The nuts and bolts of educational research: A real life example involving collaboration between scho

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The nuts and bolts of educational research A
real life example involving collaboration between
school professionals
Scott A. Woitaszewski, Ph.D. Mark Gillen,
Ph.D. University of Wisconsin River Falls
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Who are we and what are we hoping to do?

• Who are we and why are we here?
• Our goals
• Start the discussion about research and how it
  can be done (the manure metaphor)
• Offer real life example of how it has been done
• Weave these two together
• Answer your questions

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Contact information

• Dr. Scott Woitaszewski
• scott.woitaszewski_at_uwrf.edu
• Dr. Mark Gillen
• mark.gillen_at_uwrf.edu

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Potential ways to consider accomplishing
research?

• Action research
• Needs Assessments
• Collaboration with Universities or Colleges
• standard research model-we will be speaking to
  this today
• Program evaluations

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Program EvaluationA Seven-Step Approach

• Clearly state program goals
• Using program goals, and current literature
  determine appropriate evaluation goals
• Review evaluation texts to guide development of
  your evaluation process

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• Eliminate qualitative methods for the initial
  round of program evaluation only with a darn good
  reason
• Select sampling method
• Design measurement strategy for each variable
• Decide on appropriate research design
• Conduct research

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Standard research model Choosing a topic

• Meaningful but realistic topic
• What is already out there? Are there holes?
• What type of study makes sense?
• Procedural logistics
• Accessing suitable participants
• Foresee your intended audience
• Defining and measuring variables

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What we did

• Topic of personal interest and educational
  importance
• Collaboration between school counselors
  school psychologists?
• How we got started
• Inadequate training
• Territorial issues
• Additional current data

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Literature Review Why do it?

• Avoid duplication
• Reveals unanswered questions
• Provides examples of established methods and
  procedures
• Brings you up to date in area of interest

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Sources of Information

• Scholarly Journals
• Dissertations
• Books
• Conventions and Professional Meetings
• Primary vs. Secondary Sources
• Others? Website

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On-line Library Search Tools

• PsychInfo
• Academic Search Elite
• ERIC
• Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (example
  adolescence)

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Reading the Research

• Be a critical consumer
• Two steps initial appraisal careful analysis
• Good note taking (1/2 page or note cards)
• Author, title, source
• Bullet point key findings
• Summary of impressions

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What our literature review revealed

• Very little research on educator collaboration
• Minimal study has been devoted to identifying
  the extent to which collaboration actually occurs
  or the types of activities for which school
  counselors and school psychologists do
  collaborate.

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Develop Research Questions

• 1) Ensure that they are phrased as questions
• 2) Typically suggest a relationship to be
  examined
• 3) Be specific
• 4) Ensure that your variables are measurable

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Our Research Questions

• 1) Is there an overall difference between
  actual and desired collaboration for school
  counselors and school psychologists?
• 2) Do counselors and psychologists differ in
  frequency of actual and desired collaboration?
• 3) Does professional experience make a
  difference in amount of collaboration?
• 4) Does gender make a difference in amount of
  actual and desired collaboration?
• 5) Does administrator encouragement influence
  collaboration?
• 6) Do other demographic characteristics (e.g.
  grade level, number of students, etc.) influence
  collaboration?

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Determine variablesCommon Variable Types

• Dependent Variables (outcomes of interest)
• Independent Variables (what youll manipulate)
• Continuous
• quantified on a continuum
• e.g., Time it takes to complete an exam
• Categorical
• Put into one of two or more categories,
• e.g., gender, geographic location of school

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Our variables of interest

• Actual Collaboration Desired Collaboration
• Dependent variables
• Several questions each (e.g., develop
  pre-referral interventions)
• Rated on a scale (continuous 4-3-2-1-0)
• Scale (Daily, Weekly, Once per Semester, Once
  per Year, Never)
• Demographics
• Independent variables
• Categorical (e.g., gender, years of experience
  groups, position type)

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Document your procedures

• And how do you do that
• you may ask?

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Methodology

• Telling the story of exactly what you did so that
  others can evaluate and/or recreate to validate.
• Our methodology included information on
• Participants
• Instrument
• Procedure

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Common Statistical Analyses Oh goodness!

• Correlational procedures
• For research questions involving relationships
  (how two or more variables go together)
• Bivariate Correlation
• Multiple Regression
• Looking for significant differences
• Independent Samples t-test (2 categories)
• Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) (3 categories)

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Correlational

• Cannot fully understand cause (can only
  hypothesize about potential cause)
• Example correlational research questions
• Is there a correlation between SAT scores and
  success in college?
• Is there a correlation between smoking and lung
  cancer?
• Be aware of other unmeasured variables that may
  influence cause

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Experimental Research

• Experimental group and control group
• Randomly assigned groups
• Exposes experimental group to intervention
• Example experimental research question
• Does teaching curriculum A increase the basic
  standard scores in Math (above and beyond the
  control group)?

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Causal-Comparative

• Uses two or more samples where the groups already
  exist (not randomly assigned)
• Cannot fully understand cause
• Example Causal-Comparative Research Questions
• Do elementary school students differ from middle
  school students in their attitude toward
  school?
• Do female educators collaborate more than male
  educators?

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Qualitative Approaches

• Often called case study or ethnography
• Often involves interviewing, observing
• Going from lots of data to determine the research
  outcome vs. research questions to sorting through
  lots of data.

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Some of the statistical analysis we used

• A paired samples t-test was used to examine the
  difference between actual and desired
  collaboration for the entire sample of school
  professionals.
• A one-way ANOVA was used to help determine the
  influence of years of experience on the total
  actual collaboration variable for the entire
  sample.

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Our results
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Actual vs. Desired Collaboration

• Analysis of a sample of school psychologists and
  school counselors (N 147) revealed
  significantly more desire to collaborate than
  actual collaboration. Actual Mean near once
  per semester
• Desired Mean near once per week

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Most desired collaboration activities

• When consulting with teachers
• When developing pre-referral interventions
• When developing behavior management strategies
• Counseling groups (significant more desire for
  lower SES schools)

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Psychologist/Counselor Differences

• No overall collaboration differences between
  counselors and psychologists (both actual and
  desired collaboration)

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Administrator Encouragement

• Those who are encouraged by administrators are
  significantly more likely to collaborate than
  those who are not encouraged. Encouraged Mean
  near once per week Not encouraged Mean near
  once per semester

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Experience

• More experienced psychologists and counselors
  report significantly more actual collaboration.
• Less experienced report a desire to collaborate
  at a similar level to those with more experience.

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Reporting Your Research

• Public presentation to your school
• Public presentation at a professional conference
• Written summary for a newsletter
• APA style publication for a professional journal

See www.uwrf.edu/csp/rip for examples of various
formats
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How we reported our research

• Guess, P., Gillen, M., Woitaszewski, S. (in
  press). Practice implications for collaboration
  An investigation with school counselors and
  school psychologists. Journal of School
  Counseling.

See www.uwrf.edu/csp/rip for a draft version of
this article
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References

• Campbell, D. Stanley, J. (1990). Experimental
  and quasi-experimental designs for research.
  Houghton Mifflin.
• Cook, Campbell, Shadish (2001). Experimental
  and quasi-experimental designs for generalized
  causal inference. Houghton Mifflin
• Patton (1987). How to use qualitative methods in
  evaluation. Sage.
• Patton (2002). Qualitative research evaluation
  methods. Sage
• Rossi, Freeman, Lipsey (2003). Evaluation A
  systematic approach. Sage.
• Robinson, J., Shaver, P. Wrightsman (1990).
  Measures of personality and social psychological
  attitudes. Elsevier
• Strauss Corbin (1998). Basics of qualitative
  research. Sage