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Introduction to Research

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Introduction to Research & Scientific Inquiry What is Research? research is an unusually stubborn and persisting effort to think straight which involves the gathering ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Introduction to Research


1
Introduction to Research Scientific Inquiry
2
What is Research?
  • research is an unusually stubborn and persisting
    effort to think straight which involves the
    gathering and the intelligent use of relevant
    data

H. M. Hamlin, What is Research? American
Vocational Journal, September 1966.
3
Origin of the Word Research
  • From the French word "recherche" which means to
    travel through or survey

4
How do we know what we know and why do we do
what we do?
  • Personal Experience (Sensory Experience)
  • Our personal experiences are limited
  • We may be mistaken in our observations
  • We may fail to see things clearly because of our
    biases

5
The Fallacy of Personal Experience
  • You might have eaten some type of food and got
    sick. Therefore, you never eat this food again
    because it makes you sick.

6
Example The Case Against Bread
  • More than 98 of convicted felons are bread
    users.
  • Fully half of all children who grow up in bread
    consuming households score below average on
    standardized tests.
  • In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was
    baked in the home, the average life expectancy
    was less than 50 years.
  • More than 90 of all violent crimes are committed
    within 24 hours of eating bread.
  • Primitive tribal societies that have no bread
    exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's,
    and Parkinson's disease.

7
Is it True?
  • Do women make nicer bosses?
  • How would you know?
  • How could you test this idea?

8
How do we know what we know and why do we do
what we do?
  • Tradition (Agreement with Others)
  • Advice, rules, and approaches to handling
    problems are passed from year to year and
    accepted as truth
  • Reliance on tradition eliminates the need to
    search for knowledge, makes accepting new
    knowledge difficult, and mitigates our desire to
    question existing practice.

9
Example The Fallacy of Tradition
  • Trees for building purposes should be felled in
    December.
  • When transplanting a tree, be careful to have the
    same side facing the south.
  • Wood from a tree struck by lightning should never
    be used in the construction of a house, or barn,
    or they in turn may also be struck by lightning.
  • Rain drops on a child under a year will cause
    freckles.

10
How do we know what we know and why do we do
what we do?
  • Authority (Expert Opinion)
  • Authorities can be wrong, and the public has a
    tendency to accept as fact what are actually
    opinions.

11
Example The Fallacy of Authority
  • In 1992 the Catholic Church reversed their
    decision charging Galileo with heresy. He had
    claimed the earth was round and revolved around
    the sun, which went against the teachings of
    the church.

12
Logic
  • All human beings are mortal
  • Sally is a human being
  • Therefore, Sally is mortal

13
Research (The Scientific Method)
  • In contrast to sources of knowledge that are
    primarily idiosyncratic, informal, and influenced
    heavily by subjective interpretations, research
    involves a systematic process of gathering,
    interpreting, and reporting information.

14
The Scientific Method
  • Testing ideas in the public arena by formulating
    a hypothesis (a tentative, testable assertion
    about certain behaviors, phenomena, or events)
    within a rigorous format.
  • Must be reproducible and described in sufficient
    detail through 5 distinct steps
  • State the problem
  • Define the purpose of the study
  • How to gather the information
  • How to organize and analyze the information
    obtained
  • How the information is interpreted

15
Ways of Knowing
16
Two Approaches to Research
  • Quantitative
  • Emphasizes numbers, measurements, control, and
    experimentation
  • This is the traditional approach in AEE research
  • Qualitative
  • Emphasizes natural settings, observations, verbal
    narratives, and interpretations
  • Emerged in the mid-1970s as an approach to
    educational research

17
Goals
  • Quantitative
  • Test theory
  • Establish facts
  • Show relationships
  • Predict
  • Statistically describe
  • Qualitative
  • Understand theory
  • Develop understanding
  • Describe multiple realities
  • Capture naturally occurring behavior

18
Which Approach is Best?
  • The problem you are studying determines which
    approach to take.
  • One is not better than the other.
  • However, some researchers tend to look down their
    nose at the qualitative researcher!

19
Mixed Methods
  • Some researchers used both qualitative and
    quantitative methods in a single study. This is
    known as a mixed method approach.

20
Which Would You Select?
  • Pillbugs are taking over parts of my garden and
    are becoming a problem!
  • Get with a group of 4 and quickly design a study
    to investigate this problem.
  • Decide whether to approach this problem
    quantitatively or qualitatively (or mixed)
  • Tell what you would do and why
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of your
    approach

21
The QUESTION you are attempting to answer
  • Why are pillbugs found in such high quantities in
    parts of my garden?
  • Design your experiment to test something about
    what pillbugs like/dont like

22
Pillbug Inquiry Lab
  • You and your partner are to take the ideas you
    just generated and turn it into a TESTBALE
    hypothesis (define the purpose).
  • Take a look at the available supplies for ideas
  • Is there something else you need?

23
Pillbug lab cont.
  • What are you going to test? What is your
    control?
  • What data are you collecting? Which type and how
    is it organized?
  • What will you be able to conclude? How certain
    can you be?
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