Educational Research
Unit 1
What is Research?
Research is like exploring and figuring out new things or looking at what we already know in a fresh way. It’s a careful search and investigation process where we collect information, analyze it, and write down what we find.
Steps in Research:
- Ask a Question: Start by thinking of a question you want to find the answer to.
- Find Information: Look for information that can help you answer your question.
- Give an Answer: Look at all the information you found and tell people what you discovered.
Research’s Contribution to Knowledge:
Research helps us learn new stuff and add to what we already know. It can fill gaps in what we understand, confirm or change what we thought was true, and give us ideas to do things better.
Research and Practice Improvement:
Research also helps teachers and people who make rules for schools. It gives them new ideas to teach better, helps them see what works, and lets them connect with others who are trying the same things.
Characteristics of Research:
- Real-Life Based: It’s like doing experiments or watching things happen in real life.
- Step-by-Step: We do research in a careful and organized way.
- Keeping Things the Same: We try to keep everything the same except the one thing we’re testing.
- Making a Guess: Before we start, we make a guess about what might happen.
- Looking at Things Closely: We carefully look at all the information so we don’t make mistakes.
- Being fair and Logical: We share what we find in a fair and logical way.
- Using Numbers: Sometimes we use numbers to talk about what we found.
Remember, research is like being a detective – you ask questions, gather clues, and share what you find with others!
Ethical Issues in Data Collection:
Some ethical issues that can arise when collecting data include:
- Privacy: People have a right to privacy that allows them to limit who has access to their personal information.
- Consent: Informed consent is essential when collecting data online, as it’s susceptible to a lack of anonymity and fully informed consent.
- Anonymity: It’s the researcher’s duty to protect their respondents’ identities.
- Transparency: Businesses should be open about the data they collect, how they collect it, and what they use it for.
- Conflict of interest: This can compromise the judgment of reviewers.
- Respect for participants: Data protection is about respecting individuals’ rights to a private life.
- Ethical distress: Researchers should ensure they are being as ethical and unbiased as possible to avoid causing undue harm.
Other ethical issues that can arise in data collection include: lack of confidentiality, lack of relevance, lack of compensation, taking advantage of people, and being biased.
The Eight Steps in the Research Process
- Define the Research Problem:
the first step in any research project is to clearly understand and define the problem you want to study. This is like asking a question you want to answer. For example, if you’re studying how social media affects students’ grades, your research problem might be: “How does using social media impact students’ academic performance?” - Review the Literature:
Next, you need to review existing research on the same topic. This means reading books, articles, and studies that others have already done on your research problem. It helps you understand what is already known and what still needs to be explored. For example, if other studies show that too much social media use lowers grades, you’ll want to explore that further in your research. - Formulate a Hypothesis:
After reviewing the literature, you can make an educated guess or prediction about what you think you will find in your study. This is called a hypothesis. For example, you might hypothesize, “Students who spend more than two hours per day on social media will have lower grades than those who spend less time.” - Prepare the Research Design
Once you have a hypothesis, you need a plan for how to test it. This step is called preparing the research design. In this stage, you decide how you will collect the data (information), who you will study, and what tools or methods you will use, like surveys, interviews, or observations. For example, you might decide to survey 100 students and ask them about their social media usage and grades. - Collect the Data:
Now it’s time to gather the data you need. This means going out and asking people questions, observing behaviors, or collecting information from existing records. For example, you could use an online survey to ask students how many hours a day they spend on social media and what their average grades are. - Analyze the Data:
After collecting the data, you need to study it carefully to find patterns or trends. This step is called analyzing the data. You might create charts, graphs, or use statistics to help understand what the data is telling you. For example, you could compare the grades of students who use social media a lot with those who don’t, to see if your hypothesis was correct. - Draw Conclusions:
Based on your data analysis, you can draw conclusions. This means deciding what the results of your study show. For example, if the students who used social media more had lower grades, you could conclude that social media use negatively impacts academic performance.
- Report Your Findings:
The final step is to present your findings. This means sharing the key results of your research in a way that others can understand. You can report your findings in different formats, like a written report, a PowerPoint presentation, a video, or even a dashboard with graphs and statistics. For example, you could write a report that explains how social media affects students’ grades and give recommendations on how to reduce the negative impact.