Research methodology resources

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Definition

This page is a resource page on social science research methodology with a special focus on approaches and methods used in various research types in educational technology.

See also: Methodology tutorial (a crash course with several modules).

Research methodology in educational technology

Educational technology uses the whole palette of social science methodology. Very few approaches originated in our field. One recent example is design-based research (DBR). But even DBR uses methods and techniques developed in other contexts. Of course edutech research does contribute to the evolution of various tools, e.g contributes to the methodology of log file analysis, dialogue and discourse analysis, observation of human-computer interaction, development of survey scales, etc.

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

• What We Know about Research in Instructional Technology: Interviews with Research Leaders by Marshall G. Jones et al. presentation at the annual conference of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. St. Louis, MO. February, 1998.

Tutorials

So far, we don't have a very complete inventory. In particular, good tutorials for qualitative methods are missing...

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.
• Shields, Patricia and Hassan Tajalli. 2006. Intermediate Theory: The Missing Link to successful Student Scholarship. Journal of Public Affairs Education. Vol. 12, No. 3: 313-334. PDF reprint
• Research Design for Educational Technologists, slides by Daniel K. Schneider (I made these in one week and never edited them again, probably usable but not great. Hit ctrl-l to project on a screen).

See also the books section. There exist good introductory books !

Statistics

There are loads of tutorials on the web. If you are not happy with this little choice, look this for example.

• StatSoft Electronic Statistics Textbook. Very good and fairly suitable for beginners, from StatSoft the makers of Statistica ! (old version, pw protected]
• Statistics Glossary, also from StatSoft.
• HyperStat Online Textbook by David M. Lane at Rice University. Centered on Anova and testing. Look at its humor links to take a break.
• Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics (related to HyperStat)
• 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). But not always for the faint hearted.
• 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 tutorial-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
• Lombard, Matthew, Jennifer Snyder-Duch and Cheryl Campanella Bracken (2005). Practical Resources for Assessing and Reporting Intercoder Reliability in Content Analysis Research Projects, Webpage, retrieved May 2008
• Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. (1989), Building Theories from Case Study Research, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1989), pp. 532-550

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 software that can be used togetehr with the Pajek program
• Pajek is a Program for Large Network Analysis (Wiki site)

Design methodology

• Design Methodology. Slides by Maria Hakansson, IT-University.
• Prototyping in practise (also from Sweden)

Educational design methodology is not indexed in this page, see instructional design method and its various incarnations, e.g. Instructional systems design

See also: design science and other articles targeted with design methodologies

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

General

These books should be suitable for beginners, e.g. MA and PhD Students. But before buying any, you should read customer reviews in online bookstores or other sources. And of course, you shouldn't need more than two of these. Leedy and Ormrod is probably one of the best books to start with.

• Bell, Judith (2005). Doing Your Research Project: A Guide for First-Time Researchers in Education and Social Science, 4th edition, Buckingham: Open University Press, ISBN 0335215041

• Cohen, Louis , Lawrence Manion , Keith Morrison (2007). Research Methods in Education, 6th ed. Routledge, ISBN 0415368782.

• Creswell, John W. (2002). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (2nd Edition), Sage Publications, ISBN 0761924426

• Creswell, John W. (2004). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research, Prentice Hall; 3rd edition. ISBN 0136135501 - Companion web site

• Leedy, P. D., & Ormrod, J. E. (2005). Practical research: Planning and design (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. ISBN 0131108956

• Newman, Lawrence (2005). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 6th edition. Allyn & Bacon, ISBN 0205457932

• Newman, Lawrence (2003). Basics of Social Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches. Allyn & Bacon, ISBN 0205355781

About dissertations

• Bolker, Joan (1998). Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing, Holt Paperbacks, ISBN 080504891X

• Peters (1997) Getting What You Came For: A Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Masters or Ph.D.

See also literature review

Specialized

(This list could be much longer of course)

Quasi-experimental research

• Cook, Thomas, K. and Campbell, Donald T. (1979). Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings, Houghton Mifflin Company, ISBN-10 0395307902

• Campbell, Donald T. and Stanley, Julian (1963). Experimental And Quasi-experimental Designs For Research, ISBN 0395307872. (Very old, but still relevant)

Experimental research

• Box, George E. P.; William G. Hunter; J. Stuart Hunter and William Gordon Hunter (2005). Statistics for Experimenters: Design, Innovation, and Discovery, 2nd edition. John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0471718130. (Rather difficult reading).

Survey research

• Fowler, Floyd, J. (2001) Survey Research Methods, Sage Publications, ISBN 0761921915

• DeVellis, R. F. (2003). Scale development: theory and applications. Applied social research methods series Volume 26. Thousand oaks, London, Delhi: Sage Publications.

Qualitative research

• Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds) (). The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage Publications. ISBN 0761927573

• Miles, Matthew B. and Michael Huberman. (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, Sage Publications. ISBN 0803955405

• Dey, I. (1993). Qualitative Data Analysis. Routledge, London.

• Marshall, C. & Rossman, G. B. (1995) , Designing Qualitative Research, second edition, Sage, London

Case study research

• Merriam, Sharan B. (1997) Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education, Jossey-Bass, ISBN 0787910090

• Stake, Robert Earl (1995). The Art Of Case Study Research, Sage Publications, ISBN 080395767X

• Yin, R.K. (2002) Case Study Research - Design And Methods. Third edition. Sage Publications, ISBN 0761925538 (first edition was in 1984).

To sort out

• 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
• List of Wikipedia articles on scientific method

Qualitative Research

(both formal/structured and unformal)

• The Qual/Quant Research Marathon Content. Description of differences.

• The Qualitative Report (both a journal and an index)

• QualPage by Judy Norris. Very good site.

• 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)