What is Educational Research? “ Educational Research is the systematic application of a family of methods that are employed to provide trustworthy information about educational problems”. -Gary and Airasian (2000) from Educational Research; Competencies for Analysis and Applications. “A systematic process of steps used to collect and analyze data to solve a specific problem, order to solve a specific problem, in order to increase our understanding of a topic issue”.
Classification of Research Method Quantitative Method – A collection and analysis of numerical data to describe, explain, predict or control phenomenon of interest. Qualitative Method – A collection, analysis and interpretation of comprehensive narrative and visual (i.e. non-numerical) data to gain insight into a particular phenomenon of interest. It is also known as interpretive research, naturalistic inquiry or field-oriented research. Keywords that associated with qualitative research include complexity, contextual, exploration, discovery and inductive logic.
Overview of Quantitative and Qualitative Research Characteristics
.Steps in Research Process
These 8 stages in the research process are; Identifying the problem. Reviewing literature. Setting research questions, objectives, and hypotheses. Choosing the study design. Deciding on the sample design. Collecting data. Processing and analyzing data. Writing the report.
Research Question and Hypothesis Research Question Descriptive: describes what currently exists Relational: addresses to relationship between two or more variables Causal: allows the researcher to draw a causal interference
Hypotheses An operational definition of a predicated answer to the research question Matches a concept, such as intelligence, with a measurement method or tool such survey or scale. Operationalizing your concepts makes your hypotheses testable