1. Approaches to educational research Research topics Research problems Research purpose Research questions

2. Purpose Research Question and Hypothesis Purpose Statement Research Question Research Hypothesis Research Objectives Intent ~ role in research Overall direction Raise question to be answered Make predication about explanations State goals to accomplish Form ~ appearance One or more sentences One or more question One or more statements One or more objectives Use ~ application Qual and quan QuantitativeTypically quantitative Placement ~ location End of introEnd of intro, after literature review or in separate section of the study Creswell, 2009

3. QuantitativeQualitative Purpose statement Identifies the variables, their relationship, and the participants and site of research. Intent to explore or understand the central phenomena with individuals at a research site. Single sentence, “The purpose of this study is…”, reference a theory if germane. The purpose of this study is to test (the theory) by relating (the independent variable) to (the dependent variable) for (participants) at the (research site). How is that for contrived? The purpose of this qualitative study will be to (explore discover understand describe) (the central phenomena) for (participants)(at research cite)

4. QuantitativeQualitative Research Question ~ narrow and focus the purpose statement Pose a question; begin with how what why; specify the variables; use words like describe, compare, relate; use participants and site Open ended, general questions that the researcher would like answered during the study How frequently do (participants) (variable) at (research site)? Change and emerge, few and general, sometimes central and sub questions How frequently do grade 4 students feel anxious at the FSA? ~ descriptive Could also be relationship and or comparison questions What is the (central phenomena) for (participants) at (research site)

5. QuantitativeQualitative Hypothesis ~narrows the research but also advances a predication about what researcher expects to find ~ tend to be more formal than questions nada The more students feel anxious about the FSA the more likely their grade will be influenced negatively. Null ~ tests that in the population that there is no difference between IV and DV or between groups Alternative ~ that there is a difference between IV and DV or between groups in population

6. However, Mertler and Charles have a slightly different spin on this

7. Research Topic  The broad subject addressed by the study Research Problem  The issue, concern, controversy, problem to be addressed Research Purpose  The intent of the study – what the study intends to accomplish Research Questions  The specific questions the study will attempt to answer Research Hypotheses  The specific statement to be evaluated statistically – often not part of the introduction since inferential statistics will not be employed.

8. Statement of the Problem An element of the introductory chapter or section of the thesis Provides a description of the topic of the research and a statement of the research problem to be addressed. This should not only describe where the research is heading, but also establish the significance of the research – how it will make the world better

9. Purpose Statement An extension of the statement of the problem to set the direction of the study – to say why you are doing this study what you intend to do what you intend to accomplish

10. Research Questions The specific questions you are intending to answer Variables Descriptive Comparative Relational The participants The location

11. Research Hypothesis The specific statement(s) you are going to evaluate: H 0 : Reading score group1 = Reading score group2 H 0 : Correlation Reading:Math = 0

12. Student achievement of valued learning outcomes is an important index of educational performance. For individual students the achievement of learning outcomes has significant long-term consequence for life success. A clear example comes from the results of the International Assessment of Adult Literacy (IALS) (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Ministry of Industry, Canada, 2000) that show consistently strong positive relationships between levels of literacy to employment status and to earnings. Research topic – an example

13. Support for significance Proportion of adult Canadians in top 60% of earners in Canada

14. Our understanding of empirical relationships between student, home and school correlates of learning outcomes is not well developed. There is a dearth of meaning and understanding that can be attributed to the scores and statistics in relation to educational policy and practice. To attain this we need better understandings of the relationships between achievement measures and student, home and school characteristics, identifying those characteristics that are consistently and strongly related to student achievement and are accessible to policy. Research problem

15. In this internationally comparative study an HLM approach was used to investigate the relationship of student SES to mathematics achievement from an international perspective using data from the PISA 2003 program that assessed mathematics achievement in 41 countries (OECD, 2003a). In addition the effects of selected school characteristics were explored using the multilevel modeling analyses to evaluate the extent to which they modulate what could be termed the inequity of SES effects on student achievement. Research purpose

16. Research questions  What is the relationship of socio-economic status to mathematics literacy achievement across the 41 countries participating in PISA 2003 ?  Do the selected school traits* influence: Mathematics literacy achievement ? The SES / Mathematics relationship ? * school size * ratio of teachers to students * quality of educational resources * student morale * number of assessments per year in the school * ability grouping of students