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EAF 509: RESEARCH DESIGN IN EDUCATION
SPRING 2006
Place of work: 323 DeGarmo
Phone: (309) 438-2051
Office Hours: By appointment (Email preferable).
Class Meets: Wednesday 5:30-8:20 pm, Room: DEG 551
Email: jkrugut@ilstu.edu
Click here to download a word version of the course syllabus
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Department Name |
Educational Administration and Foundations |
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Course Number |
EAF 509 |
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Course Title |
Research Design in Education |
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Catalog Description |
Examination of issues related to designing and planning research studies. Students learn to apply techniques to specific educational research problems. Prerequisite: EAF 410 or equivalent |
Course Overview |
This is the second part of a five-semester course that provides students with the skills necessary to design a sound thesis or dissertation. The course will introduce students to research design fundamentals, both in terms of planning and conducting educational research. Students will be exposed to issues related to the design and planning stages of the research process. EAF 509 follows up and builds upon some of the concepts presented in EAF 410 (or it equivalent) and students are expected to possess the background and vocabulary taught in EAF 410. Similar to EAF 410 course, instead of concentrating on how to enter numbers in formulas, emphasis is on understanding concepts and processes behind statistical procedures. The emphasis of the course will be on practical applications of statistical techniques educational research design. The course will concentrate more on statistical inference involving one sample, independent measures t-test and related sample t-test, simple and one-way analysis of variance, bivariate correlation analysis and chi-square using conceptual definitions, without access to formulas. Ability to use SPSS for data analysis is also expected. As a part of this course, students make use of a variety of technological tools. These include computer databases and the Internet that are accessed to locate relevant research articles, and word processing packages to type and format class assignments. Students will also be required to constantly check for class materials updates from the class website. All class reading assignments, supplemental materials, lab projects and semester projects will be posted on the class website alongside their due dates (WebCT). It is the responsibility of the student to stay current on all class activities up to and including the last day of the semester.
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[ Course Schedule | Course Objectives | Class Format | Text & Software |Course Presentation | Required Student Tasks |
Student Performance and Evaluation Methods | Outline of Topics | Course Delivery System ]
Topical/Content Outline...Subject to Change
The instructor reserves the right to make changes to the course syllabus as necessary.
It is the student's responsibility to keep up with changes to the syllabus
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Week |
Date |
Topic |
Assignment |
Chapter |
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1 |
01/18 |
Introduction and Review |
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2 |
01/25 |
Organizing and Graphing Data Nature of Educational Research*** |
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H-Ch1* S-Lesson 1-4**
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3 |
02/01 |
Organizing and Graphing Data The Research Problem |
Assignment #1
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H-Ch2 S-Lesson 1-4 |
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4 |
02/08 |
Organizing and Graphing Data The Literature Review |
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H-Ch2 S-Lesson 5-7 |
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5 |
02/15 |
Distributions: Central Measures of Tendency and Measures of Variability Variables and Research Questions/Hypotheses |
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H-Ch3 S-Lesson 8-9, 18-20 |
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6 |
02/22 |
The Normal Distribution Ethics and Research |
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H-Ch4 S-Lesson 11-12 |
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7 |
03/01 |
Hypothesis Testing with One-Sample (Z or t distribution) Review of Literature |
Article Critique
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H-Ch8 S-Lesson 21-23 |
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8 |
03/08 |
Midterm Examination!!! |
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9 |
03/22 |
Hypothesis Testing with Two/K-Samples (One-way Analysis of Variance) Sampling |
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H-Ch11 S-Lesson 24 |
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10 |
03/29 |
Hypothesis Testing with Two/K-Samples (One-way Analysis of Variance) Sampling |
Assignment #2
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H-Ch11 S-Lesson 24 |
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11 |
04/05 |
Correlation Analysis Correlation Research Design |
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H-Ch5 S-Lesson 30 |
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12 |
04/12 |
Ordinal and Nominal Procedures (Non-Parametric Statistics: Chi-square Distributions) Measurement (Instruments and Instrumentation) |
Research Project Presentation
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H-Ch21 S-Lesson 39 |
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13 |
04/19 |
Validity and Reliability Internal and External Validity |
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14 |
04/26 |
Experimental Research Design Survey Research Design |
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15 |
05/03 |
Causal Comparative Research Design Single Subject Research Design |
Final Project |
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16 |
05/10 |
Final Examination!!! |
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Note: * Applied Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (Hinkle, Wiersma & Jurs)
** Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh (Green, & Salkind)
*** Notes provided by the instructor (PowerPoint)
1 Research Design in Education
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
a. Identify a variety of research designs among both qualitative and quantitative paradigms (focus will mainly be quantitative designs).
b. Understand the concepts of internal and external validity.
c. Identify a researchable problem and conduct research on it.
d. Use a research library and other public sources of data and research.
f. Understand the issues related to testing, particularly the concepts of test score validity and reliability.
g. Correctly calculate and interpret basic descriptive and inferential statistics.
h. Understand the logic of statistical inference and hypothesis testing.
i. Be able to calculate and interpret inferential statistics on z, t, F, chi-square statistics.
j. Write according to APA guidelines.
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1.2 Class Format
The format of the course will be a combination of lectures, seminar, and computer time. Each topic that we cover will have a combination of lecturing by me,
to give you the necessary background for the topic, lab exercises so that we can learn how to interpret output, and a discussion period where we all read papers
that apply the topic and then critique using guidelines provided by the instructor.
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Required texts are:
(H) Hinkle, D. E., Wiersma, W., Jurs, S. G. (2003). Applied statistics for the behavioral sciences (fifth ed). Haughton Mifflin. ISBN: 0-618-12405-5
(S) Green, S. B., & Salkind, N. J. (2004): Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh:
Analyzing and Understanding Data (4th). Pearson Education, Inc.
ISBN: 0-13-146597
Primary software: SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). We will use the Windows version as much as possible. The examples I will
offer in class and the lab computer exercises will be computed in SPSS. SPSS online tutorials are available on http://www.coe.ilstu.edu/jkrugut/SPSS/
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The course will be divided into two broad sections (Statistics and Research Methodology)
A: The Statistics Portion of the Course is divided into 5 Units
Unit 1: Descriptive Statistics. This unit will be devoted to statistical techniques which can be used to describe and summarize educational data.
Topics covered will include measures of central tendency, variability, and shape.
Unit 2: Probability. This unit will be devoted to fundamental concepts required for inferential statistics. Topics covered will include basic rules
of probability, distributions of probability for continuous and discrete variables, and sampling theory.
Unit 3: Basic Inferential Statistics. This unit will be devoted to statistical techniques which can be used to draw inferences about population parameters.
Topics covered will include hypothesis testing and inferences about means and variances.
Unit 4: Correlation. This unit will focus on correlational procedures appropriate for interval, level data. Topics covered will include
Pearson correlation, the Spearman Correlation, the Point-Biserial Correlation and the Phi-Coefficient.
Unit 5: Ordinal and Nominal Procedures. This unit will focus on procedures for statistical analysis of ordinal and nominal level data. Topics covered
will be Chi-square tests.
B: The Research Methodology Portion of the Course Covers the Following Topics
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Course Requirements and Required Student Tasks:
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The following point allocation will be used to determine final grades for the class:
1. Class participation/attendance 5 points
2. Assignments 1 & 2 10 points
3. Midterm 25 points
3. Final Project 20 points
4. Presentation of Final Project 5 points
5. Article Critique 10 points
6. Final Exam 25 points
Assignments. Assignments 1-2 are worth 5 points a piece for a maximum of 10 points. Handing in a well thought out and well written assignment
on the due date is worth 5 points. Assignments turned in late will receive half-credit of 2.5 points if well done. A high-quality final paper
submitted on time will receive 20 points. Final papers turned in one day late will receive a maximum of 15 points and final papers turned in
more than one day late will receive half-credit, or a maximum of 10 points. A well-done final presentation of your results will receive 5 points.
Students who do not present their results in will not receive credit for the presentation.
Letter grades will be assigned in accordance with the following scheme:
Points
Letter Grade
90-100 A (Exceptional Performance)
80-89
B (Above Average Performance)
70-79
C (Average Performance)
60-69
D (Below Average Performance)
0-59 F (Failing)
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Statistics
Research Methodology Topics
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This course will be presented using a variety of delivery systems: The class will combine lecture, seminar/discussion
(in-class and through online), statistical computing and student presentation.
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