LESSON 2

Research Studies

    * Methods of Classification Historical - Describes what WAS.
    * Descriptive - Describes what IS.
    * Experimental - Describes what WILL BE.

Historical Research

    * Characteristics Purpose - To reconstruct the past objectively and accurately, often in relation to the acceptance of a hypothesis.
    * The process involves investigating and interpreting events of the past for the purpose of discovering helpful generalizations to understand the present and predict the past.
    * A study reconstructing the practices of teaching computer applications during the past 20 years.

Descriptive Research

    * Characteristics Purpose - To describe systematically a situation or area of interest factually and accurately.
    * It involves the description and analysis of the present nature, composition, or process of a person, group or concept.
    * A study to determine the demographics of Tidewater secondary technology education teachers to project future supply and demand.

Descriptive Studies

    * Types Survey - To describe systematically an area of interest or situation.
    * Developmental - To investigate patterns of growth or change over time.
    * Case or Field - To study the background, status, or environment of a group, individual, community, institution, etc.
    * Correlational - To investigate how variations in one factor correspond to one or more other factors.
    * Causal Comparative or Ex Post Facto - To analyze possible cause and effect relationships.

Experimental Research

    * Characteristics Purpose - To compare treatments given to an experimental group to those of a control group.
    * The focus is on cause and effect relationships; variables are carefully manipulated for the purpose of determining their influence.
    * A study to determine the effect of using two different methods of teaching problem solving; one method for each group.

Experimental Research

    * Types True Experimental - To investigate possible cause and effect relationships by exposing one or more experimental groups to one or more treatment conditions and comparing the results to one or more control groups not receiving the treatment(s).
    * Quasi-Experimental - To approximate the conditions of a true experiment in a setting which does not allow the control and/or manipulation of all relevant variables.
    * Action - To develop new skills or approaches to problems with direct application to the classroom.

Research Goals

    * They are projections of possible outcomes of the research and are not biased prestatements of conclusions.
    * They present a framework for the analysis of the problem in relation to the plan of attack and indicate how the projected research must lead to one or another sets of conclusions.
    * Experimental research usually states their research goals in the form of hypotheses.
    * Historical and Descriptive research usually state their research goals in the form of objectives or questions to be answered.

Research Goals

    * Continued . . . Research goal represents ends rather than means.
    * They prevent the review of irrelevant literature, the collection of useless data, and should provide a framework for stating conclusions in a meaningful way.
    * When you answer your research goals in the conclusions section of your study, you should have answered your research problem and the study should be concluded.

Data Reporting Techniques

    * Campbells - 1
    * Therabian - (1)
    * APA (American Psychological Association) - (Author, year, p. 2), period before or after, just be consistent!