Second Week Reflections

Through the readings for this week, I learned about critical parts of a research:
Purpose statement, research question, research hypotheses, and research objectives.
Purpose statement: is a statement that advances the overall direction. It is about one to two sentence. I can write it in quantitative or qualitative research. Its place at the end of the introduction.
Research question: are questions in quantitative or qualitative research that narrow the purpose statement to specific questions that researches seek to answer.
Research hypotheses: are statements in quantitative research in which the investigator makes a prediction about the outcome.
Research objectives: is a statement of intent used in quantitative research that specifies goals that the investigator plans to achieve in a study.
These statements are really important to make it clear for readers the key or central ideas that will be addressed in my study.
Through the readings I find myself tend more to qualitative research. I do not know exactly why, but I think the best way to investigate in problems that I faced or I will encounter in my field is the qualitative research.
Qualitative research questions are open-ended, general questions that researcher would like to answer. To design these questions, we should
Expect the change of these questions and emerge of others. Use a few questions to emphasis on learning information from participants. Ask questions that use neutral, exploratory language. Design 2 types of qualitative research questions: the central question and subquestions.
There are 5 misunderstandings about case study research:
1- Theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge;
2- One cannot generalize from a single case; therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development;
3- The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building;
4- The case study contains a bias toward verification;
5- It is often difficult to summarize specific case studies.
The author of this article provided good reasons to reject this misunderstanding.
The video talks about the natural occurring data and why it is important. Many researchers prefer this way of collecting data because they want to see how participants perceive or respond to a phenomena rather than looking at what they say to produce the phenomena.

First Week Reflictions

It was really nice to start the book with a story that is similar to our situation in this course. I really had the same fears about planning and conducting a study. What do I have to know about research? How can I use knowledge and information provided in the book in practice? How can I evaluate my research problem( do we really need to address this problem, does its contribution in the literature worthy to work on, what is the potential of this topic? What is the best way to conduct my research problem? What ethical concerns or issues may arise?....
     Most of the reading makes a clear sense to me, but translating this knowledge into practice still challenging task.
   Chapter 1 provides important ideas with clear description aboutThe definition and the importance of educational research
The six steps in the process of research through quantitative and qualitative research.
The difference between quantitative and qualitative research which is in (sampling, instruments/ protocols, data analysis, and interpretation).
The types of research designs associated with quantitative and qualitative research. Ethical issues.
The skills needed to design and conduct research.
     Qualitative research is the approach of studying social phenomena. It deals with humanities, and uses multiple methods that are interactive and humanistic. In contrast, Quantitative research relies on statistical data and analysis.
    Chapter2 talks about identifying a research problem in more practical details.How research problem can be researchable? What are the needs to accomplish the research problem(time, resources, and skills)? How to justify the importance of the problem? Who is my audience?
   Giving examples is the best way for me to explain compliex things which is one of the John W book characteristics.
   From the article and as we discussed in our first session of the class, I realized that educational technology definition depends on its focus over a period of time.-The new AECT definition (Januszewski & Molenda, 2008) becomes the latest beacon to guide our thinking into the 21st century. It states as follows:
-The definition of Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources.
-The purpose of educational technology is “facilitating learning and improving performance”.
-We can do this: “by creating, using and managing”.
-The article raises some question about the new AECT definition. For example, “Some may wonder at the words ethical and appropriate within the definition. Are ethics and appropriate use something that is pre-determined? Or are they applied after the fact? Is a device still an exemplar of “educational technology” if it is later deemed inappropriate in a particular context?”