educational research methods

educational research methods
Paper instructions:
This test is worth 30 marks (30%) of the total 100 marks for the course. Part A and Part B are each worth 15 marks. This is an open-book test, and students are expected to complete it independently.

Part A: Question 1 (a-i) worth 15 points
Read Ispa-Landa (2013) and answer (a-i) below. A copy of the article is on Blackboard under Course Resources: Articles and Chapters.

Ispa-Landa, S. (2013). Gender, race and justifications for group exclusion: Urban black students bussed to affluent suburban schools, Sociology of Education, 86 (3), 218-233.

In your answers to (a-i) you are expected to demonstrate an understanding of concepts introduced in the readings and at lectures, and the ability to think critically about these. You will need to make inferences from the information provided. Please provide an explanation or justification for each of your responses. Use your own words, with minimal use of direct quotes.
a) What was the problem, and how was the need to investigate it justified? What was the specific purpose of this research? (1 mark)

b) What do you think are the epistemological assumptions underpinning this research study? (2 marks)
c) Was the review of the literature sufficient? Was the literature discussed in relation to the findings? Please justify your answers. (1 mark)

d) What was the overarching research design or method? (1 mark)

e) Please comment on the method(s) for recruiting and selecting participants and their appropriateness for this research study. (1 marks)
f) Were the data collection methods appropriate to the purpose of the research and to the research question(s)? Justify your answer. (1 ma

g) What were the main findings from the study? Do you think they are credible and trustworthy? Please explain your answer. (3 marks)

h) What were the limitations of the study? (2 marks)

i) What do you think were the strengths and weaknesses of the study? (3 marks)

 
Part B: Questions 1-3 are worth 2 marks each and Questions 4-6 are worth 3 marks each

Read the scenarios provided for Questions 1-3, and answer the following questions in relation to each:
a. What is the population of interest in the research?
b. How well is the proposed sampling approach likely to result in a sample that is representative of the population?
c. Are there any independent variables in the research design? If so, what are they?
d. What is the dependent variable or variables? What kind of variable is each one (nominal, ordinal or interval)? Briefly justify your answer.
e. How generalisable are the findings likely to be?
f. Might the sampling approach be improved? If so, in what way?

Justify each answer; that is, explain why you have given the answer you have. Evidence of thinking carefully will be rewarded in the marking, even if an answer is not completely correct. Each question is worth 2 marks.
Question 1

A social science researcher is interested in the relationship between the numeracy of New Zealand adults, their gender and their level of income. He places advertisements in newspapers, and also puts up posters in supermarkets to recruit participants. All respondents to the advertisements and posters will be included in the sample. He proposes to give each participant a maths test, which will classify them either as numerate at an adult level of proficiency, or as being below an adult level of proficiency. He also intends to ask each participant their gender and how much they have earned in the previous twelve months

Question 2
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A secondary school is interested in finding out what parents think about the new “portal” on the school web page that allows parents to check their own child’s grades for their assessments throughout the year. Some teachers are concerned that not all families will own a computer and this may influence their satisfaction with this approach to communicating with parents. The principal mails a survey to all of the parents that asks them to use a four point scale (strongly satisfied to strongly dissatisfied) to rate their level of satisfaction with different aspects of the portal and the information they can receive through it. They are also asked to respond to a statement that asks them to rate their overall level of satisfaction with the portal. Respondents are also asked to indicate if they have their own computer. The school receives back 300 surveys from the 1500 families, giving a response rate of just over 2

Question 3
An educational researcher wishes to determine the effectiveness of a new school-based programme designed to increase literacy rates for children in years 1 and 2 of primary school. She proposes to include twenty schools in the study, randomly selected from all schools in New Zealand, with schools being randomly selected until 20 have agreed to participate. Ten schools are to be randomly allocated to undertake the new programme, with the other ten allocated to the control group and not undertaking any special programme. She proposes to give all students, at all schools, a literacy test before the reading programme is implemented and the same literacy test three months after the programme is implemented.

Answer each of questions in Questions 4-6. Justify each answer; that is, explain why you have given the answer you have. Evidence of thinking carefully will be rewarded in the marking, even if an answer is not completely correct. Each question is worth 3 marks.
Question 4
A researcher is planning to do a study on the effects of cell phone use on family interactions. They propose to begin by doing a literature review. Should the researcher do a traditional literature review or systematic review of the literature? Justify your answer. What would be an appropriate question to propose for the review?

Question 5
Curriculum and policy documents emphasise the importance of staff at early childhood centres working to create a sense of belonging for families attending their centres. An early childhood centre wishes to explore the extent to which families whose children attend their centre feel a sense of belonging to the centre, and in particular what having a sense of belonging means to individual families. The Head Teacher has read about a piece of research that was conducted in Finland which used a questionnaire with five point rating scales to measure family well-being in relation to a number of dimensions. She proposes to send the questionnaire home for parents to complete and to also ask them to note down all the social events and parent evenings or workshops provided by the centre that they have attended.
Discuss this approach to exploring “sense of belonging” in relation to the concept of construct validity. Suggest any improvements or alternative approaches that might have greater construct validity.

Question 6
A curriculum designer wants to evaluate a new teaching method for students who are experiencing difficulty in science. She works in collaboration with a teacher at a local high school. The curriculum designer writes two tests, each of which includes similar kinds of questions. The teacher administers the first test to the class, to provide a baseline measure of the students’ science achievement. On the basis of the results of the test, the curriculum designer defines three groups of students on the basis of their results in the test, with those who scored in the lowest third of the class being assigned to one group, those who scored in the middle third to a second group, and those who scored in the upper third, to the remaining group. She does not tell the students or the teacher which groups they are in; she is intending simply to use them for comparative purposes.
The teacher implements the new teaching method of teaching science for two months with all of the students in her class. After that time, the teacher administers the second test, to measure how much progress the students have made. She and the curriculum designer find that the average number of items correct has improved for all of the students, but that the increase is greatest for the lower group, and least for the upper group. The curriculum development specialist concludes that the new teaching method was successful for the improvement of the students who were having difficulty and can be promoted nationally.

How justified is the curriculum designer concluding that her new teaching approach was successful? Discuss in relation to potential threats to internal and external validity.
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