Scientific%20Research%20in%20Education - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Scientific%20Research%20in%20Education

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Title: Scientific%20Research%20in%20Education


1
Scientific Research in Education
NRC Committee on Scientific Principles in
Education Research
  • Editors
  • Richard J. Shavelson
  • Lisa Towne

2
Why Are We Here?
  • Castle bill, fall 2000
  • Office of Educational Research and Improvement
    re-authorization
  • OERI disbanded in 2002
  • Education Sciences Reform Act
  • Now Institute of Education Sciences
  • Encourage self-reflection

3
Is That All?
  • Thought about a federal agency
  • Did NOT evaluate current research or techniques

4
Scientific MethodGuiding Principles
  • Pose significant questions -- empirical
    investigation
  • Link research to relevant theory
  • Use methods w/ direct investigation
  • Chain of reasoning
  • Replicate and generalize
  • Professional scrutiny

5
Properties of Education
  • Values and Politics
  • Differing views on human potential
  • No single goal to current research
  • Personal values too involved
  • Decide on one goal, not best or final goal
  • Governmental changes

6
Properties of Education
  • Human Volition
  • Individual desires confound experiments
  • Parents are whiny and hate science
  • Think of the children
  • Think of them!
  • Mobility of U.S. population
  • 10/year ?

7
Properties of Education
  • Variability of Education Programs
  • Tinkering towards Utopia-Tyack Cuban 95
  • State standards
  • Organization
  • Group-Class-Grade-School-District-County-State-Fed
    eral
  • Cultural Diversity

8
Properties of Education Research
  • Multidisciplinary
  • Integrate/correlate from different fields
  • Advances depend on advances in other fields
  • Development of training programs is hard

9
Properties of Education Research
  • Ethical Considerations
  • Cannot create education-free control
  • Cannot hide purpose (for double-blind)
  • Somebody think of the children!
  • Reliance on Practitioners
  • Recent shift to long-term partnered research

10
Designing Research
  • Question dictates design
  • Three important facets
  • Description what is happening?
  • Cause is there a systematic effect?
  • Mechanism why/how is it happening?

11
Description
  • Collect raw valid data
  • Random sampling (surveys and tests)
  • Reproducible valid results
  • In-depth case studies
  • 1970s 23 college women
  • Career in major, career outside major, housefrau
  • Schoolwork predictor

12
Causation
  • Find causal relationships between variables
  • Isolate variables on random surveys/tests
  • Non-random tests may generalize better
  • Real-world education not dictated randomly
  • Harder to validate - selectivity bias
  • Model-fitting
  • Salary vs. dropouts

13
Mechanism
  • Bring all techniques to bear on how
  • 10-year study on Catholic schools
  • Three models
  • Sector (private spiritual nature)
  • Compositional (composition of student body)
  • School (feature of school operation)
  • Conclusion coherence (sense of community)

14
Mechanism When Theory is Weak
  • College women study
  • Why did nontraditional majors not have careers?
  • Design study of ratio reasoning
  • Real problems (ramps, exchange rates)
  • Videotape of classroom activities
  • Compared to other classrooms over 3 years
  • Produced refined theoretical model

15
Designing An Ideal Federal Agency
An Exercise in Publicly Funded Common Sense
  • Staff with Scientists
  • Structures to Guide Agenda
  • Insulate from Politics
  • Balanced Research Portfolio
  • Adequate, Consistent Funding
  • Invest in Private Research Infrastructure
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