Summer, 2021
Lloyd Rieber, Instructor
lrieber@uga.edu
203 River's Crossing
706-542-3986
Note: This is not the syllabus for this course. Click here for the full, official syllabus.
Course Description
This course introduces you to key concepts, practices, and skills in the educational research process. This context is organized into two major areas:
- Learning the fundamentals of research: Identifying a research problem or question, exploring the literature, and learning about a variety of contemporary research methods; and
- Exploring and applying the research: Reviewing and interpreting the literature to advance your understanding of a topic or issue in education; Proposing your own research question/s or development project need; and gaining some practical skills and experience with both quantitative and qualitative research methods.
Required Reading
Leedy, P. D., & Ormrod, J. E. (2015). Practical research: Planning and design (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Note: The 10th edition is also acceptable. The 12th edition of this book is the most recent, so feel free to purchase that edition instead. However, it is likely to be much more expensive. Used copies of the 11th and 10th editions will likely be readily available from online book sellers at a much lower cost, such as Amazon.
Additional readings may also be assigned during the semester to supplement the text.
Course Goal
Participants in the course will become strategic consumers and proficient users of educational research. Participants will read and critique a variety of educational research studies that use various methods (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods), with the objective of being able to analyze and apply research to professional contexts.
Course Objectives
At the end of the course, each participant will be able to:
- Review and critique the existing research literature on a specific topic;
- Demonstrate the information literacy and technology skills necessary to locate, gather, and synthesize information relevant to an original research project;
- Demonstrate initial competency in both quantitative and qualitative research methods; and
- Apply the research findings from the literature to an educational problem as demonstrated in the creation of one of the following: 1) A proposal to conduct original research or a development project with a purpose and design informed by the research literature; 2) A review of literature on a topic of interest; 3) a statistics portfolio consisting of evidence of how to compute commonly used statistics in educational research and evaluation, and a collection of research articles that demonstrate the appropriate use of statistics on a topic of your choice.
Course requirements/evaluation
Requirement |
Percent of Final Grade |
Due |
Research Design Activities (RDAs) |
20%
|
During first half of course |
Statistics in Education for Mere Mortals Activities |
10% |
During first half of course |
Informal Activity - Interviewing Practice |
15% |
July 12 |
Informal Activity - SDC - Systematic Data Collection |
15% |
July 19 |
Course Project |
40% |
July 23 |
Statistics in Education for Mere Mortals (SEMM) Excel Exercises
Purpose: To learn some fundamentals of using statistics in education using a "low stakes" approach.
Informal Activity - SDC - Systematic Data Collection
Purpose: To experience first-hand what it feels like to do collect data systematically on a topic of the participant's choice; To reflect on the role and value of research data to inform one's thinking or decision-making in practice.
Informal Activity - Conducting an Interview
Purpose: To gain experience with an essential qualitative data collection technique.
Research Design Activities
Purpose: To give each participant the opportunity to individually learn and implement the particular research design skill being introduced and discussed at that time; each RDA is focused on helping everyone understand equally the particular skill and process highlighted in the RDA.
Course Project
Participants have their choice of three options for the course project: 1) Write a brief research proposal and record an accompanying presentation; 2) Focus on writing a review of literature on educational topic and record an accompanying presentation; and 3) Focus on learning fundamental statistics in educational research and record an accompanying presentation.
Peer Critique of Research Design Project Presentations
Purpose: To watch and provide a brief critique of a subset of the presentations made by your classmates.