Methodology tutorial

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Introduction

This is a "crash course" on Research Design and Research Methodology for educational technologists and related fields

This tutorial includes several modules.

Global aim

These tutorial modules should help students write a draft project for a master thesis.

Learning goals

1. Know about some fundamental principles of an academic research and projects.
2. Be familiar with three major classes of research designs: (1) Theory-testing approaches, (2) Qualitative and new theory-creating research, (3) Design-science research.
3. Be aware of the fundamental elements of a Research Design: (1) Definition of a subject, (2) Research Goals and Questions, (3) Short Literature Review and selection of theoretical and conceptual frameworks, (4) Approach and Methodology: Operational Research Questions, Analysis frameworks and methodological techniques.
4. Master basics of a few selected research methodologies, e.g. data gathering, sampling, and simple quantitative and qualitative data analysis.
5. Learn some practical skills like finding a research subject or planning
6. Learn about various structures for a thesis paper.

In other words, we shall both introduce some high level/abstract concepts about academic research and "down-to-earth" techniques like fundamentals of data analysis.

Target population

• Master Students in Educational Technology from various backgrounds and in particular students that have a weak background in research methodology.
• The tutorial modules also can be used for most other social science disciplines (the orginal slides were made for students in public policy management).

The tutorials

Tutorials should be read roughly in this order, but you should be aware most of these need to be improved - Daniel K. Schneider 13:25, 7 October 2008 (UTC).

1. Methodology tutorial - introduction
2. Methodology tutorial - empirical research principles
3. Methodology tutorial - finding a research subject
4. Methodology tutorial - the research plan
5. Methodology tutorial - conceptual frameworks
6. Methodology tutorial - theory-driven research designs
7. Methodology tutorial - theory-finding research designs
8. Methodology tutorial - design-oriented research designs
9. Methodology tutorial - quantitative data acquisition methods
10. Methodology tutorial - qualitative data acquisition methods
11. Methodology tutorial - quantitative data analysis
12. Methodology tutorial - qualitative data analysis
13. ... more to come

Teacher materials

• slides (PDF. Save the file and open with Acroread, the Hit Ctrl-L for full screen projection. These slides were made for a single event and it is unlikely that I will improve them some day - Daniel K. Schneider.

Other wiki articles

• Research methodology resources (a list of good resources, including books)
• Research methodologies (entries tagged with "research methdologies")
• Category:Design methodologies (entries tagged with "design methdologies")

Planning (these tutorials are not yet good enough ....)

• There will be about 15 tutorial modules
• I will create them from some slides (PDF) I made for a training course.

Links and books

See: Research methodology resources