Taken from: Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Approaches, 2010. R. B. Johnson & L. B.
Christensen. Los Angeles: Sage
Publication
Research literature
Set of published research studies on a particular topic
Sources of research ideas
Everyday Life
The experiences we live, the situations we encounter and the
observations that we make on a daily basis, may lead us to further explore
these phenomena
Practical issues
Our workplace is often the source of questions about why
certain phenomena occur and enquiry into improving current practice.
Past research
Past research often provides us with insights into future
directions for expanding research or may be flawed and necessitate revision. Here are
some leads that past research may provide us with:
Reasons for
carrying out a study:
Replication
You might decide that you want to repeat a study to see
whether you can replicate the results because you think that the author’s
results have significant educational importance and you want to verify them
Test the external validity of the study
You might have read a lab-based study that has suggestions
for important issues such as xxxx. You want to find out whether the laboratory
methods tested would equally well work in the classroom.
Improve the study’s internal validity
In reading the study, you might realise that the study did
not control for one or more important variables and the lack of control of
these variable led to an ambiguous interpretation of the results
Reconcile conflicting results
In reading the literature on the topic you might find
conflicting results. You can try and resolve these conflicts. These might be
due to the way the studies were conducted, the use of different measurement
instruments, or the use of different participant populations. When studies
conflict you need to look for the differences in the studies.
Suggestions for future research
Look for author suggestions within a past research paper.
Theses and dissertation
These often have a section devoted to future research that
will identify subsequent studies that need to be completed.
Theory
The aim of much research is to develop a theory that we can use
to explain why things or processes are the way they are.
Theory
An explanation or an exploratory system that discusses how a
phenomenon operates and why it operates as it does. Theories have two different
purposes.
Goal function
Making sense and summarizing current knowledge
Tool function
Making predictions
Research topic
The broad subject matter area to be investigated.
The generation of a research idea
identifies the topic idea for research which needs to be refined down.
Flowchart
for the development of a research idea
Review of the literature
Literature
review for quantitative studies
1) Will tell you whether the problem has been researched. If
it has, you should revise it in light of the results of the other studies or
look for another problem unless you think that you need to replicate the study.
2) Might give you ideas of how to proceed and design the
study so as to obtain an answer to your research question.
3) Can point out methodological questions specific to the
research questions you are studying. Are special groups or special pieces of
equipment needed? Lit can can give you tips.
4) Can identify appropriate data collection instruments.
Literature
review for qualitative studies
1) It can be used to stimulate theoretical sensitivity of
concepts and relationships that prior lit has repeatedly identified and that
therefore appear to be meaningful and significant.
2) The literature can stimulate questions. In conducting a
grounded theory study, you will be collecting data by asking questions and
observing. The list can help derive an initial set of pertinent questions to
ask and behaviours to observe.
3) Can provide info about situations and populations that you
need to study so that you can uncover phenomena important to the development of
your theory. .
Feasibility of the study
When considering the research problem to be investigated it
is necessary to take into account aspects such as cost, time and scope. If for
instance the size of a proposed investigation is too large this will possibly
take too long to carry out, require too much manpower or monopolise too many
resources.
Writing Quantitative Research Questions
Descriptive questions
Seek to answer how much, often, what changes over time or
situations.
(Descriptive question) do (participants) (variable)
Also seek to identify the degree of a relationship.
What is the relationship between (variable 1) and (variable
2) for (participants)?
Predictive questions
Seek to determine whether one or more variables can be used
to predict some future outcome.
Does (predictor variable) predict (outcome variable) in
(setting)?
Causal Questions
Compare different variations of some phenomenon to identify
the cause of something these often involve the manipulation of an independent
variable and the comparison of the outcome of this manipulation.
Does variation (or change) in the (independent variable)
produce changes (eg increase / decrease) in (a dependent variable)?
The research proposal layout
The following bullet points represent how we should organise
a research proposal.
Title page
Abstract
Introduction
1 A statement of the research topic
2 A statement of the research problem and a summary of prior
literature
3 The purpose of the study
4 The research question
5 The hypotheses of the study if the quantitative
Method
1 Research participants
2 Apparatus / instruments
3 Procedure
Data Analysis
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