University of Utah-Fall Semester, 2003 Wedneday 4:35pm - 7:05pm Room BUC 106
Office Hours: Monday 10:00am-11:30am
Instructor: Lisa Yamagata-Lynch
Office: MBH 139-A
Phone: 587-7980
E-mail: Lisayl@niu.edu
*The University of Utah and the Department of Teaching & Learning seek to provide equal access to its programs, services, and activities for people with disabilities. Reasonable prior notice is needed to arrange accommodations
*Upon discussion with students, the instructor reserves the right to make revisions to the course syllabus

Purpose

The purpose of this course is for you to develop an understanding of the fundamentals of research design in education. The course involves the presentation of basic information about the purposes of research, the scientific method, experimental-quantitative and nonexperimental-qualitative methods, and implementation of investigations. Additionally, you will be expected to become an educated consumer of research reports and become able to conduct a thorough and meaningful literature review and report it in a professional manner.

Objectives

Develop!

• Your understanding of educational research design
• Skills to conduct reviews of educational research reports
• Skills to prepare a professional quality research reports
• A community with your classmates as a team of collaborative learners
  

Reflect!

• On your understanding of educational research design
• On your understanding of educational research reports
  

Share!

• Your understanding of educational research design
• Your understanding of educational research reports
  

Practice!

• Interpreting educational research reports
• Making decisions based on your interpretations of educational research reports
  

Assignments

Article Critiques 30 pts (10 pts X 3) |Article Critique 1 Questions|Article Critique 2 Questions|Article Critique 3 Questions|
You have to complete 3 article critics. Article critiques are your reflections on the research design of an article you are assigned. Your critics should be related to the ongoing discussions that take place in class and the readings for class. These article critics should not exceed more than 4 pages and double-spaced using 12-point Times New Roman font. Further details to the article critique will be given in class. The writing and style of the report should be professionally prepared and follow the APA manual 5th edition. The deadline for this assignment is at the beginning of class on: 10/1, 10/29 and 11/12.

Literature Review Plan 15 pts |View Instruction|View Rubric|
You have to conduct a library search in preparation for a literature review based on a research question you choose. You are not expected to read each articles you find thoroughly, but expected to read the abstract very carefully to decide if each article you find is going to be part of your literature review or not. You have to search for your literature until you find that your search is saturated. Further details to the literature review plan will be given in class. The writing and style of the report should be professionally prepared and follow the APA manual 5th edition. The deadline of this assignment is at the beginning of class on: 10/8.

Literature Review Report 40 pts |View Rubric|
You have to complete a literature review report based on a research question you choose. The components of the literature review report is as follows:

1. Title Page
2. Review of the Literature
   • Introduction to the topic
   • Review of Literature
   • Final comments on your research topic based on the literature review
3. References

The literature review should not exceed more than 15 pages double-spaced using 12-point Times New Roman font. The writing and style of the report should be professionally prepared and follow the APA manual 5th edition. The deadline of the research proposal is 5pm on 12/5. Bring your paper to my office at MBH 139-A.

Literature Review Report Presentation 5 pts |View Guide|
You have to present your literature review report to the class. For the presentation prepare a 1 page handout (times new roman font single-spaced)

This presentation will take place during the 12/3 class session.

Course Expectation

Class Participation 10 points
You are expected to come to class and participate in a manner that provides evidence that you have read and reflected on the assigned readings and discussion that take place in class

Grades

Assignments and Total Possible Points

Assignments	Possible Points
Article Critiques (10 X 30)	30
Literature Review Plan	15
Literature Review Report	40
Literature Review Report Presentation	5
Class Participation	10
Total Possible Points	100pts

 

The definitions for the letter grades are as follows:

A	Outstanding performance; excellent command of course content.	A 100-96, A- 95-90
B	Good, solid work; Good command of course content.	B+ 89-87, B 86-84, B- 83-80
C	Meet minimum requirements; Satisfactory performance; Average command of course content.	C+ 79-77, C 76-74, C- 73-70
D	Marginally; below average command of course content; Minimally acceptable performance.	D+ 69-67, D 66-64, D- 63-60
F	Unsatisfactory performance; Inadequate knowledge of course content.	59 points or below

 

Required Texts

• Creswell, J. W. (2002). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
• Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2000). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 1-28). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.
• Maxcy, S. J. (2003). Pragmatic threads in mixed methods research in social sciences: The search for multiple modes of inquiry and the end of the philosophy of formalism. In A. Tashakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioral Research (pp. 51-89). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
• Mitchell, T. R., & Analee, H. (1999). Poles apart: Reconciling the dichotomies in education research. In E. C. Lagemann & L. S. Shulman (Eds.), Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities (pp. 42-62). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
• APA Manual 5th Edition
• Selected readings for the article critiques
  • Article Critique 1: Seymour, J. R., & Osana, H. P. (2003). Reciprocal teaching procedures and principles: Two teachers' developing understanding. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19(3), 325-344.
  • Article Critique 2: Webb, M. N., Nemer, M. K., & Zuniga, S. (2002). Short circuits or superconductors? Effects of group composition on high-achieving students' science assessment performance. American Educational Research Journal, 39(4), 943-989.
  • Article Critique 3: Timperley, H. S., & Phillips, G. (2003). Changing and sustaining teachers' expectations through professional development in literacy. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19(6), 627-641.
    

Schedule

Week	Day	Topic	Readings	Notes	Assignments
1	8/20	Introduction
2	9/27	REVISED: Educational Research from a Philosophical Perspective	Denzin & Lincoln (2000), Maxcy (2003), Mitchell & Haro (1999)
3	9/3	REVISED: Overview of Educational Research	Creswell Chp.1 & 2
4	9/10	Identifying a Research Problem and the Literature Review	Creswell Chp. 3 & 4
5	9/17	Preparing Educational Research Guest Speaker Robert Nelson Library Database Research at computer lab near Curriculum Library (304B)
6	9/24	Research Purpose, Hypothesis, and Question	Creswell Chp. 5, Article Critique 1 selection
7	10/1	Data Collection	Creswell Chp. 6 & 7		Article Critique 1 Seymour & Osana (2003)
8	10/8	Data Analysis	Creswell Chp. 8 & 9
9	10/15	Reporting Educational Research	Creswell Chp. 10		Literature Review Plan
10	10/22	Research Design 1: Experimental, Quasi-Experimental, Correlational Design	Creswell Chp. 11 & 12	Inferential Statistices
11	10/29	Research Design 2: Survey Design	Creswell Chp. 13, Article Critique 2 selection	Survey Design	Article Critique 2 Webb, Nemer, & Zuniga (2002)
12	11/5	Research Design 3: Grounded Theory and Ethnographic Design	Creswell Chp. 14 & 15	Grouded Theory Ethnography
13	11/12	Research Design 4: Narrative Research	Creswell Chp. 16 Article Critique 3 selection	Narrative Research	Article Critique 3 Timperley & Phillips (2003)
14	11/19	Research Design 5: Mixed Method and Action Research Design	Creswell Chp. 17 & 18	Mixed Methods Action Research
15	11/26	Student work time
16	12/3	Literature Review Report Presentations
17	12/5	Paper Due 5pm			Literature Review Report