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© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 Sources for Research Topics Journals in your field Recent volumes of Education Index or Current Index to Journals in Education Personal experiences * Existing literature »“Recommendations for further research…”

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 Considerations in Selecting Topics Evaluate potential topics against the following: »Personal interest »Importance »Newness »Time requirements »Estimation of difficulty level »Monetary costs »Ethical issues

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 Refining a Research Topic Refinement needed for effective and efficient research »Narrowed or expanded »Clarified—reworded unambiguously and clearly »Statement of research question(s) or hypothesis(es)— provide specific orientation to research studies Once refinements have been made, topic becomes known as a… * R ESEARCH P ROBLEM *

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 5 Terminology Related to Research Topics Topic—usually stated as a phrase Amorphous topic—stated too vaguely; improved by clarifying Problem—a refined topic Problem statement—sentence stating the purpose of an investigation Research question—fundamental question inherent in the topic/problem Subquestions—questions of secondary importance to the research question; compliment the investigation of the main question

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 6 Terminology Related to Research Topics (cont’d.) Hypothesis—brief statement predicting the outcome of a study » Null hypothesis —states that no difference exists, no relationship exists, no effect will occur, etc. » Directional research hypothesis —statement of true expectations with direction of results specified » Nondirectional research hypothesis —statement of true expectations with no direction for results specified Theory—overall explanation of why things exist as they do; merely explain; usually the result of many studies

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 7 Variables and Educational Research Research helps us understand variables and relationships among them » Variables versus constants »Ways of classifying variables: ◊ Continuous and discrete variables ◊ Independent and dependent variables ◊ Confounding variables: ˜ Intervening —unobservable traits ˜ Organismic —permanent physical traits ˜ Extraneous —temporary ˜ Controlled —those whose effects have been accounted for

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 8 Regulating the Size of Research Topics Best advice is to anticipate the task ahead of you ! Anticipate: »Review of background literature ◊Foresee the possibility of reviewing 20–50 recent and related published research studies »Organization of the study ◊Think through and plan the possible study in your mind »Collection and analysis of data ◊Key is that the data and analysis of that data must parallel the research questions and/or hypotheses

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 9 The Research Report Format Introduction Review of related literature Method Findings/results Conclusions and discussion

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 10 Format of a Research Proposal 1. I NTRODUCTION 1.1Statement of the problem 1.2Significance of the problem 1.3Research questions/hypotheses 1.4Definitions 1.5Assumptions 1.6Limitations 1.7Delimitations 2. R EVIEW o F R ELATED L ITERATURE

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved M ETHODOLOGY 3.1Documentation of permission to conduct the study 3.2Sample selection 3.3Instrumentation 3.4Data collection procedures 3.5Data analysis 4. T IMELINE 5. B UDGET 6. R EFERENCES Format of a Research Proposal (cont’d.)

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 12 Applying Technology… Web sites to assist in locating/refining research topics Education Week Search engines The American Educational Research Association (AERA) aera.net U.S. Department of Education (ED)—list of professional organizations l