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Designing your Research Project

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Classroom Action Research (CAR) ... How CAR differs from. traditional research: Conducted by the practitioner ... Step 7: Compare your findings. Various web sites: ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Designing your Research Project


1
Designing your Research Project
  • Lucy Dodge
  • San Jose City College

2
Goals for this workshop
  • Understand basic principles of research design
  • Articulate your proposal in terms of
  • Need
  • Research questions
  • Methodology
  • Potential conclusions
  • Develop ways that the cohort of Scholars can
    support you

3
Classroom Action Research (CAR)
  • based on the research of Gwynn Mettetal, Ph.D.
    Indiana University South Bend
  • is a way of finding out what works best in YOUR
    classroom.
  • helps you make decisions about teaching
  • one form of the scholarship of teaching

4
CAR meets these needs
  • Improve your teaching
  • Document your teaching
  • Share your findings
  • Publication (in some cases)

5
Basic Strategy a continuum
6
Goals
  • Goal of Traditional Research
  • To build theory or provide general descriptions
  • Goal of Action Research
  • To improve practice

7
How CAR differs from traditional research
  • Conducted by the practitioner
  • Focuses on local problems or goals
  • Has less emphasis on literature often secondary
    sources

8
Additional differences 2-
  • Uses less formal procedures, which may change
    during study
  • Establishes validity through triangulation
    (multiple sources of data, investigators, and
    methods) of measures
  • Uses convenient measures
  • Focuses on practical, not statistical,
    significance

9
Lets get started!
  • Designing your own project

10
Step 1 Identify a question or problem
  • Significant--important to you and your students
  • Under your control--you can take action based on
    your findings
  • Feasible--time, effort, resources (Think small)

11
A Taxonomy of Questions
  • 1. What type of practice or intervention works?
  • Nonverbal communication of experienced vs.
    inexperienced ESL teachers
  • Web-based vs. print based history course
  • 2. What are the characteristics of a particular
    approach?
  • Students perceptions of their experiences with
    interdisciplinary studies
  • Teacher and administrator perceptions of the
    accreditation process for selected Catholic high
    schools

12
A Taxonomy of Questions 2-
  • 3. What are the possible realms of emotional and
    practical learning I can achieve in a classroom?
  • How do sociology students engage in the process
    of learning?
  • 4. What are the new conceptual frameworks for
    shaping teaching practices?
  • What concepts are most difficult for students to
    learn?
  • What are the connections between scholarship and
    learning?

13
What is Distinctive about the Scholarship of
Teaching Learning?
  • Covers a wide range of approaches and types of
    research
  • Encourages reflection and inquiry into teaching
    and classroom practices
  • Views faculty as professionals eager to
    incorporate scholarship and research into their
    teaching
  • Results are documented and distributed to other
    faculty

14
Possible study topics
  • Description of student behaviors/characteristics
  • Prior knowledge or beliefs
  • Time spent studying
  • Relationship between different things
  • Study time and test score
  • Class participation and course grade
  • Effect of X on student learning
  • Cooperative learning groups
  • Case studies
  • E-mail office hours

15
Brainstorming
  • What could YOU study?

16
Questions?
17
Step 2 Review literature
  • Aim for a coherent, integrated, critical
    examination of selected relevant literature
  • ERIC database (Educational Resources Information
    Center)
  • Available through most libraries
  • Also go directly to ericir.syr.edu
  • Books on learning, motivation, etc.
  • Use meta-analyses summary of the results of
    studies

18
Step 3 Choose a research strategy
19
Step 3 Decide what you wish to accomplish
  • What do you want to discover?
  • What might you do differently based on what you
    find?
  • What is relevant to your teaching and learning in
    the classroom?
  • What is the purpose of this study?
  • This study was conducted because

20
Step 3 Define your research method
  • Define a measurable outcome
  • Student success
  • Persistence
  • Rating of improvement by self or others
  • Demonstrated and rated competency

21
Step 4 Gather new data
  • Get ethical approvals before data collection
  • Quantitative (numbers) or Qualitative (words)
    data
  • Collect at least three types of data
    (triangulation)
  • Choose a starting point group of students over
    time
  • Select a comparison group
  • Consider a baseline group

22
Step 4 Types of new data
  • Existing data (easiest, already existing)
  • Student records
  • Archival data
  • Conventional sources (easy, but must generate)
  • Behavioral data
  • Perceptual data
  • Inventive sources (difficult)
  • Products or performances

23
Step 4 Prepare a scoring rubric
  • Rubrics measure a variety of qualities writing,
    self-awareness, personal integration,,
    task-orientation (e.g., Bales)
  • Critical Thinking, class participation, civility
  • General education outcomes- aesthetic
    sensitivity, civic responsibility, computer
    literacy, cultural diversity, historical
    sensitivity, information competency, critical
    analysis
  • Rubrics and suggested outcomes provided by
    Jon Kangas, Associate Vice Chancellor for
    Research and Planning, San Jose Evergreen
    Community College District

24
Step 4 Apply a general education outcome
  • General education outcomes- aesthetic
    sensitivity, civic responsibility, computer
    literacy,
  • Cultural diversity, historical sensitivity,
    information competency, critical analysis

25
Brainstorming
  • What data could YOU collect?

26
Step 5 What did you find? 1-
  • Qualitative analyses look for themes in words
    and behaviors
  • Requires skillful interpretation of behavior and
    data
  • Theme 1 Students understood more abstract
    concepts after group discussion. (Follow with
    quotes from student exams, other evidence.)
  • Gather data from communication between students
    and faculty.
  • Record students responses to questions about
    what they remember from a lecture.
  • Observation, interviewing, and analysis of
    records documents are common methods used to
    gather data.

27
Step 5 What did you find? 2-
  • Quantitative analyses simple graphs, tables

28
Step 5 What did you find? 2-
  • Quantitative analyses simple graphs, tables

29
Step 5 What did you find? 3-
Focus on practical significance, more than
statistical significance
30
Brainstorming
  • What would convince YOU?

31
Step 6 Take action based on findings
  • Keep your old strategy
  • Change to the new strategy
  • Recommend change (and evaluation) for others
  • Your next project may be to evaluate your new,
    improved class!

32
Step7 Share your findings
  • Campus brown bags
  • Teaching Center booklets, files, Web site
  • Conferences
  • ERIC document (see website for info)

33
Step 7 Share your findings 2-
  • Journal articles and essays
  • General teaching journals like College Teaching
  • Teaching journals in your discipline
  • Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching Learning
  • (JoSoTL) http//www.iusb.edu/josotl

34
Step 7 Compare your findings
  • Various web sites
  • Beginners Guide to Research on Teaching and
    Learning -http//oit.iusb.edu/gmetteta/
  • Educators Reference Desk (formerly AskEric)
    -http//www.eduref.org/
  • Campus Program Clusters (American Association of
    Higher Education) -
  • http//www.aahe.org/projects/campus_program/

35
Step 7 Compare your findings 2-
  • Collaborative Learning -http//www.wcer.wisc.edu/n
    ise/cl1/
  • Student Evaluation - http//www.umdnj.edu/meg/eval
    uation_cat.htm
  • Research Proposals - http//www.ucalgary.ca/md/CAH
    /research/res_prop.htm
  • Wisconsin Teaching and Learning Center -
    http//www.wcer.wisc.edu/projects/group.asp?catID
    16

36
Resources for Classroom Research
  • Books
  • Angelo, T. Cross, P. (1993), Classroom
    Assessment Techniques, 2nd ed. San Francisco
    Jossey-Bass.
  • Cross, P. Steadman, M. (1996). Classroom
    Research Implementing the Scholarship of
    Teaching. San Francisco Jossey-Bass.

37
Summarizing
  • Frame the question
  • Establish the context
  • Gather the evidence
  • Explore the value for the scholarship of teaching
    and learning
  • Explain the benefits
  • Evaluate the lessons learned

38
Future think
What will you do tomorrow?and tomorrowand
tomorrow?
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