Types of Educational Research

•Descriptive — survey,
historical, content analysis,
qualitative (ethnographic,
narrative, phenomenological,
grounded theory, and case
study)

•Associational — correlational,
causal-comparative

•Intervention — experimental,
quasi-experimental, action
research (sort of)
 Quantitative Mode
•Assumptions Social facts have an objective reality
• Primacy of method
• Variables can be identified, and relationships
measured
• Etic (outside’s point of view)
•Purpose Generalizability
• Prediction
• Causal explanations
•Approach Begins with hypotheses and theories
• Manipulation and control
• Uses formal instruments
• Experimentation
• Deductive
• Component analysis
• Seeks consensus, the norm
• Reduces data to numerical indices
• Abstract language in write-up
•Researcher Role Detachment and impartiality
• Objective portrayal
Qualitative mode
•Assumptions Reality is socially constructed
• Primacy of subject matter
•Variables are complex, interwoven, and difficult to
measure
• Emic (insider’s point of view)
•Purpose Contextualization
• Interpretation
• Understanding actors’ perspectives
•Approach Ends with hypotheses and grounded
theory
• Emergence and portrayal
• Researcher as instrument
• Naturalistic
• Inductive
• Searches for patterns
• Seeks pluralism, complexity
• Makes minor use of numerical indices
• Descriptive write-up
•Researcher Role Personal involvement and partiality
• Empathic understanding
 Experimental Research
 Experimental (Laboratory, Field & Natural) & Non experimental (correlations, observations, interviews,
questionnaires and case studies). Three characteristics
 An independent variable (I.V.) which is
 A dependent variable (D.V.) which is
 There will be at least two conditions in which participants produce data.
 Laboratory Experiments
 Conducted under controlled conditions, Researcher deliberately changes something (I.V.) to see the effect of this
on something else (D.V.).
 STRENGTHS
 Control –High degree of control over the environment & other extraneous variables . Researcher can accurately assess the
effects of the I.V, so it has higher internal validity.
 Replicable – due to the researcher’s high levels of control, research procedures can be repeated so that the reliability of
results can be checked.
 LIMITATIONS
 Lacks ecological validity : Due to manipulating and controlling variables, findings cannot be easily generalised to other (real
life) settings, resulting in poor external validity.
 Experimental Research

 Field Experiments : These are carried out in , in which the researcher does something (I.V.) to see the
effect of this on something else (D.V.).
 STRENGTHS
 Validity – field experiments have some degree of control but also are conducted in a natural environment,
so can be seen to have reasonable internal and external validity.
 LIMITATIONS
 Less control than lab experiments and therefore extraneous variables are more likely to distort findings
and so internal validity is likely to be lower.
 Experimental Research
Natural / Quasi Experiments : The researcher measures the effect of something
which is to see the effect of this on something else (D.V.). In this case there is no
deliberate manipulation of a variable; this is naturally changing, which means the research is
merely measuring the effect of something that is already happening.
 STRENGTHS
 High ecological validity – lack of involvement of the researcher; variables are naturally
occurring so findings can be easily generalised to other (real life) settings, resulting in high
external validity.
 LIMITATIONS
 Lack of control – natural experiments have no control over the environment & other
extraneous variables which means that the researcher cannot always accurately assess the
effects of the I.V, so it has low internal validity.
 Not replicable – due to the researcher’s lack of control, research procedures cannot be
repeated so that the reliability of results cannot be checked.
Experimental Research
 How to Conduct Focus Groups

 Recruit Participants
 Recruit people who are willing to provide opinions, feelings, and attitudes about your new
product, service, brand or idea.
 People who fit your target audience demographic, who are willing to talk and share, and who
you think will work well together with others in the focus group.
 Group should be small, typically fewer than 12 participants.
 Establish Recording Method
 Find effective methods for recording what the people say and do.
 Video recording is often the best method, but your circumstances and participants may require
other means, such as note-taking, recording audio, or jotting down notes yourself Regardless of
method, be sure you record the session well!
 Develop a Peer Environment
 Focus groups work best when participants feel comfortable in a non-threatening environment
with people they can relate to.
 Establish an ambiance where participants come to feel like they are peers in some way—that
they can relate to each other and that they can feed off each others’ statements and energy.
 How to Conduct Focus Groups
 Moderate Conversation
Your goal is to function as a moderator that can pull interesting information from your participants. consider how you can
get your participants to reveal what is and is not desirable to them about your product,
 what their emotions are,
 where they agree and disagree with each other,
 what processes they follow to accomplish things
Analyse Data
 Review their statements, facial reactions, nonverbal cues, patterns, and other responses.
 Pay attention to the stories they told, the metaphors they used to describe things, the memories they conjured, and so
forth.
 Begin connecting dots between attitudes, opinions, and feelings and construct a picture of how they feel about the topics you
addressed, looking for themes and trends.
 Conduct Further Research
 lead researchers to ask even more pointed questions, establishing ideas for more effective questionnaires, observation
methods, interviews, polls, and other metrics.
 Generate Hypothesis
Once you have analysed your data you are able to hypothesize what your participants revealed about your product, service,
brand, or idea. Your hypothesis isn’t a conclusion, but rather a statement that will likely draw more specific questions.
 How to Conduct Focus Groups
 Recruit Participants
Determine what you hope to learn from interviewing and identify the people that will provide you the richest data and
information possible.
 Determine an effective number of people to interview in advance.
 If the questions you are going to ask are sensitive in nature, be sure to let interviewees know this in advance; obtain IRB
(institutional review board) approval when interviewing on sensitive topics or when interviewing children.
 Establish a Recording Method
Commonly, interviewers will record using a phone app or other audio recording device.
 May video record the interview, or simply take copious notes.
 Obtain permission from each interviewee in written before conducting the interview.
 Develop Questions
Conduct a structured or an unstructured interview .
 Questions that will provide rich and useful information.
 Avoid closed, yes/no questions. Ask questions that will provide opportunity for interviewees to express feelings,
attitudes, behaviours, opinions, perceptions.
 Avoid leading questions (questions that make people feel or think a certain way before they have a chance to answer.)
 How to Conduct Interviews for Research
 Interview Participants
Sit down with respondents in a safe space.
 Start with small talk, make them comfortable and relaxed with you and talking out loud.
 Unstructured interviews: have your topics ready, have an open dialog with interviewee and ask follow-up
questions when responses create interesting insights.
 Structured interviews: be sure to stick to the questions and ask the same questions to all interviewees.
 Conduct Further Research
Interviews : conducted as one piece of a larger research initiative.
 Like a focus group, interviews give rich, insightful, albeit anecdotal evidence about how people feel and act.
 Provide persuasive insights and direct quotes from people who “were there.”
 Interviews are not typically quantifiable and should be supplemented with questionnaires, observations, and
other research.
 Identify Objective.
 Determine what you want to observe and why. Are looking to see how respondent respond to a new
environment? How customers interact with employees? How bosses interact with subordinates?
 Try to learn habits, patterns, behaviour, reactions, and general information about people to understand what they
do and why they do it
 How to Conduct Observations for Research
 Establish Recording Method
To make observations effective, minimize or eliminate any disruptive or unfamiliar devices into the
environment you wish to observe.
 Ex : It least effective to video record observations where the people being observed know they are being filmed.
 Note-taking is the most common method. In some public spaces you can take photographs, audio recordings, and
other methods.
 Develop Questions and Techniques
 Determine : Informal or a formal observation.
 Knowing your objective. determine ; specific questions or going with completely open-mind.
 Be prepared . have a sound understanding of the type of information you are trying learn.
 Observe and Take Notes
Visit the space you are hoping to get information from.
 Be as unobtrusive while taking notes, photographs, audio, and film.
 formal observation: will you need to code certain behaviour, actions, words, visuals, and other observed data.
 Analyze Behaviour and Inferences
what you observed (factual behaviour) and why what you observed happened.
 To make sense need to interview people in the environment you are observing, during the observation itself, or
afterwards.
 Make connections : interactions, responses, behaviour, and other phenomena.
 How to Conduct Surveys for Research
1. Determine Participants
Determine who you think will provide you the most important information. Consider the demographics of the people you want to
ask to learn about attitude, perspective, belief, behaviour, or characteristic. Determine how many people in this demographic
will be necessary to ask to make an effective decision and if you’ll be able to draw statistical conclusions based on the number
of responses.
2. Identify Platform(s) & Distribution Method
 Review your budget and possible distribution channels.
 Is this a survey : distributed for free, created on a platform like SurveyMonkey and sent through social media? Can it be sent
through an email to people in your database? Is this survey : Go through a paid service or agency?
3. Develop Questions
 Write questions that will give you the most useful responses. Some types of questions include:
+Closed (multiple choice with only one option)
+Open (multiple choice with multiple options)
+Likert (gives options for a scale, such as “never,” “sometimes,” and “always”
+Free response (allows written answers)
+Request (asks for suggests or questions)
4. Distribute Survey
 Send the survey to the people you determined through the channels you identified. Be sure to let respondents know in advance
three things:
 Why you’re conducting the survey and/or why they should care.
 How long the survey will take
 How to Conduct Surveys for Research
5. Analyse Data
Collect all survey responses and determine how many of people responded.
 Make connections between responses, looking for patterns, trends, and other insightful information.
 If your survey sample was large enough and the responses merit quantifying the results, do a
statistical analysis.

6. Generate Hypothesis
Once you have analyzed your data and made connections about attitudes and behaviour, you are
able to hypothesize what your participants think or feel.
Your hypothesis isn’t a conclusion, but rather a statement that will likely draw more specific
questions.
 Surveys are best used in combination with other research methods, since the subject responses
aren’t usually a great measure on their own of actual, generalizable data.

7. Conduct Further Research

Surveys : Rarely should be used on their own as decision-making research. lead researchers to ask
even more pointed questions, establishing ideas for more detailed questionnaires, observation
methods, usability tests, interviews, polls, and other metrics.
 How to Conduct Interviews for Research
1. Recruit Participants
 Determine what it is you hope to learn from interviewing
 Identify the people that will provide you the richest data and information possible.
 determine an effective number of people to interview in advance.
 If the questions you are going to ask are sensitive in nature, be sure to let interviewees know
this in advance.
2. Establish a Recording Method
 Commonly, interviewers will record using a phone app or other audio recording device. You
may also video record the interview, or simply take copious notes.

3. Develop Questions
Determine whether to conduct a structured interview or an unstructured interview .
 Develop questions that will provide rich and useful information.
 Avoid closed, yes/no questions. Ask questions that will provide opportunity for interviewees to
express feelings, attitudes, behaviour, opinions, perceptions, and so forth.
 Avoid leading questions (questions that make people feel or think a certain way before they
have a chance to answer.)
 How to Conduct Interviews for Research

4. Interview Participants
 Sit down with interviewees in a safe space where they feel comfortable and relaxed.
 Start with small talk to make them comfortable with you .
 If you are doing unstructured interviews, have your topics ready
 Be prepared to have an open dialog with interviewee and ask follow-up questions when
responses create interesting insights.
 When conducting structured interviews, be sure to stick to the questions and ask the same
questions to all interviewees.
5. Conduct Further Research
 Interviews are typically best when conducted as one piece .
 Interviews give rich, insightful, albeit anecdotal evidence about how people feel and act.
 Interviews provide persuasive insights and direct quotes from people who “were there.”
 Interviews are not quantifiable and should be supplemented with questionnaires,
observations, and other research.
  How to Create a Consumer Profile
 Identify Scope of Messaging
 Determine what your company or organization needs to communicate, to whom, and why.
 Are you trying to create web content that will appeal to a particular demographic?
 Are you promoting a new product or service?
 Are you trying to reach an audience that hasn’t been visiting your business .
It’s critical : know why you are communicating before you can identify the characteristics of your
audience.
 Research Target Market
 Recognize who your potential audience(s) is/are based on the scope you just identified.
 Research this audience to learn the following information, which will help you to know how they think,
feel, behave, and react: Demographics (age, sex, income, nationality, religion, etc..), Geographic
(geographical location) Psychographics'(attitudes, aspirations, and values)Behaviouristic (habits,
patterns, ways of behaving)
 Create a Realistic Persona
 Determine what a typical person in this description would look like.
 Create a realistic (albeit not real) sketch of a person that falls into your audience.
 Determine age, race, and style, then find a photo of a person that is representative of that group. Give the
photo a realistic name. The goal here is to develop a very realistic person that you can imagine
communicating to.
 How to Create a Consumer Profile

 Map Out Important Characteristics

 Develop features of your newly created persona that bring the person to life.
 Determine their personality traits and life experiences. Create realistic quotes and scenarios from
their life.
 Determine what motivates them; to purchase or act; what discourages them from purchasing or
acting; what their fears are; what they value; and so forth.

 Design and Display Profile

 Design a one-page profile that will be accessible to your team.

 Companies will have several consumer profiles that hit on different types of people within their
target market.
 Use the profile when making decisions about marketing collateral, website content, social media
posts, and so forth.
 How to Create a Consumer Profile

 Map Out Important Characteristics

 Develop features of your newly created persona that bring the person to life.
 Determine their personality traits and life experiences. Create realistic quotes and scenarios from
their life.
 Determine what motivates them; to purchase or act; what discourages them from purchasing or
acting; what their fears are; what they value; and so forth.
 Design and Display Profile

 Design a one-page profile that will be accessible to your team.

 Companies will have several consumer profiles that hit on different types of people within their
target market.
 Use the profile when making decisions about marketing collateral, website content, social media
posts, and so forth.
Historical Research
 Historical research
 Answers the question, “How did things use to be?”
 Two key issues: Primary versus Secondary sources and External versus
Internal criticism.
 A primary source was prepared by someone who was a participant / direct
witness to an event. A secondary source was prepared by someone who
obtained his or her information about an event from someone else.
 External criticism refers to the authenticity of the document. Once a
document has been determined to be genuine (external criticism),
researchers need to determine if the content is accurate (internal criticism).
Reasons
 to avoid the mistakes of the past
 to apply lessons from the past to current problems
 to use the past to make predictions about the present
 to understand present practices and policies in light of the past
 to examine trends across time
 Content Analysis
Method used to analyse qualitative data (non-numerical data).
In its most common form it is a technique that allows a
researcher to take qualitative data and to transform it into
quantitative data (numerical data).
Data in many different formats, ex interview transcripts, film,
and audio recordings.
The researcher will use ‘coding units’ in their work.
These units vary widely depending on the data used, but an
ex would be the nu of positive or negative words used by a
mother to describe her child’s behaviour or the nu of swear
words in a film.
 Content Analysis
Strengths of content analysis
 Reliable way to analyse qualitative data as the coding units
are not open to interpretation and so are applied in the same
way over time and with different researchers
 Easy technique to use and is not too time consuming
 It allows a statistical analysis to be conducted if required as
there is usually quantitative data as a result of the procedure

Weaknesses of content analysis

 Causality cannot be established as it merely describes the data
 It only describes the data it cannot extract any deeper meaning
or explanation for the data patterns arising.
 How to Do Ethnography Research
1. Identify Research Question
 Determine what problem you are seeking to better understand.
 Develop a problem statement that raises questions you seek to know more about.
 You may be wishing to better understand things like culture, relationships, interactions,
processes, or anything else that affect how people think and/or behave.
2. Determine Location(s) for Research
 Identify the best place to conduct the participatory research.
 Select a location that will provide the best opportunity to observe, participate, take field
notes, and understand how the people in that environment act, communicate, and think.
3. Formulate Presentation Method
 Consider the most effect way(s) to obtain objective information.
 Will you be adopting a role of a person in the community or organization you are observing?
 Will you be covert, or will others know you are conducting research?
 Consider the most ethical way to observe and collect data.
 How to Do Ethnography Research
5. Acquire Permissions and Access
 Intrusive in nature . Obtain permission for access into the location in writing.
 your observational methods be known . How you plan to participate, how the information you
collect will be used. Being ethical and considerate isvital
6. Interview
 To understand behaviour and actions.
 Interviews done immediately after witnessing the event , or at the end of a designated observation period, or
even at the end of the entire research period.
 Determine who is best to interview and what questions are critical to helping you understand your research
question.
7. Collect Archival Data
 Review things like papers, emails, physical artefact's, phone conversations, marketing collateral, websites,
and other information-rich sources.
8. Code and Analyze Data
 Code your data in a way that makes the most sense for your observations.
 Code and label things, you saw and heard; sort for patterns; identify outliers; compare with theories; take note
of reflective remarks.
S.W.O.T. analyses are useful information-gathering methods that allow managers,
marketing departments, and researchers to determine the current status of an
organization, product, or service.
S.W.O.T. analyses evaluate four elements: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and
Threats.
Strengths and weaknesses are considered internal forces within an organization and
opportunities and threats are considered external forces that affect the organization.