Why Reading Educational Research can be a Challenge?

Written with co-author Dr Christine Bottrell. Pre-service teacher education students, in most courses, are required to undertake some study of education research methods, to provide them with skills to read and make use of education research. However, the field of education research is a complex and difficult area. Perhaps focusing upon the most frequently used research methods could be a useful starting point. So, what type of research methods are most favoured in education? This article describes the authors’ attempts to answer this question, and the unexpected outcomes of the quest.

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Introduction

Understanding research and being able to critically read research reports in education would seem to be an important skill for teachers to acquire,Why Reading Educational Research can be a Challenge? Articles and many initial teacher education programs, in countries such as Australia, require students to study a research method subject. In the case of pre-service teachers, there are important questions for a lecturer to consider. What should be the content and focus of an introductory course in research methods for pre-service education students? What are the priorities? Where to start? The starting point is important because, for many of these pre-service teachers, this may be the only study they will ever undertake in the area of education research. A pre-service teacher who is provided with a sound foundation in research methods is more likely to be a productive user of education research as an education practitioner.

In the limited time available for an introductory course in research methods, decisions have to be made regarding what to teach and what to leave out; what topics are considered to be more important than others and why. The field of education research is complex and, for students, the area can be overwhelming. In the experience of the authors, who have taught research methods at both under-graduate and post-graduate level over many years, students consistently describe their confusion and frustration at the sheer scope of the area and, in some cases, this acts as a disincentive.

Perhaps a useful starting point would be to focus upon the type of research that is most prevalent in education, on the assumption that students would be more likely to come across examples in the journals they read. If students are cognizant with the methods used in the research that they most frequently encounter then surely confidence would be increased. As journals are readily accessible for students, an investigation of relevant education journals would be a useful source in order to determine if certain types of research are published more frequently than others.

An investigation of this nature may reveal a profile of education research that could have implications for education researchers as well as assisting teachers and pre-service teachers. This article describes the authors’ endeavor to profile selected education research journals and the unexpected surprises encountered along the way; in particular, difficulties in the development of a suitable ‘mapping tool’. There may be implications for education researchers as well as teachers of research.

The Nature of Educational Research

Educational research is undertaken by a range of stakeholders including government departments and non-government organisations, but the majority of educational research, as with most disciplines, is undertaken by academics in universities. Educational research covers a broad range of topics such as curriculum and pedagogy, education systems (encompassing early childhood, primary, secondary education) and various specialist studies, including areas such as assessment, leadership, technology and gender.

Research needs of stakeholders vary. Education departments use research to inform teaching and curriculum practice, devise professional learning activities, target resources and improve system requirements. Non-government organisations may use research to develop teaching resources or provide information to improve services to a range of clients. Research that underpins the teaching and learning process is of particular importance to inform teacher practice. Universities usually require students to engage with the education research literature, whereby students undertake a unit in research methods or read educational research. With the growth of pre-service teacher education courses offered at the Master degree level in countries such as Australia, the requirement for research skills has escalated.

Research in education encompasses many different naturalistic, interpretative, hypothesis generating models as well as hypothesis testing models. A rich resource of text books is available for those studying the theory and practice of educational research: Burke & Christensen (2012), Punch (2009), O’Toole & Beckett (2013), Wiersma and Jurs (2009) and Yin (2012), to name a few. Due to the nature of research in an educational setting the majority of research utilises a hypothesis generation approach with a predominance of verbal qualitative data gathering.

The reporting of educational research is usually presented in a range of publications such as academic journals, including online journals, professional magazines and books. Academic journals are a pathway that allows for the results of research to be released quickly into the public space. The content of academic journals also contains opinion papers, book reviews and editorial pieces; however, in some journals, the distinction between position/opinion papers and reports of research are left to the reader to discover, which can be a problem for students and inexperienced researchers. Nevertheless, articles in journals are a readily accessible starting place for students of research methods.

Several studies have attempted to map the type of research methodology used in various educational research; for example: Murray, Nuttall & Mitchell (2008), Nuttall, Murray, Seddon & Mitchell (2006), and Tuinamuana (2012). However, Burns (2000) contends that in general, most educational research tends to be classified as “case study research”, which has become an “over-arching” term to describe educational research that does not fit with experimental, historical or descriptive research methods.

Barriers exist regarding classification of different types of research methodology; in particular, where there is not a shared understanding of categories, such as method, data source, data gathering, and data analysis. The wide-spread use of general terms, such as “qualitative research” and “quantitative research”, and the term “mixed method research”, that largely refers to the use of both verbal data and numerical data in a research study, can cause confusion. The education research field is broad and interrelated so that students, novice researchers, and teachers new to reading research are often overwhelmed and unsure where to start.

Where should the novice begin?

The question of where to start the journey into the ‘research methodology forest’ would be answered in numerous ways depending upon the preferences or individual expertise of a lecturer. Pre-service teachers, and those commencing research for the first time, often seek advice regarding the ‘best’ method, or the ‘most useful’ approach, but it is not that simple. Students themselves bring to the situation their own experience and knowledge of research, both formal and informal. As teachers of research methods to pre-service teachers and early career researchers, over many years, questions to the authors, such as “where do I start?”, “it is difficult to know who to believe when one lecturer talks about the same term in a completely different way” and “what research method is most useful for teachers?”, were often followed by complaints about the daunting size of the task and difficulty in reading research reports in education journals.

For the novice some knowledge of research methods would be essential for reading and understanding research reports in order to make a judgement of the usefulness of the findings to their situation. The absence of information about the research process deters understanding no matter what level of research expertise the reader brings to the task. Indeed, education doctoral students attending a recent conference session, given by one of the authors, expressed concern with inadequate information provided in research journal articles about the methods used, data gathering techniques and subsequent data analysis. Comments such as “it is often not clear what is being reported when components, such as how the data were collected, are missing” and “I expect to read details on the data source or data gathering but sometimes this information is just not there”, as well as comments about the difficulties encountered by students in “identifying the type of research methodology used in educational research” (Knipe& Bottrell, 2013). It seems that pre-service teachers are not alone in their concerns about reading and understanding education research.

If particular types of research methodology are more frequently used by educational researchers, such as case study as claimed by Burns (2000), then there could be justification in placing an initial emphasis on case study methodology as a starting point in teaching research methods. As it is more likely that students and early career researchers would encounter this method in educational research journals, they would have a useful starting point for reading research and designing a research study. From the confidence gained through knowledge of one method of research, students could be encouraged to use that knowledge as a springboard into other research methodology.

Developing a “Mapping Tool”

Methods of classifying research into various categories and the development of instruments used have been reported in many disciplines, from early classifications by Cooper (1984) in social science to more recent classifications in areas such as Sports Science (Williams & Kendall, 2007) and Marketing (Ensign 2006). In categorizing educational research methods, an early attempt by Barr etal (1931) identified eight areas and, more recently, Isaac & Michael (1995) designated nine categories. Books on research are mostly organised by chapters that address the various aspects of research and tend not to be arranged by methodological classifications.

A review of categories used in books on research, including text books on education research, showed that some text books are structured according to particular designated research methodologies, such as ethnography, case study, phenomenology, descriptive and experimental, including extensive description and detailed features on each research method. In other text books, research methodologies, approaches to data gathering and analysis are addressed as separate entities. Concepts such as ‘research paradigms’ are often dealt with as a category separate from research methods.

Some text books on research methods have titles relating to “qualitative” research that focused upon the characteristics of naturalistic enquiry prevalent in education research, together with an emphasis on gathering verbal data from subject and/or researcher. By comparison, very few texts were found with the title “quantitative research”, but some authors such as Burns (2000) designate a section in their book titled “quantitative research”. ‘Qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ are terms used to describe a group of research methods, types of data gathered, and data analysis techniques. For the purpose of this project and for reasons of clarity, the terms ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ were not used as categories in the development of a ‘mapping tool’.

In classifying educational research into mutually exclusive categories, the focus was upon research methodologies, separate from data gathered, sources of data, and data analysis techniques. Four categories were designated as follows:

Source of Data (e.g. teachers/students/school administrators/parents/non-school personnel etc)

Data Gathering Technique (e.g. interview/observation/survey/existing data etc)

Data Analysis Techniques (e.g. Categories/Themes/Open and axial coding/statistical analysis etc).

Research Methods (e.g. Case Study/Action research/Field study/ Quasi-experimental, Developmental, Historical etc).

A category for “sampling methods” was included together with a category for the reporting of reliability/dependability and validity/authenticity of the data gathering tools. The ‘mapping tool’ was called the Journal Article Research Analysis (JARA) Schedule and details of the complete categories, definitions for items, and results of the use of the JARA Schedule in a research project, will be presented elsewhere.

Application of the JARA Schedule

For early ‘test runs’ of the JARA Schedule, journals selected for review varied from one complete issue of a journal to analysing all issues for one year. Journals, national and international, were drawn from four major areas in education: namely, Educational and Developmental Psychology, Education Research, Teacher Education and Education Administration.

Generally, research journals contain reports of research together with position statements or opinion and book reviews. However, in selecting education research journals to use for the ‘test run’, it became apparent that there was a far greater proportion of position/opinion papers than expected – in some cases up to half of all articles were found to be opinion/position papers. Indeed, some of the opinion papers were presented as ‘research’ but closer scrutiny revealed that the paper was merely an informal report with no evidence of systematic investigation. The ratio of research to non-research articles in a significant number of journals purporting to be research journals was an unexpected discovery.

The absence of information regarding methodology, data gathering, and/or data analysis was another surprise. One would expect that a research article in a journal designated as having a research focus would include details of the research process, as well as reference to sampling methods, reliability and validity. In some instances, an author may have claimed to have used a particular method (for example, case study) but the description of the procedures followed did not meet the criteria for case study research, according to widely accepted definitions contained in text books on research methods.

For further ‘test runs’ of the JARA Schedule, the authors sought the assistance of two very experienced researchers both of whom had taught research methods for many years at the Master and Doctoral level. The team of four, independently, applied the JARA Schedule to a selection of eight articles. Discussion prior to using the JARA Schedule clarified definitions of the categories to the satisfaction of everyone in the team. After the scoring was complete discrepancies in scoring were discussed. It became clear that a major problem was with research reports that failed to include information about how data was gathered and analysed, or where the information provided, regarding procedures followed, was inadequate. In some cases, reports did not include a description of methodology, leaving the team to provide their own interpretation. The JARA Schedule team considered such interpretation to be unsatisfactory so a scoring descriptor of “not included /not clear” was added to the coding.

The category of ‘research methods’ stimulated much discussion and all members of the team were surprised that, despite our experience in the area of education research, we were not as clear in our understanding of definitions as we would like to have been. The discussion that followed as the team clarified and refined definitions of research methods, with extensive consultation of text books on research methods, served to strengthen their understanding and expertise in the research area. In this sense, the JARA Schedule, became a professional learning tool for the research team. Later “test runs” with nine other academics revealed similar lack of certainty in definitions. This seems to suggest that definitions and understanding of research methods may have been taken for granted, and the authors connected this with the confusion expressed by the first-time research methods students.

The team reviewed the JARA Schedule categories a

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4 Best Right Approach to use NCERT Solutions for Class 8 Science

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How To Make Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Cool At School

Science, mathematics, technology, and engineering are not cool subjects, according to today’s students. Female students are underrepresented in these subjects and careers, and students are opting for easier versions of these subjects, impacting the pool of qualified candidates for these fields.

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Science and mathematics are not cool subjects,How To Make Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Cool At School Articles say students. Consequently, if these subjects are compulsory, students opt for an easier stream in secondary school and are less likely to transition to university science programs. In addition, female students are under-represented in areas such as mathematics, physics and astronomy. Around the world, the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) are in grave trouble in secondary and tertiary institutions. But worse, STEM university graduates may not work in a field of their expertise, leaving STEM agencies and organizations to hire from a shrinking pool.

In 1995, 14 percent of Year 12 secondary school mathematics students studied advanced mathematics, while 37 percent studied elementary mathematics, according to the Australian Mathematical Science Institute. Fifteen years later, in 2010, 10 percent were studying advanced mathematics and 50 percent took the easier option of elementary mathematics. The Australian Mathematical Science Institute revealed that basic mathematics was growing in popularity among secondary students to the detriment of intermediate or advanced studies. This has resulted in fewer universities offering higher mathematics courses, and subsequently there are reduced graduates in mathematics. There have also been reduced intakes in teacher training colleges and university teacher education departments in mathematics programs, which have resulted in many low-income or remote secondary schools without higher level mathematics teachers, which further resulted in fewer science courses or the elimination of specific topics from courses. For some mathematics courses, this is producing a continuous cycle of low supply, low demand, and low supply.

But is it actually a dire problem? The first question is one of supply. Are universities producing enough quality scientists, technology experts, engineers, and mathematicians? Harold Salzman of Rutgers University and his research colleague, B. Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown University in Washington D.C., revealed in a 2009 study that, contrary to widespread perception, the United States continued to produce science and engineering graduates. However, fewer than half actually accepted jobs in their field of expertise. They are moving into sales, marketing, and health care jobs.

The second question is one of demand. Is there a continuing demand for STEM graduates? An October 2011 report from the Georgetown University’s Centre on Education and the Workforce confirmed the high demand for science graduates, and that STEM graduates were paid a greater starting salary than non-science graduates. The Australian Mathematical Science Institute said the demand for doctorate graduates in mathematics and statistics will rise by 55 percent by 2020 (on 2008 levels). In the United Kingdom, the Department for Engineering and Science report, The Supply and Demand for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematical Skills in the UK Economy (Research Report RR775, 2004) projected the stock of STEM graduates to rise by 62 percent from 2004 to 2014 with the highest growth in subjects allied to medicine at 113 percent, biological science at 77 percent , mathematical science at 77 percent, computing at 77 percent, engineering at 36 percent, and physical science at 32 percent.

Fields of particular growth are predicted to be agricultural science (food production, disease prevention, biodiversity, and arid-lands research), biotechnology (vaccinations and pathogen science, medicine, genetics, cell biology, pharmagenomics, embryology, bio-robotics, and anti-ageing research), energy (hydrocarbon, mining, metallurgical, and renewable energy sectors), computing (such as video games, IT security, robotics, nanotechnologies, and space technology), engineering (hybrid-electric automotive technologies), geology (mining and hydro-seismology), and environmental science (water, land use, marine science, meteorology, early warning systems, air pollution, and zoology).

So why aren’t graduates undertaking science careers? The reason is because it’s just not cool — not at secondary school, nor at university, nor in the workforce. Georgetown University’s CEW reported that American science graduates viewed traditional science careers as “too socially isolating.” In addition, a liberal-arts or business education was often regarded as more flexible in a fast-changing job market.

How can governments make science cool? The challenge, says Professor Ian Chubb, head of Australia’s Office of the Chief Scientist, is to make STEM subjects more attractive for students, particularly females — without dumbing down the content. Chubb, in his Health of Australian Science report (May 2012) , indicated that, at research level, Australia has a relatively high scholarly output in science, producing more than 3 percent of world scientific publications yet accounting for only about 0.3 percent of the world’s population. Australian-published scholarly outputs, including fields other than science, grew at a rate of about 5 percent per year between 1999 and 2008. This was considerably higher than the global growth rate of 2.6 percent. But why isn’t this scholarly output translating into public knowledge, interest, and participation in science?

Chubb promotes a two-pronged approach to the dilemma: 1. science education: enhancing the quality and engagement of science teaching in schools and universities; and 2. science workforce: the infusion of science communication into mainstream consciousness to promote the advantages of scientific work.

Specifically, Chubb calls for creative and inspirational teachers and lecturers, as well as an increase in female academics, for positive role modeling, and to set science in a modern context. Instead of restructuring and changing the curriculum, he advocates training teachers to create ways to make mathematics and science more relevant to students’ lives. Communicating about science in a more mainstream manner is also critical to imparting the value of scientific innovation. Chubb is a fan of social media to bring science into the mainstream and to change people’s perception of science careers and scientists. Social media can also bring immediacy to the rigor, analysis, observation and practical components of science.

In practical terms, the recent findings on student attitudes to STEM subjects, their perception of scientific work, and the flow of STEM graduates to their field of expertise, may be improved by positively changing the way governments, scientists, and educators communicate science on a day-to-day level.

Contextual, situational, relevant science education is more likely to establish links between theory and practical application. This can be demonstrated through real-world applications, including science visits and explorations in the local environment, at all levels of education. Even university students should avoid being cloistered in study rooms, and be exposed to real world, real environment situations. Furthermore, science educators advocate the use of spring-boarding student queries, interests, and motivation into extra-curriculum themes that capture their imagination and innovation. Therefore, enabling students to expand core curricula requirements to include optional themes, projects, competitions, and activities chosen by individual students, groups, or school clusters lead to increased student (and teacher) motivation and participation. In addition, integrating and cross-fertilizing science with non-science subjects and day-to-day activities (e.g. the science of chocolate, sport science, technical drawings, artistic design, and clothing design) can powerfully place STEM subjects firmly into practical applications. “Scientists in residence” programs, in which local scientists work periodically in school and university settings, can inspire students and provide two-way communication opportunities. In addition, international collaborations between schools of different regions or countries through a range of technologies demonstrate and reinforce collaboration in the scientific workplace — as a way to build a cadre of experts, exchange ideas, network, cooperate, economize, and create culturally diverse outcomes of excellence.

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