Research and Studies in Educational Technology

1. Research and Studies in Educational Technology Dr. Mohamed El Tahir Osman Assistant Dean for Research & Post Graduate Studies mosman@squ.edu.om

2. How do people comprehend the world around them? By three types of reasoning: • Deductive reasoning. Example: • All planets orbit the sun • The earth is a planet. • Therefore the earth orbits the sun. • Inductive reasoning: • A study of a number of individual cases would lead to a hypothesis and eventually to a generalization. • A combined inductive-deductive approach

3. How do people comprehend the world around them (cont.)? • A combined inductive-deductive approach: • This approach combines Aristotelian deduction with Baconian induction. Here the researcher is involved in a back-and-forth process of induction (from observation to hypothesis) and deduction (from hypothesis to implication).

4. What is research? • A systematic attempt to provide answers to questions. The answers may be either abstract and general (e.g. basic research), or highly concrete and specific (e.g., as in demonstration or applied research).

5. What is research (cont.)? • Basic research: is concerned with the relationship between two or more variables. It is carried out by: • Identifying a problem, • Examining selected relevant variables, • Constructing hypotheses, • Creating a relevant research design, • Collecting and analyzing data, and • Drawing conclusions

6. What is research (cont.)? • Applied Research: Using the findings of basic research to develop a product (e.g., a curriculum, a training program, a multimedia instruction, etc.), and then systematically test or tryout that product.

7. What is research (cont.)? • A systematic, controlled empirical and critical investigation of hypothetical proposition about the presumed relations among natural phenomena. • Systematic and controlled: basing its operations on the inductive-deductive model. • Empirical: subjective and personal belief has to have a reality check against objective, empirical facts and tests.

8. What is research (cont.)? • Research is a combination of both experience and reasoning and must be regarded as the most successful approach to the discovery of truth.

9. The role of research • Basic research doesn’t often provide immediately usable information for altering the environment. • Its purpose is to develop a model or theory that identifies all the relevant variables in a particular environment and hypothesizes about their relationship. • To uncover facts and then formulate a generalization based on the interpretation of those facts.

10. Validity in research • Internal validity: The outcomes of the study is function of the program or approach being tested rather than the result of other causes not systematically dealt with in the study. • Internal validity affects our certainty. • External validity affects our ability to credit the research results with generality based on the procedures used. In other, the results would apply in the real world to other similar programs and approaches.

11. Validity in research (cont.) • Validity is related to Manipulation and Control of the experiment: • Internal validity: • Selection bias • History bias • External validity: • Selection limitation • History limitation

12. Internal and external validity • Which of the following statements represents threats to internal validity or threats to external validity: • No attempt to establish group equivalence. • Reading gains due to maturation. • Groups not representative of al first graders. • Teachers of the two classes have different styles.

13. Internal and external validity (cont.) • Which of the following statements best describes internal validity or external validity: • Ensuring that an experiment is reasonably representative of reality. • Ensuring that the results really occurred. • Ensuring that the experimenter followed the rules. • Ensuring that the results were really a function of the experimental treatment.

14. Internal and external validity (cont.) • Which of the following statements best describes the relationship between internal and external validity : • If there is no internal validity to an experiment there can be no external validity. • If there is no external validity to an experiment there can be no internal validity. • Internal validity and external validity are essentially unrelated.

15. Internal and external validity (cont.) • You have just read about an experiment. You can not apply the results because conclusions do not seem warranted based on the design of the experiment. That means: the experiment lacks ………. (internal/ external) validity.

16. Characteristics of the research process • Research is systematic • Research is logical • Research is Empirical • Research is reductive • Research is replicable and transmittable

17. Research is systematic • It follows a structured process and rules that include: procedural specifications for identifying and defining variables, selecting a relevant design to determine their effect on other variables, relating the collected data to the originally stated problem and hypotheses.

18. Research is logical • It follows a system that employs logical examination of the specified procedures. The logic of valid research makes it a valuable tool for drawing conclusions, or decision making that is certainly far superior than intuition, or using (“of –the-top-of the-head”) observations for data.

19. Research is empirical • The empirical quality of research depends on the quality of data collection and treatment.

20. Research is reductive • It employs analytic procedures to the data collected to reduce confusion of particular events to a more general and understandable conceptual categories. In other words, reductionism enables research to explain rather than simply describe.

21. Research is replicable and transmittable • Explain the following statement: “Thetransmittable property of research is critical to its role both in extending knowledge and in decision-making”.

22. Describe in one sentence each of the following characteristics of the research process: • Systematic • Logical • Empirical • Reductive • Transmittable

23. Some ethical considerations • The right to privacy or nonparticipation. • The right to remain anonymous. • The right to confidentiality. • The right to expect experimenter responsibility.

24. Steps in the research process • Identifying a problem • Reviewing the literature • Constructing a hypothesis • Identifying and labeling variables • Constructing operational definitions • Manipulating and controlling variables • Constructing a research design • Identifying and constructing devices for observation and measurement • Identifying and constructing devices for observation and measurement • Constructing questionnaires and interview schedules • Carrying out statistical analyses • Using the computer for data analysis • Writing a research report

25. Identifying a problem • A research problem is a practical statement that represents a relationship between two or more variables, and is characterized by the following: • It should ask about a relationship between two or more variables. • It should be clearly and unambiguously stated. • It should be stated in a question form (or, in a form of an implicit question such as, “the purpose of this study was to determine whether …). • It should be testable by empirical methods (i.e., possible to collect data to answer the questions asked). • It should not represent a moral or ethical position.

26. Types of Research problem: • Descriptive: • Example: How many students in school X have an I.Q.’s in excess of 120? • This type of problem requires simple recording of observed frequencies. • Manipulative: • This type requires the inclusion of at least two variables and their relations. • Examples: Are boys more likely than girls to have I.Q.’s in excess of 120? This would involve the relationship between the variables of gender and I.Q.

27. Examples of problems stated in question form: • What is the relation between IQ and achievement? • Do student learn more from a directive teacher or a nondirective teacher? • Is there a relation between parents’ educational level and high school dropout rates?

28. Examples of problems stated in an implicit question form: • The purpose is to discover the relationship between information search ability and IT skills. • The study investigated whether the ability to discriminate among parts of speech increased with chronological age and educational level.

29. How to narrow the range of problems? • Using a three-dimensional model for problem consideration: • Available inputs – instructional activitiesand organization-anticipated outcomes • Using an inquiry model that identifies different sets or classes of variables that may be linked in their effect on outcomes in a school setting. • Using a conceptual model or a proposed set of linkages between specific variables, often along a path from input to process to outcome, with the expressed purpose of predicting specific outcomes.

33. Specific considerations in choosing a problem • Workability. Is the contemplated study within the limits of your resource and time constraints? Will you have access to the necessary sample in the numbers required? • Critical mass. Is the problem of sufficient magnitude and scope to fulfill the requirement that motivated the study in the first place? Are there enough variables?

34. Specific considerations in choosing a problem (cont) • Interest. Are you interested in the problem area, specific problem, and potential solution? Does it relate to your background? • Theoretical value. Does the problem fill a gap in the literature? Will others recognize its importance?

35. Specific considerations in choosing a problem (cont) • Practical value. Will the solution to the problem improve educational practice? Are practitioners likely to be interested in the results?

36. Reviewing the literature • Literature is a collective body of prior work that helps to uncover and provide the following: • Uncover ideas about variables that have proven important or unimportant in a given field of study. • Discovering important variables. • Distinguishing what has been done from what needs to be done. • Synthesizing and gaining perspectives. • Determining and supporting meanings and relationships. • Establishing the context of a problem. • Establishing the significance of a problem.

37. Literature review sources • ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) • Reviews • Journal and books • Websites

38. Evaluating Literature Review • Adequacy • Clarity: can you understand the points being made? • Imperialness: actual findings vs. opinions. • Recency: up-to-date. • Relevance: related to the variables and hypotheses. • Organization • Convincingness: helps the authors make their case.

39. Constructing a hypothesis • A hypothesis is an intelligent guess, or an expectation about an event, based on generalizations of the assumed relationship between variables. • It is a suggested answer to the research problem characterized by: • It should conjecture upon a relationship between two or more variables. • It should be stated in a clear declarative sentence. • It should be possible to restate it in an operational form that can then be evaluated based on data.

40. Examples of hypotheses: • I.Q. and achievement are positively correlated. • Directive teachers are more effective than nondirective teachers. • On line learning is more effective for high achievers than for low achievers.

41. What is the difference between observations, specific hypothesis, and general hypothesis? • Observationrefers to what is (i.e., what can be seen). • specific hypothesis: setting forth the anticipated relationship between two variables. • general hypothesis: A generalization from the first hypothesis and must be tested by making observation. Specific hypothesis requires fewer observation for testing than do general hypotheses.

42. Constructing alternative hypotheses • Generate three hypotheses from the following problem: • What is the combined effect of student personality and instructional procedure on the amount of learning achieved?

43. Constructing alternative hypotheses • More-structured instructional procedures will provoke greater achievement among concrete students, while less-structured approaches will provoke greater achievement among abstract students. • Less-structured instructional procedures will provoke greater achievement among concrete students, while more-structured approaches will provoke greater achievement among abstract students. • More-structured and less-structured instructional procedures will provoke equal achievement among both abstract students and concrete students.

44. Classroom Research hypotheses • Treatment A will increase learning outcome X more than will treatment B. • Studentswho receive individually guided education will demonstrate greater gains in reading achievementthan studentswho receive conventional instruction. (two variables) • Poor readerswho receive individually guided education will demonstrate greater gains in reading achievement thanpoor readerswho receive conventional instruction, while no such differences in reading achievement will occur betweengood readerswho receive one or the other instructional treatment. (three variables). • Or stated differently: Among Poor readersthose receiving individually guided education will outgain those receiving conventional instruction on reading achievement, while among good readersno differences will occur. (three variables).

45. Identifying and labeling variables • Among students of the same age and intelligence, skill performance is directly related to the number of practice trials, particularly among boys, but also, though less directly among girls.

46. Identifying and labeling variables • Types of variables: • Independent: number of practice trials • Dependent: skill performance • Moderator: gender • Control: age, intelligence • Intervening: learning

47. Definition of variables • Independent variable: is that factor that is measured, manipulated, or selected by the researcher to determine its relationship to an observed phenomenon. (i.e., the stimulus, or input) • Dependent variable: is that factor that is observed and measured to determine the effect of the independent variable. (i.e., the response, or output).

48. Definition of variables (cont.) • Moderator (e.g., gender ): is that factor that is measured, manipulated, or selected by the researcher to discover whether it modifies the relationship of the primary independent variable to an observed phenomenon. (i.e., secondary independent variable).

49. Definition of variables (cont.) • Control variables (e.g., age, intelligence): are those factors that controlled by the experimenter to cancel out or neutralize any effect they might otherwise have on the dependent variables. (i.e., all the variables in a situation (situational) or in a person (dispositional variables)

50. Definition of variables (cont.) • Intervening variable (e.g., learning): is that factor that theoretically affect the observed phenomenon but can not be seen, measured, or manipulated; its effect must be inferred from the effects of the independent and moderator variables on observed phenomenon.