Day 2 Table of Contents

• SAGE notice
• Review topics of last week
• Selecting a problem
• Sources of problems
• Characteristics of good problems
• The problem statement
• Conducting a literature review
• Tour of University Library
• Generating a hypothesis
• Good hypotheses
• Closure

SAGE

SAGE: Student Association for Graduates in Educational technology

This organization offers many advantages to our graduates:

• Free membership
• Networking with students, faculty, alumni, and professionals
• Online discussions
• Social context to academic life
• Newsletter
• Service opportunities

And it's free. However, we do need a class representative.

Review

Time for a mental (or oral) self-test on the following (review is possible)

• Inductive and deductive logic
• Basic and applied research
• Qualitative and quantitative research
  • Qualitative
  • Historical
  • Descriptive
  • Correlational
  • Causal-comparative
  • Experimental

    
    

Selecting the right topic

Selecting the right topic is an important first step in this course

• Relate the topic to your professional goals.
• An educational phenomena you may wish to explain
• An educational problem to which you may look for a solution

The difference between a trivial and significant project is not the amount of work required, but the amount of thought that is applied in selection and definition of the problem.

Examples?

Sources of topics

Your research topic may come from a variety of areas:

1. Educational theories that can be validated or expanded (educational psychology and educational technology)
2. Personal experiences; "What would happen if ...", "What causes ...", "Why does that happen when we ..."
3. Literature describing the "next step"
4. Replications in which you expand or alter the direction of the initial researcher

Here is a list of relevant journals in the field of educational technology.

You can also get ideas from Internet listserv discussions at http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html

Characteristics of a good topic

The topic needs to be small and manageable

Look for a topic that contains the following parameters

• Is it "researchable"? (investigated through the collection and analysis of data)
• Is there "significance"? (would it lend information to the field of education?)
• Is it "good for you"?
  • do you have the interest?
  • are the resources available?
  • will you have the time?

    
    

Statement of the problem

After you have identified your topic, and conducted some preliminary research, it's time to generate your problem statement.

The statement should include:

• The variables you will be examining
• The relationships between the variables
• The subjects involved

Examples:

• The topic to be investigated in this study is elementary grade students and their knowledge gains from using graphic organizers
  
• The purpose of the study is to identify if sixth grade science students do as well on academic achievement tests after completing the creation of a concept map as when they conduct a hands-on laboratory experiment on the same topic.
  
• Do high school students who are prompted to set academic goals achieve higher achievement than those with no established goals?
  
• The problem to be studied is the effect of collaborative teaming on achievement scores for distance students completing courses at San Diego State University.

Some hints during the writing:

• Write in clear, nontechnical language, avoiding jargon.
• Stimulate reader's interests
• Limit in scope to be a manageable problem
• Fit within the context of current theory and relevant research
• Should set up the hypothesis that follows.

Conducting the literature review

The review involves the systematic identification, location, and analysis of documents containing information related to the research problem. Its purposes are to

• determine what has already been done that relates to your problem.
• identify relevant strategies, procedures, and instruments
• facilitate interpretation of your results

Hints

• Secondary sources are more limited in use than primary sources, but serve as a good starting point.
• When looking up articles, start with most recent first.
• Keep records in which you include an:
  • Abstract,
  • Bibliographical reference,
  • Code,
  • Reflections,
  • Direct quotes.
• A small, well-organized review is better than a long verbose review

University Library

If you missed our live tour of the library, you can take a virtual tour of the University Library

Library hours

Some important abstracting publications

• Education Index
• Readers Guide to Periodical Literature
• Dissertation Abstracts International
• Psychological Abstracts and ERIC terminals
• Review of Educational Research

Familiarize yourself with Boolean Logic

Generating a good hypothesis

Definition: A hypothesis is a tentative explanation for certain behaviors, phenomena, or events that occurred or will occur. An "Educated Guess"

Example:

Your car won't start: What do you do? This is generating a hypothesis. Finding why a first grader won't learn is much harder, but similar.

Procedure:

• reread all notes (it should logically flow from review)
• make an outline of your findings
• use deductive logic to progress from general material to specific
• end with hypothesis.

Consistent with previous research, a reasonable explanation for certain behaviors, states clearly and concisely the expected relationship, and must be testable.

Criteria for good hypotheses

A good hypothesis should:

• state an expected relationship between two or more variables,
• be worthy of testing,
• be testable,
• be as brief as possible, consistent with clarity.

Types of hypotheses:

• non directional (simply that a relationship exists)
• directional (indicates the nature of the relationship)
• null hypothesis states no change (for statistical reasons)

Practice your hypothesis knowledge.

Closure; Review and Assignments

Review questions: (To find the answers, click the question mark icon)

• What is the difference between secondary vs. primary sources?
  Describe and give examples of Boolean logic?
  What are main characteristics of a good problem?
  What should be included in a good statement of problem?
  What are the main components of a good literature review?
  What should be included in notes from lit review?
  What are components of a good hypothesis?
  What is the difference between directional and non directional hypotheses?

Before next week:

• Write up a one-paragraph problem statement (bring four copies)
• Begin review of literature in library (due in three weeks)
• Read Chapter 3 in book.