Explore available topics in the field of special education, as your options are many and varied. Some ideas include exploring the different categories of student disabilities (physical, emotional, communication and learning impairment, developmental delay); the effect of an Individual Education Program (IEP) on a student; or the impact of state and federal government in special education. Choose a topic that will yield plenty of interesting material for you to work with.
Decide which kind of research project you will pursue. Depending on the requirements of your professor or mentor, you may be asked to write a paper, assemble a slide-show presentation or create a video that documents your research. If the choice is left up to you, choose the project that will best represent your work. For example, if you plan to conduct many interviews with special education teachers a video is a great choice.
Develop a thesis, or main idea, for your project and make it the header of your one-page proposal. Your thesis is the central point around which the rest of your research will revolve. If you're writing about government involvement in special education, for example, a sample thesis might focus on a landmark court case that supported the rights of disabled students. The thesis should be delivered as a statement of fact ("This court case sparked the campaign for equal-rights education in the United States") that your research will serve to prove.
Type at least four separate questions or ideas that will help you prove or strengthen your thesis beneath the header. These are not set in stone and should be used mainly as guidelines; they can be tweaked or altered during the course of your research. In keeping with the example mentioned in Step 3, a sample question might include, "What were the immediate and long-term effects of this case?"
List several references or sources of information you plan to use at the bottom of your one-page proposal. If you plan on conducting interviews, select experts in the field such as local teachers, speech therapists or attorneys specializing in educational issues. If you will be writing a paper or presenting statistics in a slide show, choose scholarly publications (educational or judicial journals) and only websites that end with ".edu" or ".gov."