(How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education, 10e Jack Fraenkel, Norman Wallen, Hyun)
1
(Solution Manual all Chapters)
Chapter 1
The Nature of Research
Introduction
Educational research takes many forms. This chapter introduces the subject of educational
research and explains why knowledge of various types of research can be of value to educators.
Since research is not the only method to obtain knowledge, the chapter describes several other
ways and compares the strengths and weaknesses of each. A brief overview of several research
methodologies used in education to set the stage for a more extensive discussion of them is given
in the later chapters.
Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following objectives:
• Explain what is meant by the term “educational research” and give two examples of the kinds
of topics educational researchers might investigate.
• Explain why a knowledge of scientific research methodology can be of value to educators.
• Name and give an example of four ways of knowing other than the method used by
scientists.
• Explain what is meant by the term “scientific method.”
• Give an example of six different types of research methodologies used by educational
researchers.
• Describe briefly what is meant by critical research.
• Describe the differences among descriptive, associational, and intervention-type studies.
• Describe briefly the difference between basic and applied research.
• Describe briefly the difference between quantitative and qualitative research.
• Describe briefly what is meant by mixed-methods research.
• Describe briefly the basic components involved in the research process.
Lecture Outline
I. Some Examples of Educational Concerns
• Teachers need to know what kinds of materials, strategies, and activities best help students
learn.
• Counselors need to know what problems hinder or prevent students from learning and how
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Chapter 1: The Nature of Research
to help them with these problems.
• Administrators need to know how to provide an environment for happy and productive
learning.
• Parents need to know how to help their children succeed in school.
• Students need to know how to study to learn as much as they can.
II. Why Research Is of Value
• There exist many ways of obtaining information.
• One can consult experts, review books and articles, question or observe colleagues with
relevant experience, examine one’s own past experience, or even rely on intuition.
• All these approaches suggest possible ways to proceed, but the answers they provide are
not always reliable.
• The scientific method provides an important way to obtain accurate and reliable
information.
III. Ways of Knowing
• There are many ways to obtain information, including sensory experience, agreement with
others, expert opinion, logic, and the scientific method.
A. Sensory Experience
• The information people take in from their senses is the most immediate way they have
of knowing something.
• Sensory knowledge is undependable; it is also incomplete.
B. Agreement with Others
• People can check on the accuracy and authenticity of these sensations: Does this soup
taste salty to you? Isn’t that John over there? Did you hear someone cry for help?
Smells like mustard, doesn’t it?
• Obviously, there is a great advantage to checking with others about whether they see or
hear what people do.
o It can help people discard what is untrue and manage one’s life more intelligently
by focusing on what is true.
C. Expert Opinion
• There are particular individuals people should consult—experts in their field, people
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Education.
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Chapter 1: The Nature of Research
who know a great deal about what people are interested in finding out.
• No expert, however, has studied or experienced all there is to know in a given field, and
thus even an expert can never be totally sure.
D. Logic
• One’s intellect—one’s capability to reason things out—allows one to use sensory data
to develop a new kind of knowledge.
• Consider the famous syllogism: All human beings are mortal. Sally is a human being.
Therefore, Sally is mortal.
• To assert the first statement (called the major premise), one needs to only generalize
from one’s experience about the mortality of individuals.
• The second statement (called the minor premise) is based entirely on sensory
experience.
• One does not have to rely on one’s senses, then, to know that the third statement (called
the conclusion) must be true.
E. The Scientific Method
• The scientific method involves answering questions through systematic and public data
collection and analysis.
• The general order of the scientific method is as follows:
o Identifying a problem or question
o Clarifying the problem
o Determining the information needed and how to obtain it
o Organizing the information
o Interpreting the results
• A common misperception of science fosters the idea that there are fixed, once-and-for-
all answers to particular questions.
• While certainty is appealing, it is contradictory to a fundamental premise of science: All
conclusions are to be viewed as tentative and subject to change, should new ideas and
new evidence warrant revision.
IV. Types of Research
• Some of the most commonly used research methodologies in education are experimental
research, correlational research, causal-comparative research, survey research,
ethnographic research, historical research, and action research.
A. Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed-Methods Research
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Chapter 1: The Nature of Research
• Quantitative researchers usually base their work on the belief that the world is a single
reality that can be approximated by careful study.
• Qualitative researchers, on the other hand, are likely to assume that the world is made
up of multiple realities, socially constructed by different individual views of the same
situation.
• Sometimes researchers will use both qualitative and quantitative approaches in the same
study.
o This kind of research is referred to as mixed-methods research.
B. Experimental Research
• Experimental research involves manipulating conditions and studying effects.
• In the simplest sort of experiment, two contrasting methods are compared and an
attempt is made to control for all other (extraneous) variables—such as student ability
level, age, grade level, time, materials, and teacher characteristics—that might affect the
outcome under investigation.
• Another form of experimental research, single-subject research, involves the intensive
study of a single individual (or sometimes a single group) over time.
C. Correlational Research
• Correlational research involves studying relationships among variables within a single
group and frequently suggests the possibility of cause and effect.
• The approach requires no manipulation or intervention on the part of the researcher
other than administering the instrument(s) necessary to collect the data desired.
D. Causal-Comparative Research
• Causal-comparative research involves comparing known groups that have had different
experiences to determine possible causes or consequences of group membership.
• Interpretations of causal-comparative research are limited, therefore, because the
researcher cannot say conclusively whether a particular factor is a cause or a result of
the behavior(s) observed.
• Despite problems of interpretation, causal-comparative studies are of value in
identifying possible causes of observed variations in the behavior patterns of students.
E. Survey Research
• Survey research obtains data to determine specific characteristics of a group.
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Education.
