Research methodology resources

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Definition

This page is a resource page on social science research methodology.

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.

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.

Qualitative Research

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

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:

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
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
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. (1984) Case Study Research - Design And Methods. Sage Publications. Beverly Hills

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)

More General

Qualitative Research

(both formal/structured and unformal)

  • QualPage by Judy Norris. Very good site.

Network Analysis

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

Data and Question Archives

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.

See also: literature review

Open access

Commercial offerings

There are many, here are just a few:

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