June 23 - Inferential Statistics

We have now examined descriptive statistics. Today, we will take a close look at inferential statistics. Inferential statistics are used to determine if mean scores between two or more groups are statistically significant. There are several different types that we will examine that can be used with different numbers of groups for statistical comparison purposes.

The type of inferential statistic you will use depends on how many groups' mean scores you are comparing. The type also depends upon whether or not you will be using a pretest. In addition, if you are examining more than one type of variable, there is yet another type of inferential statistic for this.

Today, we will be examining the five different inferential statistics to compare mean scores. We will also learn about one type of inferential statistic that may be used to compare variances. Keep in mind that if variances are different (like we saw in our previous work in descriptive statistics), it is very difficult to compare the mean scores and make any sense of the comparison.

Whereas we calculate descriptive statistics in any quantitative design, we only use inferential statistics when we compare scores of two or more groups. Therefore, we would only use these if we are doing causal-comparative or experimental research since these are the only types of research where we make comparisons between groups. In essence, we do inferential statistics so that we may infer that what we did with one group worked better than what we did with the other(s).

We will be examining six different types of inferential statistics. These six include:

1. Levene's Test of Homogeneity of Variance - This is a type of inferential statistic that we use to compare variances (or spreads of scores in the different groups). We use it to make sure that there is no statistical difference between variances among groups before we compare their mean scores using one of the next inferential statistical procedures. It provides an "F' statistic.


2. Independent t-test - An independent t-test is used to compare the mean scores of two groups. It provides you with a "t" statistic.


3. ANOVA (analysis of variance) - An ANOVA is used to compare the mean scores of two or more groups. It provides you with an "F" statistic.


4. ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) - An ANCOVA is used to compare the mean scores of two or more groups, while considering the pretest results. It provides you with an "F" statistic.


5. Factorial ANOVA - A factorial ANOVA is used to compare the means scores of two or more groups when using two or more independent variables in your research (e.g., gender and reading method, grade level and math method, etc.). It provides you with an "F" statistic.


6. Bonferroni - A Bonferroni test is a specialized comparison of mean scores that may be used to isolate where statistically significant differences are occurring when you have found a difference in the mean scores of three or more groups (e.g., you have three reading methods and find a statistically significant difference among them. The Bonferroni adjustment allows you to identify where the specific differences are occurring. Is it between reading method one and two, or two and three, or one and three?). It is a specialized t-test. It provides a t-statistic.

Notice, on the above, that when you use an inferential statistic that allows you to compare mean scores of two or more groups, you will have an "F" statistic. When you use an inferential test that only allows for comparisons between two groups, it gives you a "t" statistic. How are they related? Like the relationship between standard deviation and variance, the relationship between "t" and "F" is the following: The square root of F = t, or said another way "t" squared is equal to "F."

One last word, keep in mind that once we calculate a statistic, we must ask the question, "Is this statistic statistically significant?" Just as we did with correlational research, we answer this question by looking at the p-value (going by other names such as probability, statistical sig., or simply sig.). Please return to Blackboard to begin this exploration of inferential statistics.

June 22 - Descriptive Statistics

We are now to the final part of research prospectus paper. This is the analysis part of the Design and Analysis subsection of the Method section of your paper. We have previously discussed one type of analysis, which is used in qualitative studies. This type is known as content analysis, which is where you create, revise, and label categories based upon narrative data. Today, we will be examining descriptive statistics, which form the basic statistics for all quantitative approaches.

Descriptive statistics include:

1. Measures of Central Tendency - these measures show how the scores in a set of scores "come together." Measures of central tendency include the mean, the median, and the mode.


2. Measures of Variability - these measures show how the scores in a set of scores "spread apart." Measures of variability include the range, the standard deviation, and the variance (the standard deviation squared).


3. Measures of Relative Position and Relationship - these measures include correlation coefficients, percentile ranks, and other such scores. They show relationships and relative positions of scores achieved.

These descriptive statistics form the basis for the next set of statistics that we will discuss - inferential statistics. Inferential statistics are used when statistical comparisons are made concerning, in particular, means and variances. Inferential statistics are only calculated in experimental and causal-comparative studies. However, descriptive statistics are necessary for any type of quantitative study whether it be descriptive, correlational, causal-comparative, or experimental.

Please return to Blackboard to begin this exploration of descriptive statistics. The information there will be of use to you whether you are doing descriptive, correlational, causal-comparative, or experimental research.

June 17 - Experimental Research

At this point, we have examined correlational and causal-comparative research along with the other designs of research. We have noted that neither causal-comparative nor correlational research designs can provide us with strong cause and effect information. We cannot say from the results of these types of studies that something caused something else with any sort of strong confidence. In fact, we would make a critical error in trying to do so.

Today, we will be examining our final type of research that does allow us to draw cause and effect conclusions. This type of research is experimental research. Experimental research is used extensively in the medical field and various other science-related fields. In addition, it is used in the testing of a variety of products in a host of fields. It is also used in education to try to examine cause and effect.

We can use experimental research when we ask such questions as:

• If we use this method of instruction would it work better than this other method as indicated by Benchmark scores?


• If we use two different methods of instruction, would one lead to higher levels of motivation?


• If we use this textbook with one group and use a different textbook with the other, will end-of-unit test scores be statistically significantly different?


• Would one management technique lead to fewer numbers of misbehavior in my class than another?


• Would students physical testing scores be different based upon which type of three possible types of training they used?

There are multiple other questions we might ask similar to these in design. These are just a few. In today's and Monday's examination of experimental research, you will be doing several activities to help you better understand this important design. Please return to Blackboard to begin.

June 16 Causal-comparative and Correlational Research

We have now examined qualitative and descriptive research. Keep in mind that these two types of research use methods that answer a research question that has been asked just after your review of related literature. Today, we will be looking at the types of research for which you will have a hypothesis that will be tested through the parts of your Method section.

We will begin this discussion with two types of research that are somewhat similar in some ways and different in others. We will be examining correlational and causal-comparative research. Keep in mind that a big difference in the two is that causal-comparative is designed to compare the scores of two groups based on some sort of fixed or non-manipulable variable (e.g., gender, intelligence, family background, SES, use of drugs, behavior disorder, etc.) whereas correlational is used to examine one group with two variables to see if these variables are related to each other.

When using either design, it is not possible to make cause and effect statements about the variables studied. For correlational, you only have one group so no comparison is occurring. For causal-comparative, many other variables may come into play when you try to study one certain one since you are studying these variables ex post facto (after the fact).

For instance, if you are comparing two groups of adults (one that uses drugs and the other that does not) on income earned, there may be other factors coming into play such as education obtained, family background, and depression. Any of these factors could potentially have impacted the result (Some people try to solve this problem by doing what is called "matching."). Therefore, conclusions from either correlational or causal-comparative are tentative. One cannot indicate cause and effect (correlational), and the other cannot control every variable that might be involved in a cause and effect since it is studied ex post facto. On the other hand, finding a relationship (correlational) or seeing a difference (causal-comparative) can be a first step toward doing an experimental research study.

Please proceed to Blackboard to begin examining these two types of research. You will find information there concerning these two types of research. Please proceed to the discussion board first before beginning the information on causal-comparative research. It will help you better understand the potential variables that may be examined through this type of research.

June 15 - Descriptive Research

Today, we will be examining descriptive research. Although different educational research experts use different designations for types of descriptive research, the different types can be loosely placed into a few specialized categories. These include:

• Survey Research (where participants are asked to complete a survey of some sort)


• Observational Research (where participants are observed and their behaviors are noted)


• Interview Research (where interviews are actually conducted)

In consideration of these three types, some people refer to interviews as "personal surveying" and place interviews under a "survey" heading. Others use the phrase "survey research" rather than descriptive research. Still others tend to shy away from using observation research. Yet others use the phrase "self-report studies" versus "observational studies." In any case, we can speak of these three different types realizing that various researchers consider them to overlap in some ways.

In any case, there are commonalities. For example, in descriptive research, whether you are doing survey, observational, or interview research; all data are reported quantitatively and are analyzed through typically fairly simple statistics. In addition, scoring techniques and various types of item categories are used to help organize the data into meaningful information. Some of the most common ways this is done is through:

• Likert Items (levels of agreement or disagreement with the statement made)


• Rating Items (items where you are typically asked to rate the usefulness or excellence of something)


• Semantic Differential scales (items that are split into bipolar ends [such as hot-cold, heavy-light, etc.] and where you make a mark toward one of these ends concerning whatever you are rating)


• Behavior checklists (used in observational research to see how often or how much a particular behavior occurs)


• Demographic items (to determine percentages of groups participating [e.g., census])

You have all participated at one time or another in a descriptive study. Perhaps you completed a restaurant survey. You participated in the US Census. You filled out a satisfaction survey. You used a shopping card from your favorite grocer. You did a peer observation, or you evaluated a professor. All of these are used for descriptive research purposes.

Please proceed to the Blackboard information to examine a scanned handout on some of the important aspects to consider when designing a descriptive research study. There you will find a brief history of survey research. You will also find information about different types of surveys and some of the problems that can exist with observational and survey research.

June 14 - Qualitative Research

At this point, we have been discussing what you all have in common with your research proposals. All of you have a title page. You will each have an Introduction section with an introductory portion, a statement of the problem, a review of related literature, and a hypothesis OR research question. In addition, you will all have a Method section with four subsections. We have discussed two of these. One subsection is your Participants portion where you let the reader/audience know who the participants in your research will be. The second subsection is your Instruments (for quantitative) or Data Collection Methods (for qualitative) portion. In this part, you will talk about what tools you will use to collect your data.

The final two subsections of your Method section are what we will be devoting the rest of our time to investigating. One of these is the Procedures subsection, and the other is the Design and Analysis subsection. These two subsections are highly related to one another. These two subsections are dependent upon the type of research design you choose (qualitative, historical, descriptive, correlational, causal-comparative, or experimental). So, in the next few days, we will be learning more about each of these different types of designs.

As noted on your syllabus, we will begin with the qualitative designs. Although there are a whole host of different qualitative designs, we are only going to focus on three of them. These include:

1. Case Study Design (This is the most common and is what you will be designing in this class if you choose to do a qualitative design.)


2. Phenomenological Design


3. Ethnographic Design

There is an activity in the Content portion of Blackboard in the Qualitative folder (June 14) where you are asked to look at chart with information concerning these three different qualitative designs. You are to examine overall similarities (i.e., what do they have in common?) and differences (How are they each unique?). Keep in mind that the tools for data collection that are mentioned could be used in any of the designs. Some just use them more commonplace than others.

It should become clear to you, as you consider qualitative designs, that they are quite a bit different and come from a different perspective than quantitative designs. We have already mentioned some of these. Another important way in which they differ is in how sampling occurs. In qualitative, the sampling procedures are purposeful instead of quantitatively controlled. You will see types of sampling used such as the following:

• snowball sampling (where you count on one trusted informant to lead you to others)


• deviant case sampling (where you are looking for people with a "deviant" behavior of some sort to sample)


• typical case sampling (where you are looking for people who generally express some behavior you want to study)


• opportunistic sampling (where you are looking for people anywhere you can find them as you go about examining some case, program, situation, etc.)

These are just a small sample of the types of sampling used in qualitative research. There are many others that go beyond the scope of this course. You can see that instead of trying to tightly choose and control a sample (into one group or another many times) like what is done in quantitative you, instead, are letting things occur naturally - including the sample.

As you can see, today's emphasis will be upon how a qualitative case study design works. Please proceed to Blackboard to begin examining qualitative designs to research.

June 10 - Instruments in Your Research

After explaining who the participants will be in a proposed study, the next step (for quantitative research studies) is the Instrument subsection in the Method section. The Instrument subsection lets the reader/audience know what measuring instrument you will be using with your participants to test your hypothesis or address your research question.

Your Instrument subsection should contain at least three parts. These parts are:

1. A description of your assessment. For what is it to be used? Who created this instrument? Was it created by you or was it created by a national or state company? What sort of general purposes does the test serve?


2. A description of the validity of your instrument's use for what you are using it for. Have experts said that it is a valid measure? Who are these experts who have stated this? Does the testing company have evidence that it is a valid tool to measure what it claims to measure? Has the company field-tested it? How does the state claim it is a valid measure? Is it mapped to standards (national or state)? Have teams of experts examined it?


3. A description of the reliability of your instrument's use for what you are using it for. According to the PowerPoint on Blackboard, reliability is evidenced by a correlation coefficient. Examine the PowerPoint on Blackboard to see what is acceptable for this.

In addition to the above parts, if you are creating your own survey to use, you will need to give some example items from your survey. You will also need to indicate what the levels of your survey are for the items. In other words, does a "5" mean "strongly agree" and a "1" mean "strongly disagree?" You need to let the reader/audience know.

This is the type of information that needs to be included in your Instrument subsection of your Method section. One place to find information on potential tests that you might use is the Mental Measurement Yearbook. This is a very thorough source of testing information. You might also find information about state tests from department of education websites. In addition, certain test companies such as the Educational Testing Service, Harcourt and Brace, and Riverside may also provide information about the validity, reliability, purposes, and field-testing of their respective tests that they produce. Here are some example websites that might be of use to you:

1. http://www.unl.edu/buros/


2. http://arkansased.org/testing/index.html


3. http://www.riversidepublishing.com/index.html


4. http://www.pearsonassessments.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-us/Productdetail.htm?Pid=SAT10C


5. http://www.ets.org/

Please examine the model papers for additional insights on this subsection. Your instrument subsection helps give additional information to the reader/audience and should match your hypothesis or research question.

June 9 - Method Section and Participants Subsection

After you have stated your hypothesis (if you choose experimental, causal-comparative, or correlational research) or research question (if you choose historical, qualitative, or descriptive research), it is now time to design your method to test your hypothesis or answer your research question. The Method section is composed of four parts. These are the:

1. participants subsection,
2. the instruments (or data collection methods) subsection,
3. the procedure subsection,
4. and the design and analysis subsection. (It would be useful to keep a model paper handy [found on the Blackboard site] as you examine the following information.)

Today, we will be examining the participants subsection. All of you must choose who you will plan to have participate in your research study. In this subsection you must address three parts:

1. Who are these participants that you would use IF you did this proposed study in the future? You must describe background information such as percentages of males and females, percentages of different ethnicities represented, percentages of students on free or reduced lunch services, grade level, size of school, etc. If they are teachers, you will need to also include information such as the above, plus years of experience, degree level obtained, etc. (Please refer to model papers for other types of information that might be useful in your papers.). In some cases you may have to estimate a bit on this since you are in the planning stages. Use your best judgment here based on past experience and/or communication about future classes.


2. How will you choose your sample? In other words, what sampling technique will you use in your study? For many of you, you will use the whole population of your grade-level, whole population of your school, or whole population of your parents. In this case you will note that you will be using the whole population and why. For others of you, you will have a sampling technique that you will need to mention. (There is a PowerPoint on Blackboard concerning this important information.)


3. How many participants will be included in your study? You need to state how many participants you are choosing for participation in your planned study.

After addressing these three parts in your Participants subsection, you will now be on the way to determining what instruments (or data collection methods), what procedures, and what design and analysis you will be using with these participants. Keep in mind, to plan a study, you must have a set of participants. These participants are the same ones that you mention in your hypothesis or research question. They will help you test your hypothesis or answer your research question by participating in your planned study. They will ultimately provide you with data when (or if) you actually complete your planned study someday.

June 8 - Parts of the Paper

When creating your research proposal paper, there are several things to remember. First, you may have a tentative thought about what you might find from your study (if you were to actually complete it in the future). At this point it is tentative until you review what other experts have said and/or published related to your topic of choice. It would be good to keep one of the model papers (provided on the Blackboard site) handy as you read through the information below.

Keep in mind that you will ultimately create a research-designed method that helps address your original research question. Before you create your Method section, however, you want to examine some preliminary factors for both you and your potential audience who might be interested in hearing about, reading, or seeing a presentation of your research in the future (if you decided to complete your proposed study in the future).

To do this, you first need to develop an expertise (or even greater expertise) in the area that you are proposing to examine in your study. This part of your paper will demonstrate that you have become an "expert" in this particular area that you are examining. You will demonstrate this expertise through your Introduction section, which consists of an introductory portion, a statement of the problem that you will be examining, a review or related literature (Notice this says related literature. You do not need to repeat exactly what someone else has done in a study, but you may glean from their findings and/or ideas as long as you cite them in your paper [give them credit for ideas used by you].), and a hypothesis statement (for causal-comparative, experimental, or correlational proposed studies) or a research question (for descriptive, qualitative, or historical proposed studies). In the introductory portion of your Introduction, you need to address such questions as:

1. Why is this topic important in our society in general?


2. Who says it is important? (Published experts, national learned societies [NSTA, NCTE, AAPHERD, etc.], government officials or agencies, etc.)?


3. How are we doing in this area, and who has said how we are doing (for example, learned societies, national testing data, state testing data, government agencies, published experts, etc.)?


4. How might what you are planning on researching potentially contribute to helping address this issue or at least give us more information about it?

Once you complete this part of your Introduction, you are ready to make a statement of the problem. This simply means that you say, "The purpose of this study is to..." You let the reader/audience know what you are doing. It should be very clear in this statement by what you say as to what type of research you will be conducting.

Once you have stated your problem to be addressed, you are now ready to do your review of related literature. In your review, you need to give the reader/audience background information that will inform your reader/audience about the specific topic you will be examining in your study. You then lead the reader/audience through a discussion of the topic itself and what others have found related to it. Finally, you bring it to a point of prediction (a hypothesis) or to a research question depending on the type of design you are using. Here are typical questions addressed in a review of related literature:

1. What is the background into which your chosen topic fits? In other words, you need to examine how this area has been historically approached, what theory supports this chosen topic, or both.


2. What information do we currently have about this topic? This information is supplied by what other researchers have found and how it fits with what you are wanting to examine.


3. What specific studies have been completed that are most related to your topic? For example, if you want to know if cooperative learning helps people learn math concepts, what have others found when cooperative learning has been used to learn science, English, or some other subject? If cooperative learning has been used in math before, how does what you are doing distinguish your study from what has already been done?

Once you reach this point of your Introduction (the completion of the review of related literature), it is now time to make a hypothesis (for experimental, correlational, or causal-comparative proposed studies) or to state your research question (for descriptive, qualitative, or historical proposed studies). Whether using a hypothesis or a research question, you need to include three parts:

1. A identifying characteristic of your chosen participants (In other words, are they 1st graders, 5th graders, 10th graders, high school teachers, middle school media specialists, or some other group?)


2. A note of the instrument or tool used to collect data (In other words, will you use a Benchmark exam, a Likert survey, GPA, an open-ended questionnaire, observation, another type, or a combination?)


3. A note on what you are actually examining (In other words, will you be examining a new character education program, a math method, a coaching approach, a discipline model, or some other variable?).

To summarize, the Introduction contains four parts to it. They are:

1. The introductory part.
2. The statement of the problem.
3. The review of related literature.
4. A hypothesis statement or research question depending on the type of study you are planning to do.

Once you complete your Introduction (with the introductory part, the statement of the of the problem, the review or related literature, and the hypothesis or research question), it is now time to plan your Method section. The Method section is the method you will use (including a description of your planned study participants, data collection methods or instruments used, your procedure you will follow, and your design and analysis approach you will use) to test your hypothesis or answer your research question. As you can see, everything flows together. The review leads to a hypothesis or research question. This then leads to a method to test your hypothesis or answer you question. All of this is part of your research proposal. The last section to be included is your References page, which we have discussed previously.

June 7 - Research Questions

When designing a research proposal (which you will be doing in this class), you must first decide what you are really interested in researching. You may be interested in determining that if by using one method of motivation with one group of students and another method with another group of students the students unit test scores will be different (or if their behavior problems decrease). You might want to know what study strategies students typically use for your tests. You may want to know what the opinions are of faculty members concerning the new remediation program. You might want to know if your male students score as well as your female students on their writing after using a new writing approach. You might want to know what the relationship is between hours of practice and student concert performance. You may want to know the impact of peer tutoring on second language learners. Or, you might want to know if teaching a group of students how to throw a pitch using one technique results in more strikes than another technique.

To examine such interests, you must first write a research question (like we practiced yesterday). It must be worded in such a way that it can clearly be identified as one of the six design types we studied (historical, qualitative, descriptive, correlational, causal-comparative, or experimental). What type of question your create will determine what sort of participants you will need to use in your study, what type of measuring instruments or research tools you will use, what type of analysis will be required, what sort of review of research you will be emphasizing, and how you will set up your proposed study.

The research questions (that you practiced writing yesterday) are the first step towards designing a useful study. Please take some time today to consider two or three research questions for which you may be interested in planning your study. Here are five sites that may help you as you think about your possible research questions. Some of these sites have general ideas for guiding you to a research question, others have general questions that could be designed into an official research question, and some are research thought-starter sites.

1. http://www.theresearchassistant.com/tutorial/2-1.asp


2. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yTFCYfvYYNoJ:www.thomas.edu/grad/syllabi/Examples%2520of%2520Action%2520Research%2520Questions.doc+%22action+research+questions%22&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us


3. http://www.salus.edu/nclvi/research_ideas2.htm#ASSESSMENT


4. http://education.illinois.edu/ber/School_Research_Ideas.html

June 6 Post - An Overview of Educational Research

When conducting educational research, there are three overarching types of research that may be conducted (Please refer to your Research Overview table as you examine this information.). They are the following:

1. Basic Research - research to create and test theories (e.g., Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences, Piaget's theory of cognitive development, Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of human needs, etc.). This is the research conducted by educational researchers to create and test the theories they are developing.


2. Applied Research - research to determine how people can apply theories to the classroom, school, or related settings. This research is typically completed by someone outside the classroom, school, or related setting where the research is being conducted. The goal is to determine how theories, applications, methods, and so forth work in an actual real-life context.


3. Action Research - research conducted by a person inside the classroom, school, or related setting by himself or herself, with others in the school, or with others outside the school. This is the research completed by teachers, principals, curriculum directors, and so forth within their schools and classrooms to improve practice and achievement. Some people refer to this type of research as Teacher Research.

Irregardless of what type of research is being conducted or who is conducting the research, there are two approaches that may be used. One is a qualitative approach. The other is a quantitative approach. The following links help distinguish the two approaches:

1. http://www.aiuniv.edu/Student-Life/Blog/October-2012/Qualitative-Vs-Quantitative-Research



2. http://wilderdom.com/research/QualitativeVersusQuantitativeResearch.html



3. http://www.southalabama.edu/coe/bset/johnson/lectures/lec2.pdf

If you desire to ask parents, students, or teachers questions about how they feel about something, their understandings about some key concept, or what their beliefs are about a new school policy; you will likely be doing qualitative research. If, on the other hand, you want to know if a new method improves test scores better than an old one, how parents rate a new character education program, what the relationship is between a group of students' GPA's and their number of class absences, or if males or females did better on a quiz after using accelerated instruction; you will be doing quantitative research.

There are six large headings of research (seen on your Research Overview Table). Two fit under the Qualitative Approaches heading, and four fit under the Quantitative Approaches heading. They are the following:

1. Historical (under Qualitative Approaches). Researchers who use this design are typically answering questions such as the following: How has the use of punishment changed in X school district over the past 15 years, what reading methods have been used in Y school over the last 10 years and why, and what methods of instruction have been used with at-risk students in Z school in the last 6 years? Such questions are answered through interviews, open-ended questionnaires, focus group interviews, and other such tools to give the researcher rich narrative feedback. Examining the past is the emphasis.


2. Qualitative (under Qualitative Approaches). Researchers using this design are typically answering questions such as the following: What do teachers believe about the effectiveness of the current reading approach being used in X school, what thinking processes do students use when attempting to solve algebraic equations, or what study strategies do parents and students believe are the most effective for students who are preparing for the Benchmark exams? Such questions are answered through interviews, open-ended questionnaires, focus group interviews, and other such tools to give the researcher rich narrative feedback. Examining the present is the emphasis.


3. Descriptive (under Quantitative Approaches). Researchers using this design are typically answering questions such as the following: How do teachers rate the new character education program being used in Z school, how do parents rate the school to home communication efforts in Y school, or what are students feelings about the Accelerated Reader program as indicated by a Likert survey? Such questions are answered through numbers obtained through Likert surveys (statements that a rater can strongly agree to strongly disagree with), rating scales, and checklists among other such tools. These data are analyzed numerically to provide various types of information.


4. Correlational (under Quantitative Approaches). Researchers using this design are typically answering questions such as the following: What is the numerical relationship between Benchmark test scores and hours doing homework, what is the numerical relationship between time spent reading and quiz scores, or what is the relationship between hours of weight lifting and number of muscular injuries. Such questions are answered by getting two numbers from all the participants in the study and then doing a statistical calculation to see if there is a relationship between the two sets of numbers. So, for example, if we have a class of thirty students, we could ask each of them to report their homework hours, and then we could get test scores for all thirty. We could then do a statistical test (to be learned about later in the course) to see if there is a numerical relationship between these two sets of numbers.


5. Causal-comparative (under Quantitative Approaches). Researchers using this design want to know if there is a difference in scores between two groups of people based upon a "fixed variable" or a variable that cannot be changed. Variables such as these include gender, socioeconomic status, age, use of drugs, family structure, use of tobacco, and so forth. Some of these are nearly impossible to change, and for others, it is unethical to do so (e.g., you cannot ask one group of students to do drugs and another to not do drugs so that you can do a study about how this effects test scores. However, you could do this study after the fact based on what they tell you.). Questions asked might include the following: Is there a difference in test scores between males and females after using the Accelerated Math program, is there a difference in GPA between students from high versus medium versus low socioeconomic statuses, or is there a difference in class absences between those students who have used drugs versus those who have not? To answer these questions, we would collect data on the two different groups and analyze these results statistically to determine if, in fact, there was or was not a difference.


6. Experimental (under Quantitative Approaches). Researchers using this design want to know if there is a difference between two group's test scores, absences, GPA's, points earned, or some other variable based on the changing of what is called an independent variable. Questions that might be asked include: What is the difference in test scores between 3rd-graders using the Accelerated Math program versus those using the Saxon Math program, what is the difference in absences between 10th-graders participating in the voluntary character education program versus those who do not, or what is the difference in GPA's for those 8th-graders using the inquiry science method versus those using the direct instruction science method? Such questions are answered best by assigning students into different groups and then measuring the students achievement or participation through tests, homework scores, hours engaged, GPA, points earned or some other such variable.

There are other examples of research questions that have been written by previous students included on Blackboard. In addition, it is now your turn to try your hand at writing some research questions. Please proceed to the Discussion Board on Blackboard to participate.