writer knows a great deal about.
High school papers are almost always about a topic the student doesn't know much about, which negates any value that the assignment might have in teaching methods. The high school student doesn't know the relevant academic journals and where to get them, has little or no access to specialized libraries, feels little love for the subject.
The value in high school research papers is to teach the methods, but in nearly every case, the elements are overlooked in the desperate struggle to collect sources and cobble together a reasonable theme. The value in citation, communication, and nuance is lost.
In my personal experience, a variety of smaller assignments were more conducive to teaching the desired skills. Short reports can teach sourcing and research methods without the pressure of collecting a great number. Citation-free themes can teach students to organize their thoughts. More reasonably-sized research papers can teach the integration of these techniques.
As with so many problems in education, it's the one-size-fits-all mentality to blame. All students are going into liberal arts , so naturally they need to know the methods that English majors use to write their analyses of limericks. But many students aren't. Engineers and scientists need to write lab reports. Historians need to instruction in finding materials. Educators need to know lesson planning. No two students have precisely the same needs. But onward we march, Taylorist machines, towards the future the central-planners have designed for us.
High school papers are almost always about a topic the student doesn't know much about, which negates any value that the assignment might have in teaching methods. The high school student doesn't know the relevant academic journals and where to get them, has little or no access to specialized libraries, feels little love for the subject.
The value in high school research papers is to teach the methods, but in nearly every case, the elements are overlooked in the desperate struggle to collect sources and cobble together a reasonable theme. The value in citation, communication, and nuance is lost.
In my personal experience, a variety of smaller assignments were more conducive to teaching the desired skills. Short reports can teach sourcing and research methods without the pressure of collecting a great number. Citation-free themes can teach students to organize their thoughts. More reasonably-sized research papers can teach the integration of these techniques.
As with so many problems in education, it's the one-size-fits-all mentality to blame. All students are going into liberal arts , so naturally they need to know the methods that English majors use to write their analyses of limericks. But many students aren't. Engineers and scientists need to write lab reports. Historians need to instruction in finding materials. Educators need to know lesson planning. No two students have precisely the same needs. But onward we march, Taylorist machines, towards the future the central-planners have designed for us.
