Syllabus ED510 Interpreting Educational Research (Online)

Arcadia University Department of Education Semester Douglas J Sauber, Ph.D. E-mail: drd@drsauber.com Phone: 215-704-7292 Policy regarding feedback: I will return emails within 48 hours and grade your assignments within a week. Welcome! The course objectives and purpose will be pursued via on-line activities. Participants will be required to engage in on-line discussions through meaningful contributions of ideas, insight, and questioning. Weekly readings, investigation, and reflection will culminate in submitted requirements. Required Materials REQUIRED TEXT: McMillan, J. and Schumacher, S. (2010). Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson. RECOMMENDED TEXT: American Psychological Association. (2009). The concise rules of APA style (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Aside from the texts, all course materials can be found on the course Blackboard site at MyArcadia.edu. Since this course is being delivered online, your computer system will need to meet specific hardware and software requirements. You will find a complete listing of hardware and software needs at http://student.arcadia.edu/online. For this course, you will need to have access to Microsoft Office. Minimum Technical Skills Expected

1. The ability to use a modern web browser, like Internet Explorer or Firefox, to navigate websites. 2. The ability to use your Arcadia e-mail address to send and receive e-mails. 3. The ability to learn My Arcadia features found in the Tutorials section of the course, as needed. 4. The ability to use word processing software to read, author, edit and save documents. 5. The ability to use a search engine, like Google, to find information on the web. Technical Support If you experience any difficulties with accessing the course or email please contact the IT helpdesk 215.572.2898. If you encounter a problem with an assignment or content in the course please contact me. Resources available In compliance with the Arcadia University policy and equal access laws, appropriate academic accommodations can be made for students eligible for such support. Students are encouraged to register with the Disability Services Office (215-968-8463) to verify their eligibility for appropriate accommodations. Please speak to me about any requests for academic accommodations or other concerns as early in the semester as possible. Evaluation A AB+ B BC+ C CD F = = = = = = = = = = 94-100 total points 90-93 87-89 83-86 80-82 77-79 73-76 70-72 65-69 <65 25 points 5 points 3 points 42 points 10 points 5 points 10 points

Participation Online Search Educational Research Survey Article Summaries PowerPoint Presentation Presentation Evaluations Culminating Paper

Scholarship and academic honesty will have an effect on the final evaluation. If you experience difficulty at any point in the class, please notify me immediately. There will be no extensions given

for the due date of any project. Conventional rules of plagiarism apply to all assignments. Anyone caught plagiarizing will receive an F for the assignment and will have their final course grade reduced by one letter grade. More than one incidence of plagiarism will result in an F for the course. Introduction Course Description: This course is designed to examine the theories, techniques, and methodologies of research currently employed for the analysis of educational and social sciences initiatives and investigations. Emphasis will be placed on applying knowledge of research techniques and methodologies to the critical analysis of published research. Students will critique the research methods and practices followed by selected researchers in their areas of concentration. Course Objectives After successfully completing this course, students will be able to: Understand the theories, techniques, and methodologies of educational and social sciences research. Understand the nature of scientific inquiry. Understand various concepts in educational and social sciences measurement, including: Scales of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. Reliability and validity. Derived scores (ex: standard scores, percentile rank, etc.) Standard error of measurement. Survey techniques. Understand concepts of descriptive statistics and research (ex: frequency distributions, measures of central tendency, correlation, obtained and derived scores, measures of variability, etc.) Read and evaluate research articles in education and social sciences. Understand analysis of data using statistical treatments. Understand inferential statistics. Understand and evaluate research designs (ex: pretest-posttest designs, factorial designs, time series, qualitative designs, single subject designs, etc.) Understand and evaluate experimental, descriptive (survey) and qualitative research and single subject research designs.Requirements for Discussion Board Sessions

Assignment Descriptions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Regular Participation- students are expected to participate in all online class discussions as described in this syllabus. Assigned readings- students are expected to complete the assigned readings as described in this syllabus. Educational Research Survey students will complete a survey describing their use and orientation to educational research. Conduct an on-line search students will conduct an on-line search after viewing tutorials on using on-line databases. Article Summaries- students will select an article at the end of each set of readings and write a brief one-page, single-spaced, summary as described in the syllabus.

6. 7. 8.

PowerPoint Presentation- students are expected to create a PowerPoint presentation to share with the class as described in the syllabus. Presentation Evaluations- students will view each students PowerPoint presentation and complete a presentation evaluation for each presentation as described in the syllabus. Culminating Paper- students will write a 4-6 page, single-spaced, reflection paper as described in the syllabus.

All assignments are to be typed, in a 12 point Roman style (plain, non-italic) font, with a least one inch margins all around, have numbered pages and should use APA style for citations and references. Spelling and grammar will be considered in grading. Any papers with significant grammar or spelling issues (relative to standard, academic English) will be returned for rewriting. APA style hint: Citations are to be used to support each statement within the body of a paper. Example: Within the body of the paper: But if within-the- home differences in environment were responsible for the unexplained variation in personality, then we should find substantial differences between firstborns and later-borns on standard personality tests, and we do not (Harris, 2000, p. 177) Constructivism is an epistemology, a theory of knowledge used to explain how we know what we know (Lorsbach & Tobin, 1997, para. 3). At the end of the paper, in Works Cited: Harris, J. R. (2000). Context-specific learning, personality, and birth order. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5), 174-177. Lorsbach, A. and Tobin, K. (1997). Constructivism as a referent for science teaching. Retrieved January 5, 2006, from http://www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/research/constructivis m.html Assignments must be submitted in Microsoft Word, Pages, or RTF format to the appropriate Assignment link on the course Blackboard site. Late Assignment Policy One point will be deducted for each day an assignment is late, up to a maximum of five late points. Assignments submitted after five late days will not be accepted unless extenuating circumstances have been discussed and approved prior to submission. Assignments Participation: All course participants will be placed in groups for weekly discussion tasks. Each group will be

assigned a problem relevant to the weeks material; the task of the group will be to discuss and draft a response to the assigned problem. Each week a different member of the group will be expected to write and post the groups response to the weekly Discussion Board. In addition to the group post, each course participant will be expected to: Post questions and comments on the weeks materials Respond to the questions and comments posted by others Comment on the group posts each week Assignment: Complete Educational Research Survey (3 pts) Due no later than January 20, 2013. In this assignment, you will complete the educational research survey provided and submit it electronically to the instructor. Assignment: Conducting an Online Search (5 pts) Due no later than January 27, 2013. In this assignment, you will need to view the video tutorial on conducting an online search and the video tutorial on utilizing Arcadias online databases (found in the Bb Tutorials Folder on the course Blackboard site). Afterwards, conduct your own search for an article that focuses on educational research. Write a very brief (no more than one single-spaced page) description of your search process, the site on which you found the article, and the article itself. Be sure to use appropriate citations. Assignment: Article Summaries (7 pts each of 6) Due about every other week: February 3, 17, March 3, 24, April 7, 28. In this assignment, students will select one article from the chapters assigned for the two-week period. The article options are listed in the Assignment link on the course Blackboard site. The article should be chosen based on the individual needs of the student. Each week you must choose a new article; you may not recycle an article summary from a previous week. You are required to submit a brief summary (no more than one page single-spaced) of the article, including the reason for choosing this article and/or topic. These summaries will be submitted to the instructor electronically. When doing an article summary, concentrate on the material in the article; your reasons for choosing the article should be summed up in a few sentences. Be sure to use citations and references to clarify the source of each statement. The summary should attempt to cover: What was your reason for selecting the article? What type of research is this (for example, quantitative or qualitative, experimental or quasi-experimental, historical or action research, . . . )? What are the research questions? What are the research hypotheses?

How do the authors address earlier work in the field (their literature review)? What methods do the authors use in their research? How do they choose their sample? What research tools and procedures do they use to gather data? How do they analyze the data gathered? What are the results, and how do the authors report the results? How do the authors interpret the results? What conclusions do the authors draw? What are the limitations of the study being reported? What are the implications for practice of the study? Assignment: Culminating Paper (10 pts) Due no later than May 3, 2013. This final paper should be 4- 6 pages, single-spaced and submitted electronically to the instructor. In this paper you should reflect on all class experiences and course content, including but not limited to required readings, article summaries, discussion boards, study questions, article bias activity, and presentations. You can use the following guiding questions to prompt your thought, but you should elaborate beyond these ideas. What was learned? Most and/or least valuable experience? How will you use this new knowledge in your professional life? Has your opinion changed about research? How? Assignment: PowerPoint Presentation (10 pts) Due no later than May 1, 2013. Select an educational research article (published in a peer-reviewed journal) focusing on a topic that you are interested in investigating further. This article can be selected using the internet or professional journals. This should not be an article we previously used in class. Create a PowerPoint presentation using the presentation evaluation document as a guide for preparation. The presentation will be shared electronically, and evaluated by fellow classmates. Assignment: Presentation Evaluations (5 pts) Due no later than May 5, 2013. Each student will submit a presentation evaluation to the instructor for each presentation submitted by other students. Please pay attention to the guiding questions in each section of the presentation evaluation.

Discussion Board Assignments 1. When quoting the work of another scholar, it is important that you cite the work correctly. In unit 2, you will be introduced to a tool, Citeulike, which will help you format your citations. However, the following are examples of what is expected when referring to the work of another scholar.

Example within the context of the posting: "Constructivism is an epistemology, a theory of knowledge used to explain how we know what we know" (Lorsbach, 1997). Example at the end of the posting: Lorsbach, A. (1997). Constructivism as a Referent for Science Teaching. Retrieved January 5, 2006, from http://www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/research/constructivism.html 2. You are required to respond to a minimum of three other student postings for forums that require interaction with your peers. I will be looking at the way you analyze the postings and extend the conversation. Please use this opportunity to share your own experiences, but remember to support your assertions with current research findings. At this level we can all learn a great deal by sharing our experiences. "Studies report that peer learning promotes greater conceptual and procedural gains for students, accommodates a broad range of learning styles, results in greater enjoyment of the learning task, and encourages a stronger persistence in learning" (Johnson & Johnson, 1999). 3. Your postings will be evaluated based upon the substantive nature and how it efficiently addresses the question at hand. Simple responses such as "I agree" are of no value and will not be counted as an acceptable posting. Try to use what I call the "no scroll" rule. If you have to scroll a great deal to read the posting, it becomes an arduous task. Please try to be succinct and to the point. Strive to respond at the synthesis or evaluation levels.

Discussion Etiquette In this course, I welcome the creation of a dialogue that is open, thoughtful, and founded on the basis of research in the field. At times, some of you will not agree on the positions that are taken in the forum. This diversity is welcomed. However, each student must exercise respect for the thoughts and comments that are posted by their peers. If any posted comments are inappropriate or of an offensive nature, they will be removed from the forum and I will address the issue with the author of the content. Please follow the following guidelines: Never post, transmit, promote, or distribute content that is known to be illegal. Never post harassing, threatening, or embarrassing comments. If you disagree with someone, respond to the subject, not the person. Never post content that is harmful, abusive, racially, ethnically, or religiously offensive, vulgar or otherwise potentially offensive.

Unit Schedule Unit 1 Objectives The first week of the course is about orienting to the course and the on-line environment. Please look through the course site, particularly the materials for the first week, and the items in "Course Info" in the menu on the left. Use the Questions and Concerns forum to let me know what you need.

Unit 1 Readings 1. Syllabus 2. Class Notes Unit 1 Assignments 1. Educational Research Survey 2. Student Introduction

Unit 2 Objectives This week we examine the overall principles and characteristics that underlie the methods used for educational research. Let's see what we make of this material.

Unit 2 Readings 1. Mcmillian and Schumacher, Chapter 1 2. Class Notes Unit 2 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Questions 3. Conducting an Online Search

Unit 3 Objectives While last week we examined the overall background of the research methodologies we use, and the philosophical underpinnings of those methods, this week we get into some of the specifics of design. In particular, we begin to examine how research problems get translated into research questions and hypotheses. A well framed question can make the difference between a useful study and one that is less useful. How we operationalize the constructs we are interested in examining can set the direction of the study. And, there is no magic to this

process; it is just people like us trying their best to figure out how to do the study. Then people like us read the reports and try to make sense of them, and figure out how to use the information. Unit 3 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapters 2-3 2. Class Notes Unit 3 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion 3. Article Summary 1

Unit 4 Objectives This week we look at the specifics of design for quantitative research. The first chapter is about general design issues, and the second is about sampling issues.

Unit 4 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapters 5 & 6 2. Class Notes Unit 4 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion

Unit 5 Objectives This week we look at the various methods that are used to describe the results of quantitative research: Descriptive statistics. These tools help us to take the sometimes overwhelming set of numbers that are our data, and turn them into understandable patterns.

Unit 5 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 7 2. Class Notes Unit 5 Assignments 1. Discussion Board

2. Group Discussion 3. Article Summary 2

Unit 6 Objectives This week we look at the many issues involved in collecting data for quantitative research. Here we are addressing many of the issues that you read about when you read the methods section of research reports.

Unit 6 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 8 & 9 2. Class Notes Unit 6 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion

Unit 7 Objectives This week we examine a variety of quantitative research designs, which, while less "goldstandardish" than a true experiment, can be very useful and appropriate in many situations.

Unit 7 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 10 2. Class Notes Unit 7 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion 3. Article Summary 3

Unit 8 Objectives This week we examine a variety of experimental research designs, which, including "true" experiments, and "quasi-experiments," which, while less "gold-standardish" than a true experiment, can be very useful and appropriate in many situations.

Also, note the Group Feedback Forms. One of my tasks for this week is to give a first cut on participation scores; to do this, I need your ratings of the levels of participation in your weekly groups. Thanks in advance for your efforts in this task.

Unit 8 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 11 2. Class Notes Unit 8 Assignments 1. Group Participation Feedback 2. Discussion Board 3. Group Discussion

Unit 9 Objectives This week we examine the use of inferential statistics. These are tools that researchers use to determine the likelihood that we can generalize our results from the sample in the study to the population we are trying to study. Since no sample is a perfect representation of the population, what is the likelihood that the results we got with the sample actually reflect the population rather than some random distribution of the sample.

Unit 9 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 12 2. Class Notes Unit 9 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion 3. Article Summary 4

Unit 10 Objectives As we move into this area, I do find that many people who take the course eventually find themselves longing for the clarity of quantitative research. We'll see. In any case, I think you will find that there are many differences between quantitative and qualitative research.

Unit 10 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 13

2. Class Notes Unit 10 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion

Unit 11 Objectives Now we get into the details of how to gather and analyze the data from qualitative studies.

Unit 11 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 14 & 15 2. Class Notes Unit 11 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion 3. Article Summary 5

Unit 12 Objectives This week, we look at mixed-method research; that is, research which uses both quantitative and qualitative methods, and which must meet the standards for both. My guess is that this is an approach that many of you will find very sensible.

Unit 12 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 16 2. Class Notes Unit 12 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion

Unit 13 Objectives This week we get even deeper in non-quantitative types of research. Some of the designs we examine this week may remind you of high quality, high standard versions of what were called "research papers" when we were in high school.

Unit 13 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapter 17 & 18 2. Class Notes Unit 13 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussion

Unit 14 Objectives This week we look at Action Research. I think of Action Research as particularly relevant to teachers, as it can be conducted by teachers in their own classrooms to address issues in their own teaching. Finally, here is a new answer to the "How can I use this material in my daily practice?" question.

Unit 14 Readings 1. McMillan and Schumacher, Chapters 19 & 4 2. Class Notes Unit 14 Assignments 1. Discussion Board 2. Group Discussions 3. Article Summary 6

Unit 15 Objectives Presentation of article and presentation evaluations

Unit 15 Readings 1. None Unit 15 Assignments 1. 2. 3. 4. Final Presentation Culminating Paper Group Participation Feedback Course Reflection