The Nature of Research in Education

• Deductive Reasoning - a thinking process in which one proceeds from general to specific knowledge through logical argument.
• Aristotle - introduced the use of deductive reasoni
• Syllogism - major type of deductive reasoning
• Syllogism - consists of a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion
• In deductive reasoning, if the premises are true, the conclusion is necessarily true
• Francis Bacon - believed that investigators should not accept premises handed down by the Church Fathers as absolute truth. Rather, investigators should establish conclusions based on facts gathered through direct observation.
• Charles Darwin - the first to apply this method in the pursuit of knowledge in developing his theory of evolution. His procedure, involving only induction, was not very productive until he thought to add a hypothesis to explain the facts that he had gathered through observation
• Charles Darwin proceeded to test the hypothesis by making deductions from it and gathering additional data to determine whether these data would support the hypothesis. This method was endorsed by John Dewey (1938) and became known as the scientific method.
• Scientific Method is acquiring knowledge in which researchers move inductively from their observations to hypotheses and then deductively from the hypotheses to the logical implications of the hypotheses
• Statement of the problem - clarifies and states more precisely the nature and scope of the problem
• Identification of the problem - the problem may involve a question about something, a discrepancy in findings, or a gap in knowledge
• Formulation of hypotheses - formulates hypotheses about possible solutions of the problem. The hypothesis is a prediction about the results of the observations. A review of related research helps formulates the hypothesis.
• Prediction of consequences - next predicts the consequences of each hypothesis; that is, what should result if the data support the hypothesis.
• Testing of hypotheses - gathers objective data to evaluate the adequacy of each hypothesis in hypothesis testing. If the data support the hypothesis, it is accepted as a reasonable explanation. If the data do not support the hypothesis, it is rejected.
• Researchers are essentially doubters and are skeptical of research findings until they can be verified by further investigation by themselves or others
• Researchers are objective and impartial
• Researchers deal with facts, not values
• The events they investigate are lawful or ordered, not capricious.
• Reliable knowledge can derive only from empirical evidence.
• Educational Research - when the scientific method is applied to the investigation of educational questions.
• Educational Research - asks a question, formulates a hypothesis, gathers appropriate data, analyzes the data, and reaches a conclusion about the original question.
• Educational Research - the process whereby we acquire dependable and useful information about the educative process.
• Steps in Research Process: Select the problem, review the literature, design the study, collect the data, analyze the data, interpret the data, report the findings
• Difficulties Encountered in Conducting Scientific Research in Education and Other Social Sciences: Complexity of Subject Matter, Difficulties in Observation, Difficulties in Replication, Interaction of Observer and Subjects, Difficulties in Control
• Measurements Problem - (In Social Sciences Research) are less precise compared to those used in chemistry or physics. Variables in the social sciences are measured only at the present time, and factors influencing past human behavior are not measurable in the current context.
• Ethical and Legal Considerations - the researcher is ethically responsible for protecting the rights and safety of the participants in a study
• Language of Research - to describe and summarize their observations in an area.
• Constructs - are abstract concepts that cannot be directly observed but serve to interpret empirical data and build theories.
• Language of Research - may use words from everyday language but often ascribe new and specific meanings to them or they use new terms that are not a part of everyday language.
• Variables - can be categorical, or they can be continuous
• Variables - a construct or a characteristic that can take on different values or scores across people or things.
• Categorical Variable - researchers classify subjects by sorting them into mutually exclusive groups
• Dichotomous Variable - has 2 exclusive classes
• Continuous Variable - has an infinite number of values within a range
• Independent Variable - the antecedent variable that an researcher manipulates in order to determine its effect on another variable (the dependent variable)
• Dependent Variable - the variable we observe and measure.
• Constants - opposite of variable
• Constants - a fixed value within a study
• Quantitative Research - uses objective measurement in a controlled setting to gather numeric data that are used to answer questions or test predetermined hypotheses.
• Educational Research Methods - uses a variety of methodological approaches, which are typically classified as quantitative or qualitative.