AN INTRODUCTION TO
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS.
Введение в образовательные исследовательские методы
Білім беру-зерттеу әдістеріне кіріспе
Dr ELAINE WILSON & PROFESSOR AIZHANA ABIBULAYEVA
An Introduction to Educational Research Methods.
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An Introduction to Educational Research Methods.
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FOREWA
RD
This publication was produced following researcher links workshop
between the Faculty of Education of the University of Cambridge and the
Eurasian National University in Kazakhstan. The workshops were generously
funded by Newton – Al-Farabi Partnership Programme as part of the
British Council’s Researcher Links Programme. These workshops brought
together early career researchers from the UK and Kazakhstan to discuss
their research, build contacts for future collaboration, and work on some of
the key development challenges affecting educational research in Kazakhstan.
Dr Elaine Wilson
Faculty of Education
University of Cambridge
Professor Aizhan Abibulayeva
Eurasian National University
Astana, Kazakhstan
An Introduction to Educational Research Methods.
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CONTENTS
Refining the focus for research and formulating a research question .............................................................................................................................
ВЫДЕЛЕНИЕ ОБЪЕКТА ДЛЯ ИЗУЧЕНИЯ И ФОРМУЛИРОВАНИЕ ПРЕДМЕТА ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ ......................................
ЗЕРТТЕУ АЙМАҒЫН АНЫҚТАП АЛУ ЖӘНЕ ЗЕРТТЕУ НЫСАНЫН ТҰЖЫРЫМДАУ .........................................................................
Reviewing the literature and writing a literature review .........................................................................................................................................................
АНАЛИЗ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ И НАПИСАНИЕ ЛИТЕРАТУРНОГО ОБЗОРА .......................................................................................................
ӘДЕБИЕТКЕ ТАЛДАУ ЖАСАУ МЕН ӘДЕБИЕТТІК ШОЛУДЫ ЖАЗУ .............................................................................................................
Research design .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
ПРОЕКТ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................
ЗЕРТТЕУ ЖҰМЫСЫНЫҢ ЖОБАСЫ ..........................................................................................................................................................................................
Ethics in educational research ................................................................................................................................................................................................................
ЭТИКА НАУЧНЫХ ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ .................................................................................................................................
ҒЫЛЫМИ ПЕДАГОГИКАЛЫҚ ЗЕРТТЕУЛЕР ЭТИКАСЫ ..............................................................................................................................................
Data collection ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
СБОР ИНФОРМАЦИИ .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
АҚПАРАТ ЖИНАУ ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Handling data ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
ОБРАБОТКА ДАННЫХ ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
МӘЛІМЕТТЕРДІ ӨҢДЕУ .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Reliability and validity in qualitative research by teacher researchers ............................................................................................................................
ДОСТОВЕРНОСТЬ И ВАЛИДНОСТЬ КАЧЕСТВЕННОГО АНАЛИЗА УЧИТЕЛЕЙ-ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЕЙ .........................
ЗЕРТТЕУШІ МҰҒАЛІМДЕРДІҢ САПАЛЫ ТАЛДАУЫНЫҢ ШЫНАЙЫЛЫҒЫ МЕН ЖАРАМДЫЛЫҒЫ .....................................
Analysing qualitative data .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
АНАЛИЗ КАЧЕСТВЕННЫХ ДАННЫХ .....................................................................................................................................................................................
САПАЛЫ МӘЛІМЕТТЕРДІ ТАЛДАУ ..........................................................................................................................................................................................
Taking a quantitative approach ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................
ПРИМЕНЕНИЕ КОЛИЧЕСТВЕННОГО МЕТОДА .............................................................................................................................................................
САНДЫҚ ӘДІСТІ ҚОЛДАНУ ............................................................................................................................................................................................................
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An Introduction to Educational Research Methods.
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Analysing quantitative data .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
АНАЛИЗ КОЛИЧЕСТВЕННЫХ ДАННЫХ ............................................................................................................................................................................
САНДЫҚ МӘЛІМЕТТЕРДІ ТАЛДАУ ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
Writing about your research
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
ОПИСАНИЕ ВАШЕГО ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
...........................................................................................................................................................................
СІЗДІҢ ЗЕРТТЕУ ЖҰМЫСЫҢЫЗДЫҢ СИПАТТАМАСЫ
...........................................................................................................................................
What is educational action research?
................................................................................................................................................................................................
ЧТО ТАКОЕ ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКОЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ В ДЕЙСТВИИ?
.............................................................................................................
ПЕДАГОГИКАЛЫҚ ІС-ӘРЕКЕТТЕГІ ЗЕРТТЕУ ДЕГЕНІМІЗ НЕ?
.................................................................................................................................
How to do action research
.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
ПОРЯДОК ПРОВЕДЕНИЯ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ В ДЕЙСТВИИ
................................................................................................................................
ІС-ӘРЕКЕТТЕГІ ЗЕРТТЕУ ЖҮРГІЗУ ТӘРТІБІ
............................................................................................................................................................................
The Case Study
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СИТУАЦИОННОЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ (КЕЙС-СТАДИ)
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Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
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Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
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Refining The Focus For Research And
Formulating A Research Question
CHAPTER ONE
Chapter Overview
When you first embark on a research project you will probably have a definite area
of interest in mind. For example, you may be particularly interested in the role of
writing to help learning. This is an interesting and important focus, but simply saying
you are researching writing to learn is much too broad. The first step then is to
narrow the area of interest down and come up with a more manageable narrower
scope. Novice researchers tend to find this process fairly daunting: so there are three
key questions which it might help a novice to ask before proceeding. If we stick with
the writing example then there are three prerequisites that you ought to establish
before going further.
• What exactly do you want to find out about writing to learn?
• What has been written about children’s writing already?
• What can you realistically manage in the time available to you?
Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
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Activity 1.1
Generating ideas
Brainstorming is a free-association technique of spontaneously listing all words,
concepts, ideas, questions and knowledge about a topic. Starts by making a
lengthy list about the areas you are interested in researching.
Sorting ideas
Next, sort these ideas into categories. This allows you to sort out your current
awareness of the area, decide what perspectives are most interesting and/
or relevant, and decide in which direction to steer your research. Create a
concept map from the categories you arrived at in the brainstorming stage.
Concept maps may be elaborate or simple and are designed to help you
organize your thinking about a topic, recognize where you have gaps in your
knowledge, and help to generate specific questions that may guide your
research. Having done that, decide if you now know enough about the area.
Do you need to do further reading? Are you ready to go onto the next stage
of ‘drilling down’ to the core of the problem?
Carrying out activity 2.1 might help with the process of refining the problem area.
Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
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‘Drilling down’ is a term taken from management literature and simply involves analysing
the research area from various perspectives to help narrow the focus. Figure 2.1 provides
an example in an educational context where a teacher identified her area of interest as
characteristics of successful lessons. This is a huge and complex area so the teacher first
considered what a successful lesson might look like from her own perspective as the teacher,
then from the school perspective and finally from the students’ perspective. This led on
to a series of second-level questions such as: how will I know if the students are learning?
As a result of this process, the teacher decided to focus on the students’ perspectives of
successful lessons. This helped to identify other ideas and raised further questions such
as: Are the students able to do the work I set? Do they believe they are able to do the
work I set? How do students perceive my role? Do students think the work is worthwhile?
Do they enjoy the work? In this case, the teacher decided to explore this aspect further
through asking a few students for their ideas, talking to colleagues and searching out recent
research in the area of student voice and motivation before attempting to formulate her
research question. In the next section, I will introduce other strategies that might help you
to formulate your questions.
Figure 1.1
Drilling down to the core of the issue
Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
‘Drilling down’ is a term taken from management literature and simply involves analysing
the research area from various perspectives to help narrow the focus. Figure 2.1 provides
an example in an educational context where a teacher identified her area of interest as
characteristics of successful lessons. This is a huge and complex area so the teacher first
considered what a successful lesson might look like from her own perspective as the teacher,
then from the school perspective and finally from the students’ perspective. This led on
to a series of second-level questions such as: how will I know if the students are learning?
As a result of this process, the teacher decided to focus on the students’ perspectives of
successful lessons. This helped to identify other ideas and raised further questions such
as: Are the students able to do the work I set? Do they believe they are able to do the
work I set? How do students perceive my role? Do students think the work is worthwhile?
Do they enjoy the work? In this case, the teacher decided to explore this aspect further
through asking a few students for their ideas, talking to colleagues and searching out recent
research in the area of student voice and motivation before attempting to formulate her
research question. In the next section, I will introduce other strategies that might help you
to formulate your questions.
Figure 1.1
Drilling down to the core of the issue
Activity 1.1
Generating ideas
Brainstorming is a free-association technique of spontaneously listing all words,
concepts, ideas, questions and knowledge about a topic. Starts by making a
lengthy list about the areas you are interested in researching.
Sorting ideas
Next, sort these ideas into categories. This allows you to sort out your current
awareness of the area, decide what perspectives are most interesting and/
or relevant, and decide in which direction to steer your research. Create a
concept map from the categories you arrived at in the brainstorming stage.
Concept maps may be elaborate or simple and are designed to help you
organize your thinking about a topic, recognize where you have gaps in your
knowledge, and help to generate specific questions that may guide your
research. Having done that, decide if you now know enough about the area.
Do you need to do further reading? Are you ready to go onto the next stage
of ‘drilling down’ to the core of the problem?
Carrying out activity 2.1 might help with the process of refining the problem area.
Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
10
FORMULATING THE RESEARCH QUESTION
Moving from a research topic to a research question
The first stage of moving from a topic to a research question will be informed by your
reading so finding out what is written about your area of interest will not only help you
to crystallize your thinking but will also suggest potential methodological approaches for
your chosen area of study. Chapter 3 will explain how to search for literature to help you
understand the key themes about your chosen topic and how to organize your findings into
coherent themes.
Having decided on and refined your research area, it helps if you can hone this into
a succinct researchable question. For example, talk to help learning would be a really good
area for research but ‘What sort of talk do students engage in during group work in science
lessons?’ would be a much more helpful starting point for a small scale school based research
project.
To think about your project then ask yourself the following questions:
1. What is known already about this area, what have experts already written about this
area and how have they undertaken research? (See Chapter 3 on reviewing literature.)
2. What are my colleagues in my school views’ about this area and what does my
higher-degree tutor advise me to do?
3. Why am I doing this research?
Figure 1.2
Stages of formulating a research question
Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
FORMULATING THE RESEARCH QUESTION
Moving from a research topic to a research question
The first stage of moving from a topic to a research question will be informed by your
reading so finding out what is written about your area of interest will not only help you
to crystallize your thinking but will also suggest potential methodological approaches for
your chosen area of study. Chapter 3 will explain how to search for literature to help you
understand the key themes about your chosen topic and how to organize your findings into
coherent themes.
Having decided on and refined your research area, it helps if you can hone this into
a succinct researchable question. For example, talk to help learning would be a really good
area for research but ‘What sort of talk do students engage in during group work in science
lessons?’ would be a much more helpful starting point for a small scale school based research
project.
To think about your project then ask yourself the following questions:
1. What is known already about this area, what have experts already written about this
area and how have they undertaken research? (See Chapter 3 on reviewing literature.)
2. What are my colleagues in my school views’ about this area and what does my
higher-degree tutor advise me to do?
3. Why am I doing this research?
Figure 1.2
Stages of formulating a research question
So you can see that it is unhelpful to start from the premise that you are going to survey the
students or carry out interviews or to even think about data collection methods until you
have a clear idea of what your precise research question is.
It is important to recognize that undertaking a research enquiry will make extra
demands on your time, energy and resources, so your enquiry must be realistically manageable
on top of your teaching role and where possible be seen as no more than extending the
activities you are already engaged in within your own classroom or school. The further
removed your research is from your usual professional work, the more difficult it will be
to undertake. Furthermore, carrying out an enquiry which is not directly related to your
own interest or professional work will be less useful to you. Ideas for research will emerge
from your own interests and experiences. This might be a new curriculum development, a
recurring difficulty, an idea you encountered on a course or as a result of reading a research
paper. Moving from a research topic to a research question is an important next step.
RESEARCH PURPOSE: WHY ARE YOU DOING THE RESEARCH?
Having a clear idea about the rationale for doing your research is important. The main
reasons teachers give for undertaking research are listed in Box 2.1.
Box 1.1 - Teachers’ classroom-based research
Firstly, to explore what is happening in your classroom or to seek new insights
into your classrooms. For example:
• How do teachers manage their classes? What are the classroom rules?
How are elements such as time, space, pupil behaviour or their own
strategies managed?
• How are classroom decisions made: by the teacher, by pupils, or by both
by negotiation?
• How is pupils’ work monitored and assessed in the classroom?
• How do teachers explain new topics to pupils?
Secondly, to describe or portray an accurate profile of persons, events
or situations which will require extensive knowledge of the situation. For
example:
• What do teachers and pupils do in the classroom? How do they spend
their time?
• What kind of interaction takes place, who talks to whom and about what?
• What do pupils learn, what tasks do they engage in, and with what degree
of involvement and success?
Refining The Focus For Research And Formulating A Research Question
11
So you can see that it is unhelpful to start from the premise that you are going to survey the
students or carry out interviews or to even think about data collection methods until you
have a clear idea of what your precise research question is.
It is important to recognize that undertaking a research enquiry will make extra
demands on your time, energy and resources, so your enquiry must be realistically manageable
on top of your teaching role and where possible be seen as no more than extending the
activities you are already engaged in within your own classroom or school. The further
removed your research is from your usual professional work, the more difficult it will be
to undertake. Furthermore, carrying out an enquiry which is not directly related to your
own interest or professional work will be less useful to you. Ideas for research will emerge
from your own interests and experiences. This might be a new curriculum development, a
recurring difficulty, an idea you encountered on a course or as a result of reading a research
paper. Moving from a research topic to a research question is an important next step.
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