The purpose of this introductory course is to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and
attitudes necessary to become competent consumers and/or producers of educational research.
Specifically, by the end of this course, students will:
- develop an appreciation for research as a way of knowing
- recognize that there are a variety of legitimate approaches to the conduct of educational
research
- develop a set of criteria against which to critically assess the quality of educational research
- acquire or refine library skills including CD-ROM and on-line searches and the use of
source, author, and citation indexes
- recognize that any research necessarily raises ethical, political, and social issues
- acquire a basic repertoire of practical research techniques
- recognize that undertaking a research project requires particular organizational skills and
writing strategies
- be able to choose from a range of research strategies the most appropriate design for any
particular research question
and, depending on assignment options chosen,
- identify a question of personal relevance that can be answered through research
- design an action research study that could be undertaken in their own classroom or work
setting that would have immediate applicability to their own situation
- develop a research proposal using a standard format suitable for thesis, project, grant, and
leave proposals
- develop a deeper understanding of at least one issue related to educational research
Note that as an introductory survey course, Ed 5400 is intended to provide only a broad overview of the range of research traditions, strategies, and techniques currently represented in education. Students wishing to pursue their own research project or thesis will need to explore their chosen methodology in much greater depth than can be addressed in this course.
Topic 1. Introduction to Ed 5400 and Culminating Options
Selecting and Defining a Research Problem
Library Search Techniques
Research Ethics (Faculty procedures)
Readings*
Chapter 6 in Research Decisions text
Chapters 2, 4 (pp.85-90) and 8 in Action Research text
Topic 2. Historical Overview of Science, Research, and Inquiry in Education
Topic 3 Interview Strategy and Techniques
Readings*
Chapter 8 to page 166 Research Decisions text
Chapter 3 (pp.55-57) in Action Research text
Topic 4 Survey Design and Sampling
Readings*
Chapter 7, chapter 8 from pp. 166-190 Research Decisions
Chapter 3 (pp. 58-61) in Action Research text
Topic 5 Research Effects and Experimental Design
Readings*
Chapters 11-12 in Research Decisions text
Chapter 4 (pp.69-85) in Action Research text
Topic 6 Qualitative Methodologies
Participant and non-participant observation
Informant interview
Narrative research and autobiography
Readings*
Chapters 9 -10, 13 Research Decisions text
Chapter 3 (pp.43-54,61-67) & Chapters 5 & 9
in Action Research
Topic 7 Writing the Research Report
Strategies for dealing with sustained writing tasks
Dealing with writer's block
Readings*
Chapters 6 and 7 in Action Research text
*Read one or both of these texts, plus all supplementary readings on course web site.
There are two recommended texts for this course. You may buy either or both of these texts:
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Research Decisions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives (second Edition) by Ted Palys. Harcourt Brace, Canada, 1997. 456pp ISBN 0-7747-3383-7
If you are planning to do a thesis or to go on to a Ph.D., the Research Decisions text is strongly recommended. It provides the better overview of the range of research traditions and approaches available. You must also use this text if you select the examination option in this course. Note that chapters 14-16 (on statistical analysis) are not included in this course.
See http://www.sfu.ca/~palys/resdec.htm for a preview of this text.
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Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher by Geoffery E. Mills, (Merrill Books/Prentice Hall, 2000. 184pp ISBN 0-13-772047-5.).
If you have already decided to do a project using action research, the Action Research:A Guide for the Teacher Researcher is a suitable choice. It provides the better overview of action research as practiced in education circles, but obviously lacks the depth of the Palys text.
See http://open.k12.or.us/arowhelp/index.html for the author's links.
Other Resources
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Course Web Site:
http://www.edu.uleth.ca/Courses/5400/sec_N contains supplementary
course readings and class handouts that should be accessed and read
before each class.
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You should also consider purchasing The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th edition. Washington: American Psychological Association, 2001. 400 pp.
ISBN 1-55798-791-2 soft cover, available in UofL
Bookstore; or
ISBN 1-55798-810-2 spiral-bound;
or
ISBN 1-55798-790-4 hardcover.
(See APA web site: http://www.apa.org/books/4200061.html for format options.
All projects, theses and comprehensive examinations in the Faculty of
Education must use APA format.
See also
http://www.edu.uleth.ca/masters/public.shtml for Faculty
of Education Guidelines and http://www.apastyle.org/ for more on APA style.
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Please note that given the sweeping mandate of this introductory core course, it is not possible to cover topics in sufficient depth in the limited class time available to successfully master course material without significant supplementary reading.
To accommodate the variety of individual goals in undertaking the Masters program, there are three possible culminating options available in the Faculty of Education: thesis, project and comprehensive examination. To ensure that assignments in this course correspond closely to both learner needs and their chosen culminating activity, there are three assignment options.
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Thesis Route |
Project Route
(Default) |
Examination Route |
Due on
or before: |
Weighting |
| Research Question |
Research Question |
Inquiry Question |
Sept. 26 |
Ungraded |
| Library Assignment (all students) |
Oct. 17 |
15% |
| Interview, Survey or etc.
|
Inquiry Product |
Nov. 14 |
40% | |
Thesis Proposal |
Project Proposal |
no assignment due |
Nov. 28 |
45% |
| no exam, no class Dec 5 |
Course Examination |
Dec. 5 |
Note that collaborations are permitted, should two or more persons be interested in the same topic, provided that collaborators are prepared to contribute equally and accept the same grades on shared assignments.
Thesis and Project Routes
The basic assignment in this course for thesis and project students is to develop a research proposal. Successful completion of a draft proposal in this course may be a significant step towards successful completion of one's project or thesis.
Research Question Assignment:
Preliminary Statement of Research Problem
Due September 26, 2002 (Usually between 1 and 3 pages) Weighting = Ungraded
Write a brief statement of the research question you intend to pursue in this course*.
Select a topic and develop a researchable question. Define all the terms in your
research question. Use "operational" definitions, as discussed in class. Identify the
population you would have to access to conduct this research. Explain how you will be
able to access this population (i.e., indicated that your study is feasible). Justify your
selection of this research question using one or more of the criteria developed in class
(i.e., explain why the proposed study would be desirable). Why you are interested in
this question? Are your results likely to be of interest to other teachers or researchers?
What are the potential benefits of your research? (Consider both short and long term
benefits, where applicable.)
*Note: Your initial statement of the problem is very likely to change as you progress through this course.
Note also that your choice of a topic for this assignment need not become the topic for
your actual project or thesis - your views and interests may well change in response to
subsequent courses (which is, after all, rather the point of taking the Masters program.)
Library Assignment:
Internet/CD-ROM/citation index search of preliminary sources
Due Oct 17, 2002 Weighting = 15%
Choose the appropriate data base(s), identify the appropriate descriptors using the data base
thesaurus (where applicable), and design a search strategy to access publications on your
topic. Be sure to indicate how and why you identified the key terms you used, and the fields
you searched. Explain how and why you expanded or limited your search using Boolean
logic. Identify potential limitations, sources of error, or omissions arising from your search
strategy (if any) and suggest possible remedies. Explain how one knows when one is done.
Using your search strategy, identify at least three sources that may be useful to your study.
Identify whether the items selected are primary or secondary sources, and whether the
information presented is based on research, scholarship, or opinion. For example, identify
whether the source is peer reviewed; edited by a recognized scholar; an unrefereed
conference presentation; a professional, practitioner, or trade publication; or self-published
report or web page. Finally, analyze the relevance of the source for your own study. For
example, is the context (urban/rural community, school size, gender, ethnicity, subject major,
etc.) comparable to your own classroom situation? Is the timeframe sufficiently recent? Is the
focus of the study sufficiently close to your own question to be clearly relevant?
At least one of the sources presented must be from a scholarly publication (i.e., refereed journal).
Research Proposal
Due November 28, 2002 Weighting = 45%
1. Building on the first (ungraded) assignment, begin your proposal by stating the research
problem. (Feel free to revise that initial statement in light of your library search results, etc.)
Again, ensure that you have a researchable question, not just a vague topic. Provide
operational definitions for all the terms in your research question. Identify the population
you would have to access to conduct this research and explain how you expect to be able
to access this population (i.e., indicated that your study is feasible). Justify your selection
of this research question using one or more of the criteria developed in class (i.e., explain
why this study is desirable). What are the potential benefits of your research? (Consider
both short and long term benefits, where applicable.) Are your results likely to be of
interest to other teachers or researchers?
2. Building on the information (e.g., titles, abstracts, full-text articles where available) obtained
in your library search, block out a literature review outline.
There are a number of possible approaches one could take (as discussed in class), but in
every case the objective is to build an argument that explicitly links the literature
reviewed to the question, problem, or hypothesis one wishes to address.
The most common approach is to indicate the major themes or issues being debated in
the literature (citing specific examples from the literature to document this analysis), and
how your (revised) research question fits into this debate. Provide enough detail on the
research you cite (location, sample size, methodology, etc.) so that the reader has
sufficient information to decide if that study's conclusions do in fact apply in the way
suggested. (Or, use these same factors to refute those studies that disagree with your
approach.) Again, you may need to refine your research question and rationale in light of
your literature review.
Alternatively, rather than reviewing all the literature within a particular field, you may
wish to locate your work within the body of literature of a particular group, approach, or
"school" (e.g., what do proponents of "anti-racist education" or "critical pedagogy" have
to say about this issue, and where do you fit in). Or, you may wish to focus in even more
specifically on the ideas of a particular author (e.g., Gardner's seven intelligences) and
review the evolution of the author's current views, his/her current standing in the field
(i.e., what other reviewers have said about these concepts) and locate your own study in
relation to this work.
Another alternative might be to explain the evolution of one's own thinking on a subject,
citing the relevant literature as an argument is developed (though this option presupposes
significant consideration of the topic prior to beginning this course).
For students adopting a narrative or pure phenomenological approach, it may be
appropriate in some cases to deemphasize the literature review portion of the proposal. In
such cases, the methodological section is correspondingly expanded.
3. Building on the course readings, field assignment (where applicable), and your own
supplementary reading, block out the methodology section.
Select the research tradition, strategies, and techniques most appropriate for your
particular research question, and provide a rationale for your choices. Describe the
procedures you intend to follow in sufficient depth that your plan can be reviewed or
replicated. Demonstrate your familiarity with the methodological literature. Identify
potential problems with your chosen methodology when applied to your question,
and how you propose to overcome or minimize these issues in your study. Provide
evidence that you have some mastery of the technique(s) you intend to employ; e.g.,
if planning on a survey, provide a draft survey. (Although most students will find it
useful to refer to the materials they developed for their field assignment here, you
may submit new material if you wish -- e.g., submit a survey for this assignment after
doing an interview for the field assignment.) Similarly, if planning to use a narrative
approach, provide a review of narrative research in education. And so on.
Note that you are expected to undertake additional reading to supplement the
information in the course lecture and/or textbook(s) to complete this assignment.
Thesis proposals tend to be significantly longer and more comprehensive then project proposals.
For the purposes of this assignment, project proposals are expected to be 8-10 pages long, and
relatively polished (final draft); thesis proposals are likely significantly longer - 15 to 30 pages -
but may be correspondingly more of a 'rough draft'. (Thesis students later in their program will
be expected to have more complete drafts than those just beginning.)
Field Assignment:
Due November 14, 2002 Weighting: 40%
The field assignment allows students to pilot the technique they propose to use in their
project or thesis. If your proposal calls for interviews, conduct a practice interview. If you
are proposing to do a survey, draft a survey. If you want to use narrative, write a sample
narrative. And so on. You must discuss your proposed field assignment with the instructor
and receive written approval prior to beginning work. This allows the instructor to provide
the appropriate scoring criteria for your version of the assignment, and to ensure that all
ethical concerns related to research on human beings have been addressed. Failure to obtain
prior approval could jeopardize your grade on this assignment.
Most students in the past have chosen either to complete an interview or to design a survey
as their field assignment, so these scoring criteria are included in the course outline below
and indicate the general level of effort and complexity expected in this assignment.
Option 1: Practice Interview
- Conduct an in-depth interview with someone who is generally knowledgeable about your
proposal topic. [You may use a classmate or acquaintance. As this will be a learning
experience, you should avoid interviewing for this practice exercise anyone you may wish to
include as an informant in your actual project research.
- Type a partial transcript of the interview consisting of:
- ALL of the questions and comments uttered by the interviewer, and
- one section of approximately 5 minutes verbatim (Use the counter
location to show where the transcribed portion may be found on the tape).
- Write a report that includes:
- the interview blueprint (i.e., interview guide mapped onto theoretical concepts)
- the interview guide (i.e., planned list of questions / probes)
- the rationale for selecting the interviewee
- the letter of consent
- the appropriateness of the setting for the interview
- how you introduced the purpose of the interview, the study, and the issue of
confidentiality to the interviewee
- the rapport established between yourself and the interviewee
- the rationale for selecting transcript format and coding you used
- the types of questions you asked and comments you made (i.e., analyze the transcript
of your questions and comments by labeling probe types, leading questions, problems
etc in pen/pencil right on the transcript)
- your performance as an interviewer (based at least partly on "h" above)
- your impressions of how well (or how poorly) the interview went
- what information you gained
- potential sources of bias or error in the interview (refer to "h" above)
- questions or areas that should be pursued in future interviews in this study
- what, if anything, would you do differently in terms of interview technique in future
Option 2: Survey Design
- Provide a detailed survey blueprint
- Discuss how survey sample is to be selected, and how you expect to gain access to this
sample population.
- Indicate how the purpose of the survey, the study, and the issue of confidentiality will be
introduced to respondents
- Provide copies of the draft survey, cover letter (if any), and permission letters (if any)
- Ensure that draft questions are worded appropriately
- Ensure that balance between open-ended and closed forms is appropriate
- Ensure that information to be solicited corresponds to research hypothesis
- Organize the questions on the survey correctly
- Develop an appropriate graphic design
- Design the statistical analysis
- indicate what techniques you intend to use
- develop the tables to display information to be collected
- indicate how results will be used, inferences to be drawn, etc.
- Indicate how open-ended questions are to be coded or analyzed
- Discuss potential sources of bias or error in the survey and how you intend to address these
issues in your study
Option 3: "Other"
Students may propose any other appropriate methodology and negotiate scoring criteria with
the instructor for this assignment, provided approval is obtained before any work is done on
the assignment. Failure to obtain prior written approval may jeopardize your grade in this
assignment.
For all assignments, the listed criteria indicate the minimum content requirements, but it is not
necessary to organize the assignment by these headings. You are invited to develop an
integrated, smoothly flowing proposal/report, so long as the required elements are included.
Point form is acceptable for the library research assignment, but the proposal and field
assignment reports should be in essay style.
Given the close connection between thought and expression, you will also be evaluated on the
quality and clarity of your written expression, in addition to the content criteria listed above. You
are advised to adopt a clear, concise style and to avoid "academese" - that is, to avoid inflated
diction, unnecessarily complex sentence structure, or an obtuse style - in your proposal.
Examination Route
For those who have little interest in becoming researchers themselves, and who have already
decided to opt for the comprehensive examination as their culminating activity, the development
of a research proposal and the acquisition of specific research skills may seem redundant.
Consequently, these students have the option of replacing these assignments with an inquiry
project and course examination. Here the focus is on understanding the research paradigms that
underlie educational theory and debate, and in becoming a critical consumer of research.
Inquiry Question
Due September 26, 2001 Weighting = Ungraded
Choose a topic related to some aspect of this course that you would be interested in learning more about, and formulate a question to guide your inquiry. Examples of potentially interesting
inquiries might include:
- What are the limitations of research as a way of knowing?
- What is positivism? (Or ethnography, or creative documentary, or etc.)
- What is the role of the educator in educational research? Of the student? Parents?
- What are the criteria for evaluating whether a piece of research is relevant for my
community, school or class?
- How have electronic media changed research technique? (e.g., web-based surveys, or on-line search engines)
- What are the limitations/biases of on-line search engines?
- What are the criteria for evaluating research web pages and e-journals?
- How is research published? or How effective is the refereeing process?
- Is there currently a gender (or urban or class or ethnic) bias in educational research?
- How and why did Canadian ethical guidelines for educational research come about? How strong / effective are they?
- How common is fraud in scientific studies?
- Should a research component be required for a Master of Education degree?
Having identified a topic of personal interest, propose a learning contract in which you state what inquiry product you intend to produce (see below) and your proposed scoring criteria. The learning contract is due Sept 26, but you may wish to explore/negotiate possibilities with the instructor prior to the due date.
Library Assignment:
Internet/CD-ROM/citation index search of preliminary sources
Due Oct 17, 2002 weighting 10%
Since library skills are basic to successful completion of the Masters program, this assignment is
the same for all students. See the description under Thesis and Proposal route above for scoring
criteria.
Inquiry Project
Due November 14
Develop an inquiry product that addresses the question posed in the first (ungraded) assignment.
Inquiry products may be a traditional position paper, a PowerPoint presentation, a WebCT module or web page, a convention workshop or presentation, a poster session, a comprehensive class handout, an annotated bibliography, a learning log or journal, a mosaic, short story, satire, or other product of personal relevance related to course goals.
Given the very broad parameters of this assignment, students need to get approval for their
project and negotiate scoring criteria with the instructor prior to beginning work. The learning
contract for the Inquiry Project is due Sept 26
Again note that collaborative efforts are welcomed, provided every contributor is acknowledged,
the work/learning is divided equally among collaborating class members, and collaborators are
all prepared to share responsibility for the end product (i.e., accept the same grade). Outside help
(e.g., with web design) is acceptable, provided that the extent of this assistance is clearly stated
so that this contribution may be removed from consideration during grading.
Students are encouraged, but not required, to select an inquiry product that may be of use to their peers in this or subsequent Ed 5400 classes. For example, a first rate paper on web based questionnaires might be adopted as a course reading or serve as a useful referent for colleagues
contemplating the use of this emergent technique. On the other hand, it is perfectly acceptable to focus on a question of purely personal interest (within the goals of the course).
Course Examination
6-9 PM December 5 Weighting 45%
The course examination will consist of both multiple-choice and written response questions and will cover material presented in course lectures, the Paly's text, assigned supplementary readings, and the APA manual.
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Dr. Robert Runté 