I. Course: ELFN 7773, Advanced Educational Research

Instructor: Dan Cline
Internet site for courses:
http://mutans.astate.edu/dcline/index.html
and http://www.clt.astate.edu/dcline/index.html (a backup mirror site)
email: mailto:dcline@cox-internet.com?cc=dhc@astate.edu (double post)
Phone: 870.972.3943; fax 870.972.3945

Note: Always look for links to supporting documents in the text of any pages you visit on this site.

II. Text

A. Primary Text

Gall, M., Borg, W.. & Gall, J. (2003). Educational Research: An Introduction (Seventh Edition). Pearson Education, Inc. (Allyn and Bacon).

B. Supplemental Texts

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.(5th Ed.) Washington, DC: APA.

Cline, D. (1993; 1994; 99). A Writer's Guide to Research and Development Proposals. Jonesboro, AR: Arkansas State University.

    The purpose of this course is to acquaint the student with the principles of educational research, to enhance the student's development as a critical consumer of research reports, and to prepare the student to conduct educational research investigations.

IV Specific Objectives: Students will be able to:

1. understand and apply the methodologies of inquiry in the social sciences;

2. understand and articulate the relative merit of various forms of inquiry;

3. conduct a literature search and critically evaluate extant research for conceptual and methodological strength and applicability to the resolution of particular problems of interest in the field;

4. conceptualize and formulate a research problem of personal interest, relate the problem to the context of professional practice and line of inquiry in which it resides, and develop appropriate procedures for carrying out the inquiry;

5. distinguish between and choose appropriately from among various data gathering, management and analysis techniques for operationalizing a research project and/or for program planning and evaluation.

    Student performance will be evaluated for quality of work and for preparedness for and participation in class sessions. The major written assignment is a completed proposal, in three sections, for a project of inquiry into a significant research problem of interest to the student. Adequate proposals will reflect mastery of course concepts and material, ability to think critically about a significant problem or issue in the field, and ability to apply appropriate methods in developing a workable plan for addressing the problem or issue. The proposal should be around 20 pages in length. The format for the proposal is outlined in another document. Go here for a copy or click the button in the schedule.

1. Statement of the Problem
2. Theoretical or Logical Structures (the basic design goes under procedures)
3. Limitations, Delimitations
4. Review of Related Research
5. Objectives
6. Hypotheses and/or Questions
7. Procedures

Note: this is not the final order and structure of the proposal. Parts get developed in this order but get moved in the final version.

    The research proposal, in the conventional mode of inquiry, will follow roughly this format with a section devoted to each area. Several class sessions will be devoted to discussion of each section with step-by-step analysis drawing from examples of proposal sections written by advanced students and university faculty. After each section is reviewed by the instructor, students will have an opportunity to make revisions if warranted. As each section is submitted, it should be attached to previous sections revised as appropriate until ultimately an intact proposal is developed.

Note that a rubric is used to score the proposal. It can be used as a guide for what should be included in the proposal.  A model of a research report can be found here.  An example of a proposal completed for this class can be found here.

Student seminars: each student will conduct a seminar on a significant topic in research methdology. That topic can be taken from the following brief list or can be another of special interest to the student, as long as it's of central importance to research methods. The scoring rubric should be consulted for expectations.

--Correlational research

--Experimental research & quasi-experimental design

--Descriptive and causal-comparative research

--Case study research

--Historical research

--Evaluation research

--Action research

--Ethics in research

--Sources of invalidity in quantitative and qualitative research

--Survey research, types of survey research, limitations of survey research

--Dillman's total design method

--Issues in sample selection, problems of validity, approaches to sampling

--Measurement in social research, scaling techniques, adaptation of existing scales. Measures of personality, social & psychological attitudes, aptitude, values etc. Sources for finding existing scales. Semantic differential, Thurstone scaling, Gutman & Likert scaling.

--Questionnaire and survey construction, face & construct validity, item writing rules, analyzing the open ended questions

--Presentation of data and research findings. Methods of format and style in tables and figures by type of analysis

--Delphi, modified Delphi, focus groups, interviews and data analysis.

--Other...

Presentation of research topics. Students will search out, summarize and present (orally and in writing) two research topics. These are examples taken from the literature. The main interest here is in how the topics were described or presented.

Presentation of a complete study. This is a complete description and critical evaluation of a study reported in the literature. Some guidelines for writing these can be found here.

Points toward grade
 

Grades: A = 90%; B = 80-89 %; C = less than 80 %

     Written assignments should follow the standards in the field as established by the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Ed., 2001.

No class July 22 Note: There are no dates as yet
Date	Topic/Activity	Readings, Assignments
	Course overview, introductions Content & format of research proposals	Syllabus, supplementary materials through the course website, proposal format
	Research topic #1	Start your readings with chapters 1-4 in Gall, Borg & Gall (GBG)
	Research topic #2 Elements of problems statements	Problem statement guidelines Problem examples Forms of problem statements
	More on problem statements Theoretical frameworks Bibliographic Retrieval	Examples from the literature Guide, section 2 presentation
	Theoretical Framework (cont.)
Note: each seminar instructor is responsible for distributing an advance sheet and relevant background reading assignments, other than those listed here, one week in advance. All members are expected to be prepared and to engage in dialogue on the topic
	Seminar, Sampling (logic, techniques, mistakes, issues)	GBG Chap 6 Problem statements due
	Seminar, historical research	GBG Chap 16
	Seminar, case study research	GBG Chap 14
	Seminar, Experimental and quasi-experimental research	GBG Chap 12-13
	Seminar, Correlational research	GBG Chap 11
	Seminar, Descriptive and causal comparative research	GBG Chap 10 Article on new classification for nonexperimental research This is in PDF format (need Acrobat reader)
	Seminar, survey research	GBG Chap 8
	Seminar, Measurement in social research	GBG Chap 7 (measurement devices) GBG Chap 5 (statistical techniques) Stats4designs
	Seminar, Dillman's total design method in survey research	handouts
	Research proposals due
	final exam