Discussion includes how to carry out action research with your own students. As I work towards my masters in secondary education, I find that I am writing research paper after research paper. However, having taken a class on research in education, I have learned that the papers I am writing are not research papers at all, but simply the regurgitation of someone else's work. In my opinion a research paper requires designing, performing, and evaluating an experiment, not running to the library gathering a bunch of old information an rewriting in your words. Rob, A thorough review of the existing literature is a large part of doing research in science education and other disciplines.
Current research builds on the findings of other related research.
Good research articles present a theoretical framework that illustrates why the study should be conducted in the first place. This theoretical framework is developed based on key findings of other research.