Practical Research 2 PDF

PRACTICAL RESEARCH 2  What is RESEARCH? Research involves an investment and enables you to develop new knowledge and understanding (Higher Education Funding Counci...

PRACTICAL RESEARCH 2  What is RESEARCH? Research involves an investment and enables you to develop new knowledge and understanding (Higher Education Funding Council for  WHAT IS QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH? It is a systematic process of obtaining numerical information about the world.  WHAT IS QUANTITATIVE Quantitative research RESEARCH? involves the collection of data so that information can be quantified and subjected to statistical treatment in order to support or refute “alternate STRENGTHS Quantitative research design is the most reliable and valid way of concluding results, giving away to a new hypothesis or to disproving it. STRENGTHS Because of a bigger number of the sample of a population, the results or generalizations are more reliable and valid. WEAKNESS Quantitative research can be costly, difficult and time-consuming because most researchers are non- mathematicians. KINDS OF QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH  EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH This kind of research also allows the researcher to identify cause and effect relationships between variables and to distinguish placebo effects from treatment effects.  EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH PRE-EXPERIMENTAL Pre-experimental types of research apply to experimental designs with the least internal validity. One type of pre-experiment, the single group, pre-test-post-test design, measures the group two times, before and after the intervention.  EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL in a quasi-experimental design, the researcher can collect more data, either by scheduling more observations or finding more existing measures. Quasi- experiments are most often used in evaluating social programs.  EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH TRUE EXPERIMENTAL A true experimental design controls for both time-related and group-related threats. Two features mark true experiments - two or more differently treated groups and random assignment to these groups. These features require that the researchers have control over  NON - EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH The main purpose is to observe, describe and document aspects of a situation as it naturally occurs and sometimes to serve as a starting point for hypothesis generation or theory development.  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH DESCRIPTIVE SURVEY A research design used when the researcher intends to provide a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes or opinion of a population by studying a sample of that population (Creswell, 2003).  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH DESCRIPTIVE SURVEY Descriptive survey research aims to describe behaviors and to gather people’s perceptions, opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about a current issue in education. These descriptions are then summarized by reporting the number or percentage of persons reporting each response. The  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH CORRELATIONAL Correlational research is a quantitative method designed to show the relationships between two or more variables; consisting of only one group of individuals (e.g., fifth- grade students) and two or more variables that are not manipulated or controlled by the researcher (e.g., reading scores and IQ).  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH CORRELATIONAL BIVARIATE Correlational Studies - obtain scores from two variables for each subject, then use them to calculate a correlation coefficient. The term bivariate implies that the two variables are correlated (variables are selected because they are believed to be related.  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH CORRELATIONAL PREDICTION STUDIES - use correlation co- efficient to show how one variable (the predictor variable) predicts another (the criterion variable). Example: Which high school applicants should be admitted to college?  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH CORRELATIONAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION Prediction Studies - Example: Suppose the high school GPA is not the sole predictor of college GPA, what might be other good predictors? All of these variables can contribute to the overall prediction in an equation that adds together the predictive power of each identified  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH EX-POST FACTO RESEARCH DESIGN These are nonexperimental designs that are used to investigate causal relationships. They examine whether one or more pre- existing conditions could possibly have caused subsequent differences in groups of subjects. Researchers attempt to discover whether differences between groups have results in an observed difference in the  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH COMPARATIVE DESIGN It involves comparing and contrasting two or more samples of study objects on one or more variables, often at a single point of time. Specifically, this design is used to compare two distinct groups on the basis of selected attributes such as knowledge level, perceptions, and attitudes, physical or psychological symptoms.  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH EVALUATIVE RESEARCH seeks to address or judge in some way providing information about something other than might be gleaned in mere observation or investigation of relationships Example: A test of children in school is used to assess the effectiveness of teaching or the deployment of a curriculum  NON-EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGICAL In this approach, the implementation of a variety of methodologies forms a critical part of achieving the goal of developing a scale-matched approach, where data from different disciplines can be integrated