• Approaches to educational research • Research topics• Research problems• Research purpose• Research questions
RESEARCH METHODS IN EDUCATION ED-D 561a Summer 2011
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH - INTRODUCTION
Purpose Research Question and HypothesisPurpose Research Question and Hypothesis
Purpose Statement
Research Question
Research Hypothesis
Research Objectives
Intent ~ role in research
Overall direction
Raise question to be answered
Make predication about explanations
State goals to accomplish
Form ~ appearance
One or more sentences
One or more question
One or more statements
One or more objectives
Use ~ application
Qual and quan
Qual and quan
Quantitative Typically quantitative
Placement ~ location
End of intro End of intro, after literature review or in separate section of the study
Creswell, 2009
Quantitative Qualitative
Purpose statement
Identifies the variables, their relationship, and the participants and site of research.
Intent to explore or understand the central phenomena with individuals at a research site.
Single sentence, “The purpose of this study is…”, reference a theory if germane.
The purpose of this study is to test (the theory) by relating (the independent variable) to (the dependent variable) for (participants) at the (research site).
How is that for contrived?
The purpose of this qualitative study will be to (explore discover understand describe) (the central phenomena) for (participants)(at research cite)
Quantitative Qualitative
Research Question ~ narrow and focus the purpose statement
Pose a question; begin with how what why; specify the variables; use words like describe, compare , relate; use participants and site
Open ended, general questions that the researcher would like answered during the study
How frequently do (participants) (variable) at (research site)?
Change and emerge, few and general, sometimes central and sub questions
How frequently do grade 4 students feel anxious at the FSA? ~ descriptive
Could also be relationship and or comparison questions
What is the (central phenomena) for (participants) at (research site)
Quantitative Qualitative
Hypothesis ~ narrows the research but also advances a predication about what researcher expects to find ~ tend to be more formal than questions
nada
The more students feel anxious about the FSA the more likely their grade will be influenced negatively.
Null ~ tests that in the population that there is no difference between IV and DV or between groups
Alternative ~ that there is a difference between IV and DV or between groups in population
However, Mertler and Charles have a slightly different spin on this
Research Topic
The broad subject addressed by the study
Research Problem
The issue, concern, controversy, problem to be addressed
Research Purpose
The intent of the study – what the study intends to accomplish
Research Questions
The specific questions the study will attempt to answer
Research Hypotheses
The specific statement to be evaluated statistically – often not part of the introduction since inferential statistics will not be employed.
Statement of the ProblemStatement of the Problem
An element of the introductory chapter or section of the thesis
Provides a description of the topic of the research and a statement of the research problem to be addressed.
This should not only describe where the research is heading, but also establish the significance of the research – how it will make the world better
Purpose StatementPurpose Statement
An extension of the statement of the problem to set the direction of the study – to say
• why you are doing this study
• what you intend to do
• what you intend to accomplish
Research QuestionsResearch Questions
The specific questions you are intending to answer
Variables
• Descriptive
• Comparative
• Relational
The participants
The location
Research HypothesisResearch Hypothesis
The specific statement(s) you are going to evaluate:
H0 : Reading scoregroup1
= Reading scoregroup2
H0 : Correlation Reading:Math = 0
Student achievement of valued learning outcomes is an important index of educational performance. For individual students the achievement of learning outcomes has significant long-term consequence for life success. A clear example comes from the results of the International Assessment of Adult Literacy (IALS) (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Ministry of Industry, Canada, 2000) that show consistently strong positive relationships between levels of literacy to employment status and to earnings.
Research topic – an example
USAIrelandGermanyCanada
COUNTRY$
1 & 2 3 to 5
IALS Literacy Level
50
60
70
80
90
Em
ploy
men
t Rat
e %
Document
0 1 2 3 4 5Literacy Level
Prose
LITERACY
0 1 2 3 4 5Literacy Level
Quantitative
0 1 2 3 4 5Literacy Level
1020304050607080
PR
OP
OR
TIO
N
Support for significance
Proportion of adult Canadians in top 60% of earners in Canada
Our understanding of empirical relationships between student, home and school correlates of learning outcomes is not well developed. There is a dearth of meaning and understanding that can be attributed to the scores and statistics in relation to educational policy and practice. To attain this we need better understandings of the relationships between achievement measures and student, home and school characteristics, identifying those characteristics that are consistently and strongly related to student achievement and are accessible to policy.
Research problem
In this internationally comparative study an HLM approach was used to investigate the relationship of student SES to mathematics achievement from an international perspective using data from the PISA 2003 program that assessed mathematics achievement in 41 countries (OECD, 2003a).
In addition the effects of selected school characteristics were explored using the multilevel modeling analyses to evaluate the extent to which they modulate what could be termed the inequity of SES effects on student achievement.
Research purpose
Research questions
What is the relationship of socio-economic status to mathematics literacy achievement across the 41 countries participating in PISA 2003 ?
Do the selected school traits* influence:
• Mathematics literacy achievement ?
• The SES / Mathematics relationship ?
* school size* ratio of teachers to students* quality of educational resources* student morale* number of assessments per year in the school* ability grouping of students