Designing your Research Project

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Designing your Research Project

• Lucy Dodge
• San Jose City College

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Goals for this workshop

• Understand basic principles of research design
• Articulate your proposal in terms of
• Need
• Research questions
• Methodology
• Potential conclusions
• Develop ways that the cohort of Scholars can
  support you

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Classroom Action Research (CAR)

• based on the research of Gwynn Mettetal, Ph.D.
  Indiana University South Bend
• is a way of finding out what works best in YOUR
  classroom.
• helps you make decisions about teaching
• one form of the scholarship of teaching

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CAR meets these needs

• Improve your teaching
• Document your teaching
• Share your findings
• Publication (in some cases)

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Basic Strategy a continuum
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Goals

• Goal of Traditional Research
• To build theory or provide general descriptions

• Goal of Action Research
• To improve practice

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How CAR differs from traditional research

• Conducted by the practitioner
• Focuses on local problems or goals
• Has less emphasis on literature often secondary
  sources

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Additional differences 2-

• Uses less formal procedures, which may change
  during study
• Establishes validity through triangulation
  (multiple sources of data, investigators, and
  methods) of measures
• Uses convenient measures
• Focuses on practical, not statistical,
  significance

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Lets get started!

• Designing your own project

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Step 1 Identify a question or problem

• Significant--important to you and your students
• Under your control--you can take action based on
  your findings
• Feasible--time, effort, resources (Think small)

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A Taxonomy of Questions

• 1. What type of practice or intervention works?
• Nonverbal communication of experienced vs.
  inexperienced ESL teachers
• Web-based vs. print based history course
• 2. What are the characteristics of a particular
  approach?
• Students perceptions of their experiences with
  interdisciplinary studies
• Teacher and administrator perceptions of the
  accreditation process for selected Catholic high
  schools

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A Taxonomy of Questions 2-

• 3. What are the possible realms of emotional and
  practical learning I can achieve in a classroom?
• How do sociology students engage in the process
  of learning?
• 4. What are the new conceptual frameworks for
  shaping teaching practices?
• What concepts are most difficult for students to
  learn?
• What are the connections between scholarship and
  learning?

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What is Distinctive about the Scholarship of
Teaching Learning?

• Covers a wide range of approaches and types of
  research
• Encourages reflection and inquiry into teaching
  and classroom practices
• Views faculty as professionals eager to
  incorporate scholarship and research into their
  teaching
• Results are documented and distributed to other
  faculty

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Possible study topics

• Description of student behaviors/characteristics
• Prior knowledge or beliefs
• Time spent studying
• Relationship between different things
• Study time and test score
• Class participation and course grade
• Effect of X on student learning
• Cooperative learning groups
• Case studies
• E-mail office hours

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Brainstorming

• What could YOU study?

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Questions?
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Step 2 Review literature

• Aim for a coherent, integrated, critical
  examination of selected relevant literature
• ERIC database (Educational Resources Information
  Center)
• Available through most libraries
• Also go directly to ericir.syr.edu
• Books on learning, motivation, etc.
• Use meta-analyses summary of the results of
  studies

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Step 3 Choose a research strategy
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Step 3 Decide what you wish to accomplish

• What do you want to discover?
• What might you do differently based on what you
  find?
• What is relevant to your teaching and learning in
  the classroom?
• What is the purpose of this study?
• This study was conducted because

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Step 3 Define your research method

• Define a measurable outcome
• Student success
• Persistence
• Rating of improvement by self or others
• Demonstrated and rated competency

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Step 4 Gather new data

• Get ethical approvals before data collection
• Quantitative (numbers) or Qualitative (words)
  data
• Collect at least three types of data
  (triangulation)
• Choose a starting point group of students over
  time
• Select a comparison group
• Consider a baseline group

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Step 4 Types of new data

• Existing data (easiest, already existing)
• Student records
• Archival data
• Conventional sources (easy, but must generate)
• Behavioral data
• Perceptual data
• Inventive sources (difficult)
• Products or performances

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Step 4 Prepare a scoring rubric

• Rubrics measure a variety of qualities writing,
  self-awareness, personal integration,,
  task-orientation (e.g., Bales)
• Critical Thinking, class participation, civility
• General education outcomes- aesthetic
  sensitivity, civic responsibility, computer
  literacy, cultural diversity, historical
  sensitivity, information competency, critical
  analysis
• Rubrics and suggested outcomes provided by
  Jon Kangas, Associate Vice Chancellor for
  Research and Planning, San Jose Evergreen
  Community College District

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Step 4 Apply a general education outcome

• General education outcomes- aesthetic
  sensitivity, civic responsibility, computer
  literacy,
• Cultural diversity, historical sensitivity,
  information competency, critical analysis

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Brainstorming

• What data could YOU collect?

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Step 5 What did you find? 1-

• Qualitative analyses look for themes in words
  and behaviors
• Requires skillful interpretation of behavior and
  data

• Theme 1 Students understood more abstract
  concepts after group discussion. (Follow with
  quotes from student exams, other evidence.)
• Gather data from communication between students
  and faculty.
• Record students responses to questions about
  what they remember from a lecture.
• Observation, interviewing, and analysis of
  records documents are common methods used to
  gather data.

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Step 5 What did you find? 2-

• Quantitative analyses simple graphs, tables

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Step 5 What did you find? 2-

• Quantitative analyses simple graphs, tables

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Step 5 What did you find? 3-
Focus on practical significance, more than
statistical significance
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Brainstorming

• What would convince YOU?

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Step 6 Take action based on findings

• Keep your old strategy
• Change to the new strategy
• Recommend change (and evaluation) for others
• Your next project may be to evaluate your new,
  improved class!

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Step7 Share your findings

• Campus brown bags
• Teaching Center booklets, files, Web site
• Conferences
• ERIC document (see website for info)

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Step 7 Share your findings 2-

• Journal articles and essays
• General teaching journals like College Teaching
• Teaching journals in your discipline
• Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching Learning
• (JoSoTL) http//www.iusb.edu/josotl

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Step 7 Compare your findings

• Various web sites
• Beginners Guide to Research on Teaching and
  Learning -http//oit.iusb.edu/gmetteta/
• Educators Reference Desk (formerly AskEric)
  -http//www.eduref.org/
• Campus Program Clusters (American Association of
  Higher Education) -
• http//www.aahe.org/projects/campus_program/

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Step 7 Compare your findings 2-

• Collaborative Learning -http//www.wcer.wisc.edu/n
  ise/cl1/
• Student Evaluation - http//www.umdnj.edu/meg/eval
  uation_cat.htm
• Research Proposals - http//www.ucalgary.ca/md/CAH
  /research/res_prop.htm
• Wisconsin Teaching and Learning Center -
  http//www.wcer.wisc.edu/projects/group.asp?catID
  16

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Resources for Classroom Research

• Books
• Angelo, T. Cross, P. (1993), Classroom
  Assessment Techniques, 2nd ed. San Francisco
  Jossey-Bass.
• Cross, P. Steadman, M. (1996). Classroom
  Research Implementing the Scholarship of
  Teaching. San Francisco Jossey-Bass.

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Summarizing

• Frame the question
• Establish the context
• Gather the evidence
• Explore the value for the scholarship of teaching
  and learning
• Explain the benefits
• Evaluate the lessons learned

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Future think
What will you do tomorrow?and tomorrowand
tomorrow?