Sunday, 11 May 2014

How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education by Fraenkel/Wallen and Hyun

The reference that is suggested by our lecturer, Dr. Teoh for this course is How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education by Fraenkel, Wallen and Hyun. It is a very comprehensive book and I would like to share my short notes that I did with u throughout my reading...

The nature of research

-Why do we need to do research? basically whenever we wonder about something, and we want to know more about it, we can actually run a research to get a clear answer. Why do we need to do it ourselves?. Because if we only rely on what we have today, there's a possibility that even experts may be mistaken source, document may contain no insights of values, colleagues may have no experience in the matter, one’s own experience or intuition may be irrelevant or misunderstood.

-For accurate and reliable information we need to do a scientific research.

-If we are wondering about something, or something has been bothering us, and we decided to a lil' bit of research. Here are the steps that we can take;-

 Identify the problem
Define more precisely of the problem
Determine what kinds of information would solve the problem
How we organize the information that we obtain
Analyze the information

Types of research

-there are quite a number of types of research, and I really have problem in memorizing all of them. Before that, research is defined as any sort of careful systematic patient study and investigation in some field of knowledge. We have heard of basic research right? Basic research is to clarify underlying process with the hypothesis usually expressed as a theory. While applied research is to examine the effectiveness  of particular educational practices.

We also have heard the term quantitative and qualitative.

-Quantitative derived from the word quantity so it involve numbers and fact and feeling can be separated, it is to seek establish relationships between variables while qualitative derived from the word quality involve words  and the world is made up of multiple realities and more concerned with understanding situations and viewpoints of the participants.

Researcher role for quanti is as detached observer; experiment, generalize

For quali , researcher tend to become immersed, ethnography , no generalize, leave to  readers to assess


Types of experimental research

 -Experimental research – effectiveness 
Strategies independent variable, scores dependent variables, age ability, level, material,  teacher characteristics extraneous variables.

 -Single subject research – intensive study  of a single individual/ single group of special characteristics.

      - Correlational research-determine relationships among two or more variables and to explore their implications for cause and effect. (to make more intelligent prediction). also to investigate  the extent to which one or more relationships of some type exist.

Causal comparative research
 -Determine the cause for or the consequences of differences between groups of people
 -Determine whether  students from single –parent families do more poorly in her course than students from two parent families.
 -Interpretations are limited
 -Only identifying possible causes

-The difference between correlational and causal comparative is

Correlational – 2 or more variables in 1 group, scatter plot or correlational coefficient

Causal – 1 variable tested in two groups, compare average use cross break tables


Survey research
Uses questionnaire or ability test, ask the same set of question to large number or people
Crosssectional servey (one time) longitudinal serveys (information collected at different times)

Difficulties
1)make sure the questions are clear and not misleading
2)respondents answer thoughtfully and honestly
3)sufficient number of questionnaire completed and returned

Interviews are better (greater confidence in response, in depth, follow up questions can be asked)

Ethnographic research
get a more complete picture of educational process
qualitative
documenting or portraying  the everyday experiences by observing and interviewing them

other examples of qualitative research are-ethnographic, biography, phenomenal, case study (mixed method) , grounded theory

       historical research
aspect of the past is studied, by overusing document and interviewing individuals who lived during that time.

Action research
Generalization is minimal importance
Get information that will enable them to change conditions in a particular situation.

Evaluation research
Formative -  to improve the object being evaluated needs assessment report
Summative – examine the effects or outcomes. outcome or impact evaluations.

General research types are:-
1.       Descriptive studies
Most common is survey (researchers summarizes the characteristics)
Other – ethnographic, historical

Identifying/describing
2.       Associational research – research that investigates relationship
e.g correlational and causal comparative (between groups of people)

3.       Intervention studies
Particular method or treatment is expected to influence one or more outcomes.

4.       Meta analysis
Attempt to reduce the limitations of individual studies by trying to locate all of the studies on a particular topic and then using statistical means to synthesize the results of these studies.

The research process
1.       Research problem
2.       Hypotheses or questions
3.       Definitions
4.       Lit. Review
5.       Sample
6.       Instrumentations
7.       Procedures/design
8.       Data analysis


Research problem

Characteristics of good research question
1.       Feasible
2.       Clear
3.       Significant
4.       Ethical

There you go....sorry if my notes are a lil bit jumbled up....i just write whatever that I think is significant and easy for me to remember. Till then, c'ya!


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