Library Lessons This Week

The lessons for this week are defining research, the processes it entails, and the approaches used.  We will begin by reviewing our main text (Creswell) for this course and reading the first 2 chapters.  As an introduction to this week's events, I would like to make a few initial points. 

• Regardless of the topic of research, the process of research is the same.  The process of research also takes a great deal of planning and design for it to be successful.  Throughout this course you will be introduced to the process of planning and designing research in hopes that you will be able to prepare a research proposal appropriate to conduct educational research in your field of study (more on the research proposal project next week). Chapter 1 provides an excellent overview of this process of planning and design as a foreshadowing of the many chapters to come.  Do not get anxious if you feel the first chapters are overwhelming.  The author is providing you with the big picture.  One that he will carefully detail in future chapters.
• The text could almost serve as a do-it-yourself, understand-it-yourself manual for planning and designing research.  While I believe the text is excellent, I would be remiss if I did not strongly believe that the activities and discussions we complete within this course will assist you in clarifying the planning and design process and applying this process to the development of your own research proposal.
• I hope that as you continue through this course you will see the process you learn as more than just an academic requirement you complete in order to graduate.  In order to be successful in your future careers it is likely that many of you will be required to either be an analytical consumer of research or conduct formal research (and often both).  Knowledge of the process for planning and design will always be a critical component of successful research.

As you progress through the Library Lessons this week I hope that you will notice that each set of activities asks you to approach the task of reading and analyzing research with a bit more sophistication than the previous activity.  All of the activities emphasize the main topics within the first two chapters and should reinforce your understanding of the process of research and research approaches. You will need to become a sophisticated consumer of research quickly in this course so that you can move into the roles of planner, designer, and producer of research before your visits at the Library come to a close. The lessons this week should assist you in this endeavor.

Lesson 1

Research is the systematic process of collecting and analyzing information to increase our understanding of the phenomenon under study. It is the function of the researcher to intentionally enhance the understanding of the phenomenon and to communicate that understanding to others.  Many use the term research  loosely in everyday conversation which causes confusion when students enter a formal course on the topic of research. Another text on research, Practical Research, by Leedy and Ormrod, makes a point about what research is by first discussing what research is NOT.  These points may help you as you begin to think about what research IS.

1. Research is not mere information gathering. Many of us may offhandedly say that we are going to the library to do some research.  Most likely we are actually going to get information or collect facts of some sort.  This may be information discovery but it is not research.
2. Research is not mere transportation of facts from one location to another. Given that all of you are in a graduate program I hope I can safely say that everyone has probably completed a "research paper" on some topic in your recent or distant past.  Although you likely went through several activities associated with formal research, such as collecting data and referencing authors, these activities do not complete the entire research process. While you are closer to genuine research than if you simply went to the library to "do some research," the mere compilation of facts of others' research efforts is not formal research. A portion of your research proposal in this course will involve a review of the research literature on your topic.  When you write this section you will indeed gather information and read and evaluate published research, but this activity in itself is not research.  A review of the literature, however, is often a first step in defining a plan for your own research.
3. Research is not merely rummaging for information. How many of you have decided to buy a new technology gadget (computer, printer, scanner, etc.), a new car, or some other high cost item and have said to yourself, "I need to do some research on that before I purchase."  What you likely mean is you need to gather information on the different brands and models, their capabilities and price, and maybe read some reviews before you make your final decision. This is simple rummaging for information and is not formal research.
4. Research is not a catchword used to get attention.  How many of you have been channel surfing late at night only to find station after station of infomercials for a variety of products.  If you sit and listen to one long enough you are very likely to hear a sentence that begins with, "Years of research have proven that X product will..." In addition they will likely follow with a series of personal testaments to the wonder of the product. The phrase catches your attention but may or may not be true.  Simply because a few people testify what a product did for them does not mean there has ever been formal research conducted on the product.

Chapter One describes the cyclical nature of the research process and then details 6 steps. All of these steps in the research process will be explored in greater detail in subsequent chapters. Regardless of the research strategy used, one must first identify the research problem. In other words, what needs to be studied and why? Next, it is important to know what other research has been conducted in this area. The literature review will be conducted through university libraries and various databases. The purpose for research must also be specified. In other words, what is the goal and intention of this study? The researcher needs to specify a strategy for collecting data. Then, after the data have been collected, the researcher needs to organize, analyze, code, and interpret the data. Finally, the results of the research need to be written up for dissemination, and the audience of the written report will need to evaluate its quality in the context of similar and related research. The process is more cyclical than linear because at times several steps are ongoing.

Before you jump head first into deciding what research to conduct, you need to consider your own research problem and the questions that you most need answered.  For example, a teacher may want to introduce more project-based science into her elementary classroom. The next step would be to identify what research has been conducted in this area. Previous research may have explored the role of instructional technology and the Internet to give students access to a larger array of scientific phenomena. This research has studied student achievement and interest in science. Other research may have explored the role of collaborative learning and scaffolded pedagogy on interest in science, particularly among females and minorities. The teacher will need to decide which line of research will be most helpful to her based on her needs, her strengths as a teacher, and her district and student characteristics. One particular research study will rarely study all facets of a specific research problem.  Many often try to focus on too many questions.  As you begin thinking about a research problem you may want to investigate for your course project, try to narrow in on a specific line of research.

Lesson Activities

• Complete the self check quiz for Chapter One in Creswell.  You may go directly into elearning.uwf.edu or read the directions first. You have 80 minutes to complete the quiz.
• Read the 2 articles the author provides in your text between Chapters One and Two.  Note the margin notes that identify where each step in the research process is addressed. One article uses a quantitative approach and one article uses a qualitative approach. Try to notice the differences in approaches yet the similarities of the processes used.
• Read the following qualitative research article: Parents who abduct: A qualitative study with implications for practice (727 KB PDF File).  As you read, try to identify the steps in the research process outlined in Chapter One.  Make notes in the margin, if you print it out, noting where each step in the process is present in the article. Once you have finished reading the article login to elearning and complete the Quality Ratings Survey for this article based on your analysis of the steps of the research process addressed in the article.  At the end of the week you will be able to see the results of the survey and see how everyone as a group rated the article.

Lesson 2

In Chapter Two, Creswell introduces us to the two basic approaches researchers take when planning, designing, and conducting research.  These two approaches are identified as qualitative or quantitative.  After a brief history lesson on the development of each approach, our author uses the framework used in the previous chapter (and reinforces our understanding of it) to distinguish between the two approaches by reviewing each step of the research process and outlining how each approach is similar and different. 

A researcher using qualitative methods will focus more on a description of the "central phenomenon," whereas a quantitative researcher will focus more on a description of the trends and relationships among the variables. Reviewing the literature is sometimes more important in a quantitative study than in a qualitative study (don't jump on this one statement and think that if you choose to use a qualitative approach that it will eliminate you from conducting a literature review in this course - no such luck :-). In specifying the purpose of the research, quantitative research is more specific and narrow in its specification, with clear description of measurement techniques. Data collection techniques for quantitative research involve collection via surveys and other quantitative techniques with large samples of participants. Qualitative research collects rich and in-depth data via interviews, observations, and focus groups from a small sample. Data analysis for qualitative researchers involves activities such as thematic development and textual analysis. Data analysis for quantitative researchers uses statistical techniques and comparisons among variables and groups. The strategy for report writing is more flexible and personalized in qualitative research and more formal, structured, and objective in quantitative research. Figure 2.2 on page 51 provides an excellent summary of these main points. In addition, this section of Chapter Two should also reinforce the concept that the process of research is the same for both approaches while the strategies they utilize within each step of that process differs.

The next section of the chapter introduces the concept of research designs.  Creswell defines research design as the procedures for collecting, analyzing, and reporting research. There are a variety of research designs that utilize either a quantitative or qualitative approach or combine the two. I would like to make sure that everyone understands the important distinction between the research approach you use and the research design you use.  I cannot tell you how many students new to research, when asked, "What research design do you plan to use," will answer either 'qualitative' or 'quantitative' instead of answering it more accurately (and specifically) with the actual research design chosen for the study.  Figure 2.3 on page 52 of your text summarizes the types of research designs that our text will elaborate on in future chapters and organizes them under which approach to research is being utilized.  While there are many other designs possible, I think you will find these research designs are a good sample of the more common designs in the social sciences.

Lesson Activities

• Complete the self check quiz for Chapter Two in Creswell. You may go directly into eLearningor read the directions first. You have 120 minutes to complete the quiz.
• Read the following qualitative research article: Parents who abduct: A qualitative study with implications for practice (727 KB PDF File). [NOTICE: This is the same article you read in Lesson 1.] Once you have read the article consider the following questions:
  • What reason is given for using qualitative interviews? Do you agree with the authors' decision to conduct a qualitative instead of a quantitative study of this topic?  Why? Why not?
  • In their presentation of the findings, the authors stress the results of the interviews instead of the results obtained by using the standardized scales.  Do you think this was a good decision?  Why?
  • Do the quotations of subjects' responses help you understand the findings? Would you like to see a larger or smaller number of quotations?
  • If you had major funding to do additional research on this topic, what changes would you make in the research methodology
• After careful consideration of the questions above, participate in this threaded discussion by choosing at least 2 of the questions and providing us with your answers/ideas. You may choose to post twice (one for each question) or post once with the 2 questions you chose answered in a single post.

Lesson 3

The major project you will be working on throughout this course will be a research proposal.  We will discuss this project in more detail next week.  The research proposal is an opportunity for you to plan and design an empirical investigation of a topic of interest to you and also related to your field of study.  Your interest may be generated from personal or work experiences, such as a learning problem you have encountered or a learning situation in which you have been involved and about which you wished you had more information.

Once you decide on your topic you will begin to identify and analyze empirical, refereed research articles on your topic.  As a precursor to this requirement, your final Library Lesson this week should provide you with the knowledge and capability to begin identifying and analyzing empirical, refereed research.

Empirical research could be explained as a systematic intentional inquiry involving collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. The data collected may be qualitative or quantitative. Some examples of empirical research would be:

• a true experiment in which hypotheses are proposed, variables are manipulated, data is collected and analyzed, and the results are interpreted in light of theory
• research in which observations are made, recorded, and analyzed within a specified context, experiences are recorded, and reflections and interpretations are made.
• research in which a case is examined and analyzed, and explorations of relationships between cases and theories are conducted

Empirical research is not someone's "opinion" about what works or a story about how they did something. Empirical research should be based on theory but is not the sole description of a theory.

In addition to the requirement of empirical research, the articles you use should also come from refereed journals. A refereed journal is a journal in which the articles that appear were first evaluated by a panel of acknowledged experts to assure that they merit publication. The referee process (sometimes called blind review or peer review) assists journal editors in identifying quality research and research that contributes significantly to knowledge within a field. It assists you, the reader, by filtering out research that is heavily flawed in one way or another, research that is poorly written, research that does not necessarily add to our understanding of a topic. To identify whether or not a journal is refereed you can look at their submission process. This process is usually described somewhere within the journal itself and/or on their web site. If you are unsure about whether a journal is refereed you can contact me, but please investigate it on your own first. Please note that about 99% or more of what is on the web is not refereed. Therefore, articles posted to a personal web site (empirical or not) will not meet the requirement of empirical, refereed research articles. There are a few online journals that are refereed and that contain empirical research and these are acceptable, but please remember that you must have evidence that it is refereed. Some online magazines and journals you should avoid are THE Journal and ERIC documents with ED numbers.  Students often send me articles from these sources and they rarely meet the refereed and empirical requirements given the nature of the source.

Most any refereed empirical research article published in your field of study can be recognized by the components that your text suggests as steps in the research process.  Put simply, empirical research is a kind of research in which the investigator poses a question to answer and seeks to answer it by gathering and analyzing data. The data need not be numerical, nor need it be directly observed by the investigator.  They must only be products of observation.  Thus, an ethnographer who makes a written claim about some practice of a native tribe is an empirical researcher, though the claim is expressed in words.  Similarly, a physicist who measures properties of a subatomic particle he or she has never seen, and then makes a claim about that particle expressed numerically, is doing empirical research.  The important thing is that both claims can be rendered false by further research, and both claims were supported through collecting and analyzing data using accepted methodologies. The method by which they collected their data may be very different but similarities exist across the board that can help you identify empirical research.  These similarities include (1) a research problem or question, (2) a review of existing research literature on the problem or question, (3) research questions or hypotheses, (4) a research design that guides the collection and analysis of the data, (5) methods related to identifying/selecting subjects, materials and instruments to be used, and other procedures that are followed, and (6) final analysis and interpretation of the data collected and a report of the results and discussion of how the research question(s) can be answered given the data collected and analyzed. These are the key components you should be searching for when attempting to find empirical research on a topic of interest to you so you should make sure you have a good grasp on these components.

Once you find an empirical,refereed research article related to an identified research problem, the next question you need to ask yourself is  - how well was this research conducted and is it worthy of being included in a literature review of a particular research topic you may choose?  Will it assist me in better defining and directing my own research? The requirement that your article is in a refereed journal helps you in this aspect because at least you know that other scholars in the field have deemed it good enough for publication (although you may be surprised at what gets published once you analyze it carefully). However, you will still need to read it carefully to insure it fits well with your topic. Once you decide it fits with your topic, your initial job is to analyze the article and write a summary report of your impression.  Analysis of an empirical article involves more than just summarizing the contents in your own words (something everyone is usually guilty of when they first begin writing "research" papers).  Instead, it involves making a critical judgment of the quality of the research conducted and the value and application of the findings. As you read the article you will need to think critically about how well the article addresses the components mentioned above. As you do this there are some guiding questions you can ask yourself as well as jot down notes for later inclusion in your literature review. These guiding questions are:

Research problem/question:

• Is the problem an important/relevant one to your field of study?
• Will this study contribute to our understanding of the problem?
• Do they provide a good rationale for why such a study is important?

Literature review:

• Does the literature review provide definitions of the key constructs they are investigating?
• Do the authors critically evaluate the studies they review?
• Does the literature provide support that this study is needed?

Research questions/hypotheses:

• Are the questions/hypotheses clearly stated?
• Will the answer(s) to the question(s) be applicable to practice in the field?
• Will the answer(s) to the question(s) help us understand the problem better?

Research Design and Methods (components 4 and 5 combined):

• Is the sample (subjects) they used appropriate for answering the questions?
• Can you generalize findings to a larger population? Will you be able to apply their findings to similar settings?
• Were the instruments or measures they used clearly identified/explained?
• Do the authors convey clearly the procedures used for collecting and analyzing the data?

Results and Discussion:

• Are the analysis techniques they used (whether quantitative or qualitative) clearly explained?
• Do the findings they report seem plausible given the data they analyzed? Do they make sense?
• Do the conclusions they make follow logically from the data analysis findings?
• Do the conclusions they make match the questions they posed at the beginning of the article?
• Do the authors report limitations to their study?
• Do the authors provide important implications for practice?
• Do the authors make suggestions for future research in this topic?

These components and their guiding questions will be the areas on which you will concentrate when first reading empirical research articles.  You will want to summarize for yourself each of the components as stated in your article as well as provide a critical judgment of how well they communicated and conducted their research using the guiding questions.

If you are still unsure about whether or not you are able to identify empirical research I think a good litmus test is whether or not you can answer the guiding questions (positively or negatively).  If there are no subjects then it is likely not empirical.  If there are no research questions/hypotheses, then it's empirical nature is questionable.  Do you see where I am going with this? If you are having an extremely difficult time identifying empirical research then my next question would be, are you only looking online?  If the answer is yes, then the solution is find a library to go to and search there.  While some may luck out, many will have to actually go beyond what is available on your desktop or laptop.  Sometimes this will be because of the topic you choose, but mostly it will be because of the still prevalent lack of research published on the web that is both empirical and refereed. The best practice to use is to use the UWF online library which will allow access to electronic versions of many research journals that cannot be found on the open web.

However, just because it meets both criteria does not mean it will be a great article (insightful, engaging, applicable, etc.), so you can imagine how bad it can get without meeting these criteria. While it would be wonderful if you found many superbly conducted and written research articles on the specific aspect of a problem you want to investigate further - this is not likely. If there were only great articles there would be no need for close analysis.

It is important to remember that it is likely that you will find articles that are pretty poor when considering the questions above. This does not mean you should discard it for your proposal in search of the "perfect" research article. If this is your goal you have a long road ahead because, as you will soon come to find, there is almost always something to criticize within a piece of research. Reading and analyzing research (good and bad) will assist you in becoming a better consumer of research and one who can identify the horrible, to the not so great, to the okay, to the pretty good research that is out there in your field.

Lesson Activities

• Download the Guiding Questions document in Word or rtf format.  Put a copy in your notebook so you will have it handy when you begin reading research articles.  You can use them as a reading guide or as a notetaking guide for future reference.  Notice that the first set of questions is the questions provided above.  There is also a second set of questions that go even deeper into analyzing research.  Presently, you may not even understand what some of the questions provided are asking.  As you continue through this course, you will gain knowledge within these areas and be able to apply them.

• Read the article Teachers' Evaluative Comments and Pupil Perception of Control (2.2 MB PDF file).   As you read try to identify the steps of the research process in Chapter One.  Identify what research approach is being used and what type of research design the authors employ. Use the guiding questions provided as a guide for reading and notetaking.
• Once you have read the article above, download and review this Article Critique in Word or rtf format.  This critique was written by a past student.  Read what his impressions were of the article and compare/contrast them with your own ideas. How similar were your observations to this critique?  Were you too easy or too hard on the authors?

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