EDUC 500: Introduction to Educational Research

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EDUC 500 Introduction to Educational Research
Dr. Stephen Petrina Dr. Franc Feng Department of
Curriculum Studies University of British Columbia
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EDUC 500

• Methods, procedures, concerns
• Instruments - interview, scale, questionnaire
• research objectives - identifying sample-
  reminder quantitative methods keys to questions
  (what rather than why)
• Population for inclusion in study- people,
  events, objects, sampling related to choices of
  perspectives, approaches, ethics
• Criteria for sampling- related to research
  objectives, understanding of phenomena, practical
  constraints
• Proxies attributes, constructs,
  operationalization, rationale for focus

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EDUC 500

• Diversity Homogeneity vs. heterogeneity,
  Invariant/relative blood (Palys, 2003), people
  Krech, Crutchfield Ballachey, 1962), classrooms
  Denzin Lincoln (1994)
• Representativeness, adequateness, intact,
  variability, influenced by socialization,
  norming, common sense, social construction
• Skinner box rat in a maze, operant conditioning-
  perhaps facile, consistent with deductive
  scientific worldview (invariant example)

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EDUC 500

• Deductive model - Research in which theory is
  driven by a priori underlying assumptions
• Functioning to test, explain, affirm (closed)
  influences sampling choices, exceptions exist
  (e.g. exploratory factor analysis)
• Limitations in putting theory before research-
  preconceived notions, socialization factors,
  where a procedural research decision implicitly
  reaffirms and supports a particular social
  arrangement (Paly. 2003 127)

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• Discourses of power (Foucault, 1970, 1972)
• Knowledge as arbitrary, role in surveillance,
  control, discursive borders, voice, margins
• Knowledge (technical) power
• Influences research from the base directions,
  rationale, sampling, etc.
• Reasons for sampling based on alternate rationale
  that pays attention to the margins

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EDUC 500

• Why not get statistics of population?
• At times possible- but frequently impossible,
  impractical, expensive to sample.
• It is possible to make predictions with relative
  size samples, around 2000 for national survey
  with error limits, where N Population, n
  Sample, /- 2)