Research methodology resources

Definition

This page is a resource page on research methodology.

Research methodology in educational technology

See also: Educational technology research approaches for a discussion on what is considered to be good research.

Tutorials

Literature and Bibliography

See literature review and citation articles

General introduction to research methodology

• Bill Trochim's nice Knowledge Base. This web-based text-book is a good place to start for quantitative research (including statistics)
• Research Methods, by Christopher L. Heffner. This ten chapter research methods text is written for both undergraduate and graduate students in education, psychology, and the social sciences. It focuses on the basics of research design and the critical analysis of professional research in the social sciences from developing a theory, selecting subjects, and testing subjects to performing statistical analysis and writing the research report.
• Research Design for Educational Technologists, slides by Daniel K. Schneider.

See also the books section.

Statistics

There are loads of tutorials on the web. If you are not happy with my little choice, you at this for example (see the links section also below)

• Electronic Statistics Textbook PASSWORD protected older version, get the newer source from http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stathome.html. Very good, from StatSoft the makers of Statistica !
• Statistics Glossary, also from StatSoft.
• HyperStat Online Textbook by David M. Lane at Rice University. Centered on Anova and testing. All entries have links to other sites. See also the related Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics. On a side note: Look at the humor links to take a break.
• PA 765 Statnotes: An Online Textbook by G. David Garson, NC State University. Very good Hypertext with many detailed "chapters", not always suitable for total beginners. Also makes references to SPSS procedures .
• Wikipedia Statistics. The Wikipedia has become a very good resource for some issues and models (2006).
• Tutorials - ITS / UTexas. Tutorials provide a general introduction to various software package including information on how to use statistics. (Amos, SAS, SPSS, etc.)
• Statistics Glossary, Valerie J. Easton & John McColl, Centre for Applied Statistics, Lancaster University. Good tutoraial-like site, incl. Index.
• Internet For Social Statistics. This is a free online course that shows you how to find statistics (and related informations) on the Internet and how to deal with it..
• Structural Equation Modelling in Market Research by the people who made the AMOS SEM package. Good. (SEM is not for beginners)
• Georgetown AMOS Tutorial (version 4, Intro to the program and simple multiple regression, suitable for beginners)

Qualitative Research

• Choosing Qualitative Data Analysis Software: Atlas/ti and Nudist Compared by Christine Barry, Sociological Research Online, vol. 3, no. 3. Note: this on-line journal has other "quali" articles.
• Hypermedia and Ethnography: Reflections on the Construction of a Research Approach, by Bella Dicks and Bruce Mason, Sociological Research Online, vol. 3, no. 3

Network Analysis

• Link Analysis: An Information Science Approach" by Mike Thelwall. This site contains extra information related to the book. (webometrics). See also the [SocSciBot3 http://socscibot.wlv.ac.uk/] software that can be used togetehr with the Pajek program
• Pajek is a Program for Large Network Analysis. Here is a text and manual.

Educational Technology Research and related

(to be completed)

• Design Methodology. Slides by Maria Hakansson, IT-University
• Prototyping in practise (also from Sweden)
• What We Know about Research in Instructional Technology: Interviews with Research Leaders
• [By Dhal Anglada Instructional Designer An Introduction to Instructional Design - Utilizing a basic design model] By Dhal Anglada Instructional Designer
• Introduction to Instructional System Design by Donald Clark (basic, classic approach)

Software Development

• A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement, arry W. Boehm, TRW Defense Systems Group

Software

(some day, I may add more things. In my group, we use mostly Atlas for qualitative and SPSS for quantitative analysis ... for the moment please see the links below)

• NetDraw Network Visualization. Free program for visualizing 1-mode and 2-mode social network data (made by Steve Borgatti and Roberta Chase, Analytic Technologies)
• Microsoft Excel: Avoid whenver you can !: However if you really must (e.g. if you don't have cash for SPSS or you if you are too illiterate to download a free stats program), then search for "Using Excel for survey analysis". You then may find resources like:
  • Using the Data Analysis Tool in Excel

Books

• Leedy, P. D., & Ormrod, J. E. (2005). Practical research: Planning and design (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
• Fraenkel, J., & Wallen, N. (2006). How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education with PowerWeb (6th ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Steiner, E. (1988). Methodology of Theory Building. Sydney: Educology Research Associates.

Methodology Links

(dig around and you will find it)

• SEE also larger indexes, such as: the Research Resources for the Social Sciences, the WWW-VL Social Sciences, the Psychology Virtual Library, etc.

More General

• Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG). This is a large portal with a lot of links, e.g. Research Methods. Probably on of the best place to start browsing.
• Research Methods Resources On The Www, Mary Sue Stephenson's good index at the University of British Columbia. Another good site for browsing, strong also on qualitative methodology.
• Social Research Methods. Bill Trochim's Center. Very nice Knowledge Base (Web-based text-book, click on "contents") and also Selecting Statistics expert system Program. Also features pointers to tutorials (made by graduate students)
• Research Methodology and Statistics at the sociosite, an other good index
• Resources for Methods in Evaluation and Social Research (ocus is on "how-to" do evaluation research)
• Research Methods Good short list by Mikko Mattila
• PA 765 Research Methodology Links by G. David Garson, NC State University
• Selected Links to Resources on Writing a Literature Review

Qualitative Research

(both formal/structured and unformal)

• The Qualitative Report (both a journal and an index)
• QualPage by Judy Norris. Very good site (traditional academic build)
• The qualitative Research Page by Bobbi Kerlin, also maintains the Qualitative ResearchWebring
• Grounded Theory Methodology Karl "Chuck B." Freiherr von Manteuffel ...
• Qualnet, in particular Qualitative Research Resources
• Action Research Sources (by Bob Dick, Southern Cross University)

Network Analysis

• Social Network References (Good Academic Bibliography, no links) and Dynamic Visualization of Social Networks (part of J.N. cummunings on-line analysis site). Very good links to other software tools.
• Social Network Analysis, Tom Snijders links and methods page
• INSNA International Network for Social Network Analysis, has links to researcher's home pages and tutorials
• Social Network Analysis Links by I.M. Benta (who also wrote the freeware Agna Network Analysis package)

Quantitative Research

• Statlib, datasets, scripts for various packages, routines for programmers who want to hack it their own way, etc.
• Methods in Behavioral Research by Paul C. Cozby. Good structured links for experimental research (according to chapters of his book)
• The Quant Corner INDEX by Bobbi Kerlin
• A few links related to Statistics Education by Juha Puranen. Large list of some useful links related to Statistics Education - Online Statistical teaching material, courses , handouts, exercises, articles, datasets. This is the best index I am aware of.

Associations, Journals, Forums on-line

• Forum: Qualitative Social Research (FQS) Good quarterly (peer-reviewed multilingual online journal for qualitative research). In addition FQS Reviews, Debates and Conferences. Worth a Visit !
• The Society for Political Methodology and the Political Methodology Section of the APSA. In particular, check out the on line journals like the Political Methodologist
• ITFORUM A listserv for the Instructional Tehcnology community. Quite a lot of discussion on research problems. Also includes discussions on special topics

Data and Question Archives

• Data Archives List at Keele/UK
• The Question Bank, Social surveys online, sponsored by UK Economic and Social Research Council
• SIDOS Swiss information and data archive service for the social sciences
• Swiss electoral studies (related to SIDOS)

Finding information on the Internet

It is increasingly easy to find academic materials on the Internet. However, for many resources you (or your institution) has to pay.

• Google Scholar is the best overal search engine for academic materials.
• Social Reference managers, Citation indexes, social bookmarking sites, etc. also can be useful

See also: literature review

Open access

• Directory of Open Access Journals October 2004: 1333 journals in the directory, 328 journals are searchable on article level, 60818 articles are included in the DOAJ service
• Vascoda (excellent German search engine)
• Beat's BiblioNetz (the future ?)

Commercial offerings

There are many, here are just a few:

• ISI Web of Knowledge. Central sales site of ISI's commercial offerings (no access, just propaganda). E.g. current contents, ISI Web of Knowledge
• French articles @ Inist (free index and commercial retrieval service)
• Ingenta/Uncover Web (same for English articles
• Consortium des bibliothèques universitaires Suisses - Bases de donnéees (RESTRICTED access to selected universities for selected services)