Introduction to Educational Research

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Chapter 1

• Introduction to Educational Research

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Educational Research

• The systematic application of a family of methods
  that are employed to provide trustworthy
  information about educational problems.

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• Research is usually an ongoing process, based on
  many accumulated understandings and explanations
  that, when taken together, lead to
  generalizations about educational issues and
  ultimately to the development of theories.

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• A single research study will not produce the
  certainty needed to assume that the same results
  will apply in all or most settings.

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• Personal experiences and generalizations provide
  us with much of understanding.

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Understanding

• Often use inductive and deductive reasoning to
  come to an understanding of something.

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Inductive Reasoning

• Develop generalizations from limited number of
  specific observations and experiences.

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Inductive Reasoning

• Example You examine the table of contents of
  four research books, all of which contain a
  chapter on sampling.
• Therefore all research books contain a chapter on
  sampling (generalization).

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Deductive Reasoning

• Based on developing specific predictions from
  general principles, observations, or experiences.

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Deductive Reasoning

• All research texts contain a chapter on sampling
  (generalization). This book is a research text.
  Therefore, this book contains a chapter on
  sampling (specific conclusion).

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Limitations to Deductive and Inductive Reasoning.

• Relying on tradition stifles perspective.
• Personal experience can be subject to
  idiosyncratic interpretations and prejudices.
• Even experts are not infallible.
• Most people have relatively limited experience on
  many of the issues we might seek to understand.

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Quality of Inductive Reasoning (specifics to
generalizations)

• Is highly dependent on the number and
  representativeness of the specific observations
  used to make the generalization.

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• Inductive reasoning provides no guide for the
  number and quality of specific examples needed to
  make generalizations.

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Quality of Deductive Reasoning (generalizations
to specifics)

• Depends on the truth of the generalizations it
  uses as a basis for its logic.
• Example If one accepts the generalization that
  all professors are boring, extending this
  generalization to specific professors will not be
  accurate for at least a of the professorate.

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• Inductive and deductive reasoning are of limited
  value when used individually, when combined they
  are very important.

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• A scientific and disciplined inquiry approach to
  research is based on a systematic approach to
  examining educational issues and questions.

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Systematic Approach

• Combines features of inductive and deductive
  reasoning with other characteristics to produce
  an approach to understanding that, though
  fallible, is generally more viable than
  tradition, experts, personal experience, or
  inductive or deductive reasoning alone.

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Biases and Beliefs in Research

• Difficult to totally remove the biases and
  beliefs of the researcher in any research study.
• Can lessen but never eliminate errors.

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Scientific and Disciplined Inquiry Approach

• Event he most extensive study cannot examine all
  the human and contextual factors that might
  affect a researchers findings.

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Scientific and Disciplined Inquiry Approach

• Incorporates checks and balances to to minimize
  impact of researchers emotions and biases.

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Scientific and Disciplined Inquiry Approach (The
Process)

• Recognize and identify a topic to be studied.
• Describe and execute procedures to collect
  information about the topic being studied.
• Analyze the collected data.
• State the results or implications based on
  analysis of the data.

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Defining Purpose and Methods

• Topics can pose a variety of purposes
• e.g. comparing, describing, relating, describing
  the history or effects of something.
• See examples on page 6 of the text.

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• Approaches using an in-depth description analyses
  of of cultures or social settings are called
  qualitative studies.

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• Logically, if there are differences in the
  purposes of research topics, there also should be
  differences in the strategies and methods for
  investigating these topics.
• The way data are collected and analyzed also
  differs among research topics.

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Common Threads

• Although there are a number of different
  questions, methods, and analyses related to
  conducting research, the threads that unite these
  differences are the four basic steps in the
  scientific and disciplined inquiry approach.

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Classifying Research

• Can be classified by the degree of direct
  applicability of the research to educational
  settings (basic or applied research).
• Or by the methods the researcher uses to conduct
  the study (quantitative or qualitative research).

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Basic and Applied Research

• Continuum- difficult to discuss separately.
• Basic - conducted to develop or refine theory,
  not to solve immediate practical problems.
• Applied- conducted to find solutions to current
  practical problems

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• Example of basic research - Skinners
  reinforcement of birds.
• Years later was applied practical educational
  use.

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• Disagreement among educators about which end of
  the basic-applied continuum should be emphasized.

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Evaluation Research

• At the far end of applied research.
• Distinguished by decision making purpose.
• Evaluation research is concerned with making
  decisions about quality, effectiveness or value
  of educational programs, products or practices.

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Different Types of Evaluation

• Formative evaluation function is to form and
  improve what is being evaluated while it is being
  developed.
• Summative evaluation function is to make a
  decision that sums up the overall quality or
  worth of the program or product.

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Quantitative and Qualitative Research
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Quantitative

• Methods based in the collection and analysis of
  numerical data, usually obtained from
  questionnaires, tests, checklists, and other
  formal paper and pencil instruments.
• But entails more than just the use of numerical
  data.

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Quantitative

• It also involves
• stating the hypothesis studied, and the research
  procedures implemented prior to conducting the
  study,
• maintaining control over contextual factors that
  might interfere with the data collected,
• using large enough samples of participants to
  provide statistically meaningful data.

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Quantitative

• Employing data analyses that rely on statistical
  procedures.
• Usually little personal interaction between the
  researcher and the people they study.

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Quantitative

• Uses underlying belief that we inhabit a stable,
  and measurable world.

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Quantitative

• Positivist Perspective- hold that the world and
  the laws that govern it are stable and can be
  understood by scientific observation.
• Claims about the world are not meaningful unless
  they can be verified through direct observation.
• This approach continues to be the dominant one in
  education.

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Qualitative

• Based on the collection and analysis of
  nonnumerical data such as observations,
  interviews, and more discursive sources of
  information.

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Qualitative

• Argues that meaning is situated in a particular
  perspective or context.
• Different people have different perspectives and
  contexts.
• There are many meanings in the world, none of
  which is necessarily more valid or true than
  another.

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Qualitative

• Tends not to state hypotheses or research
  procedures before data is collected.
• Research problems and methods evolve as
  understanding of the research context deepens.

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Qualitative

• Context is not controlled.
• Number of participants tends to be small because
  of time intensive methods like interviews.
• Researchers often act with participants during a
  study

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Qualitative and Quantitative

• Should not be considered oppositional.
• Together - represent the full range of
  educational research methods.
• Both may be administered in some studies.
• E.g. administration of a questionaire
  (quantitative) may be followed up by a small
  number of detailed interviews (qualitative).

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Types of Quantitative research

• Review-Intended to describe current conditions,
  investigate relationships, and study cause-effect
  phenomena.

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Descriptive Research

• Also called survey research, collects numerical
  data to answer questions about the current status
  of the subject of study.
• Most obtain information about the preferences,
  attitudes, practices, concerns, or interests of
  some group.
• Data are collected by self administered
  instruments or telephone polls.

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Descriptive Research

• Important to construct clear and consistent
  descriptive instruments.
• Major problem- failure of participants to return
  questionaires or cooperate in telephone
  interviews.

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Descriptive Research

• Examples
• How do second-grade teachers spend their teaching
  time?
• How will the citizens if Yourtown vote in the
  next presidential election?
• How do parents feel about a twelvemonth school
  year.

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Correlational Research

• Examines the degree of relationship between two
  or more variables.
• A correlation is a quantitative measure (of the
  degree of correspondence between two or more
  variables).
• E.g. SAT scores and freshman college grades.

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Correlational Research

• Degree of relationship is measured by correlation
  coefficient.
• Plus/minus 1.00 indicating highly related
• .00 indicating no relationship between the
  variables.

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Correlational Research

• If two variable are highly related, it does not
  mean that one is the cause of the other there
  may be a third factor that causes both the
  related variables

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Correlational Research

• Examples
• The correlation between intelligence and
  self-esteem.
• The relationship between anxiety and achievement.
• Use of aptitude test to predict success in an
  algebra course.

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Causal-Comparative Research

• Seeks to investigate cause and effect
  relationships.
• Activity thought to make a difference is called
  the causal factor, treatment or independent
  variable.
• The effect is called the dependent variable.

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Causal-Comparative Research

• In most studies the researcher does not have
  control over the causal factor because it has
  already occurred or cannot be manipulated.
• Useful when it is impossible or unethical to
  manipulate the causal factor.

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Causal-Comparative Research

• The effect of preschool attendance on social
  maturity at the end of the first grade.
• The effect of having a working mother on school
  absenteeism.
• The effect of gender on algebra achievement.

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Experimental Research

• Also seeks to investigate cause-effect
  relationships.
• Experimental researcher controls the selection of
  participants by choosing them from a single pool
  and assigning them at random to different causal
  treatments.

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Experimental Research

• Research also controls the contextual variables
  that might interfere with the study.
• Because it randomly selects and assigns
  participants into different treatments,
  experimental research permits true cause-effect
  statements to be made.

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Experimental Research

• The comparative effectiveness of personalized
  instruction from a teacher versus computer
  instruction on computational skills.
• The effect of self-paced instruction on
  self-concept.
• The effect of positive reinforcement on attitude
  toward school.

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Historical Research Methods

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Historical Research Methods

• Involves interpreting past events.
• Most focus on individuals, important social
  issues, links between old and new, and
  reinterpretations of prior historical work.

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Historical Research Methods

• Historians work with data already available in a
  variety of forms.
• Primary sources - provided by first person
  eyewitnesses or authors.
• Secondary Sources - non first person accounts
• preferred by historians.

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Historical Research Methods

• Historians use external criticism to access the
  authenticity of their data and use internal
  criticism to assess the truthfulness of their
  data.

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Historical Research Methods

• Examples
• Factors leading to the development and growth of
  cooperative learning.
• Trends in elementary school reading instruction,
  1940-1995.

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Focus is on deep description of aspects of
  peoples everyday perspectives and context.
• Provide filed-focused, interpretive, detailed
  descriptions and interpretations of participants
  and their settings.

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Usually involves long term immersion in setting.
• Common methods of data collection include
• observation, interviewing, tape and video
  recording, examining artifacts, and participant
  observation (researcher becomes part of the group
  being studied)

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Data analysis
• based on categorizing and interpreting the
  observations, conversations with participants,
  documents, tape recordings, and interviews
  collected to provide a description and explanation

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Qualitative researcher writes from the
  perspective of the participants, not from the
  researchers own perspective.

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Examples
• The problems, successes, and understandings of
  Jack, during his first year of teaching.
• Study of the Hispanic culture in an urban
  community college.

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Guidelines for Classification

• Type of method needed depends on the problem
  being studied.
• Same general problem can be investigated using
  many types of research.

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Guidelines for Classification

• Knowing the type of research applied helps one
  identify the important aspects to examine in
  evaluating the study.

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Guidelines for Classification

• The more information available, the easier it is
  to classify.

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Guidelines for Classification

• Method for classifying
• determine whether qualitative or quantitative.
• If quantitative, identify purpose to determine
  whether it is description, correlational, causal
  comparative, or experimental.

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Guidelines for Classification

• If qualitative, determine whether it is
  historical or qualitative
• look for key words in the title of the study
  survey, description, relationship, historical,
  culture, and the like.

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Limitations of the Scientific and Discipline and
Inquiry Approach

• Four factors
• inability to answer should questions.
• inability to capture complexity of research site
  and participants.
• limitations of measuring instruments.
• Need to address participants ethical needs and
  responsibilities.