EDU738: Educ. Research Across the Curriculum

EDU 738 Research Across the Curriculum

 

Assignment #1: Abstracts of Primary Research (Individual)

 

Due:  February 5, 2023

 

The purpose of this assignment is to help you learn about sources of research on educational issues and to have you practice reading research literature from a thoughtful perspective and focusing on issues related to methodology.  As a result of this assignment you should be aware of key research and theory related to a topical area of interest to you and you should have an idea of the research design, instruments, and populations used to investigate this topic. A complete review of the research in your topic area would provide the groundwork for the rationale and procedures to be used in your own research.  While this first assignment only requires you to 'abstract' information from the articles you select, keep in mind that the information you glean from these research studies can help you as you work on your research plan in the subsequent assignments for this course.

 

Please keep in mind that the review of research is in reality an iterative process.  As you read in your topic area, you become clearer about 'what's out there', about what you want to do, and what you can reasonably do.  So, as you read the research studies for this task, you will probably find that you will have to do some more reading (and reviewing) in order to ultimately produce a well-crafted review of the literature for the final project.  But you have to start somewhere (!) and this first assignment is your chance to 'dip into the world of educational research'.  We are not expecting you to be an expert but to pay close attention to the methods and claims made by the authors of research studies.

 

In this assignment, you will be responsible for reviewing at least 3 research studies that hopefully are related to your area of interest. The articles must be primary research, not just a summary of research that others have done.  Primary research involves the collection of data or the systematic analysis of original data collected by some other researcher(s).  Reviews of previous research can be very informative, but the purpose of this assignment is to have you practice focusing in on the methods used by researchers.  In fact, for the purposes of this assignment, results are less (!) important than the methods! (It is not sufficient to just review the published abstract.  You must review the full publication.) At the end of this assignment we have some hints for conducting online searches.  Of course, you can contact the Reference Librarian at SSU’s library for assistance too.

 

For this assignment, you are to do the following:

 

1)    Indicate the broad research area of interest.  (This is not meant to be a problem statement ,but it needs to be clear and explicit enough so that it serves as a guide for you as you are searching for relevant sources of information.)

2)    For each 'article' provide a complete citation using the American Psychological Association’s guidelines.  (See Purdue University’s OWL site: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ .

a)     If you use the Zotero application, it has an option for producing citations in APA format. http://rockyshwedel.ipage.com/edu738resources/zotero/using_zotero1.html

b)    Here are some other online tools that can help you format references according to APA style.  Please note that these tools are not always perfect, nor are they always up to date. 

i)      Purdue University’s OWL site is the most complete, other than the APA style manual itself.

ii)    Bibme:  http://www.bibme.org/

iii)   Landmark’s Son of Citation Machine: http://citationmachine.net/

3)    For this assignment, we have provided a template for you to use to extract and record the most relevant information from each research study. It is possible that an article doesn’t contain information for each of these key elements. That is OK - just indicate that the information is not available (NA).

 

a)     Here is the list of the information you should be extracting from each article.

i)            Theory or rationale that guides the research (What did previous researchers find?)

ii)           Hypothesis or research question (What was the researcher expecting or hoping to find?)

iii)         Sample (Who participated in the study – how many people/sites and relevant background information?)

iv)         Instruments (What are the main characteristics of the data gathering tools, e.g., survey, knowledge test, observation protocol, etc.?)

v)           Procedures (How are data collected?)

vi)         Analysis (What statistical procedures are used to “make sense” or summarize the data?):

vii)        Results (What were the main findings from the data analysis?)

viii)      Conclusion/Next Steps (What are the researcher’s suggestions for practice and/or future research?)

ix)         Limitations (What factors did the researcher identify that would make the reader be cautious about the usefulness of the results?)

b)    Your comments about the study

i)          Original Research?  yes or no

ii)        Peer Reviewed?  yes or no

iii)       Is the discussion based on Results?

iv)       How will this be useful to your own Research? (In particular, how might the methods or sample influence the design of your study?)

v)         Other Issues

 

4)    Enter the information listed in #3 onto the template using short phrases and sentences. Do not include direct quotations from the article.  Put the information in your own words.

5)    For each of the elements in #3, summarize the entire set of 3 articles in terms of your area of research interest.  What are the similarities and/or differences in the methodologies used in the various studies. Do the articles ‘paint’ a consistent picture or do they differ in important ways in terms of their methodologies and/or findings? 

6)     The entire set of 3 abstracts with citations, your comments, and the summary should be in a single file on your GoogleDrive. You should name your file with the assignment and your first and last name, e.g. “Assignment_#1_ Rocky_Shwedel_final” or “Abstracts_ Rocky_Shwedel_ final”. When the file is ready on the GoogleDrive share it with your instructors and send us an email to let us know that it is ready to be reviewed. (Google has an option to notify people when you share a document with them.)

7)    If you have trouble with GoogleDocs or if you have any questions, please contact us.

 

Grading Procedures:

            This assignment will be worth 25% toward your final grade for this course.  The assessment will be evaluated on the basis of the attached rubric.  NOTE: You can submit a draft version, partial or full, for feedback and indeed, we would encourage you to submit a draft. The draft, if any, and the final version should be uploaded to GoogleDrive and shared with use. Be sure that you have ‘shared’ the GoogleDoc file and sent a GoogleDoc notification to us. If you have any questions, please contact us

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salem State’s Reference Librarians have put together a number very useful research guides. You can click on the screenshot below to access a guide that Jason Soohoo put together for our course.

 

 

 

Here are some additional hints for doing Online Database Searches

Use Zotero or RefWorks to keep track of the articles you search and read.

 

 You can access many full text articles through EBSCO or JSTOR. EBSCO is more like a shopping mall that houses multiple online databases.

Please note that to use the college's online databases when you are off campus, you will need to enter your ID and your email password. If you are on campus, you don't need to use your SSC email account to get access. If you don't use your email, you will need to activate that account which can be started within Navigator.

 

In terms of searching within the databases, there are skills needed to using keywords to locate articles. (And that is one reason why we have Reference Librarians!)

 

Once you know more about your topic area it will be much easier but when you begin you can look at the key words that are associated with various articles and use those for subsequent searches. As we said in the description of this assignment, doing a literature review is an iterative process.

 

What we do sometimes when we’re beginning a literature search is to use a title search and put a word that We assume should be in the title. We end up with lots of articles that aren't useful but it is a start.

 

Another tactic we use is to do a Google Scholar search and then go back to the SSC library's online database to see if we can locate the articles there.

 

We hope these are of some use.  We know that Salem State’s trained Reference Librarians have some more sophisticated and useful suggestions but hopefully this is a start.

 

Rubric for Assignment #1

Be sure to look at the ‘rubric hints’ below.

	Needs Improvement (B-  or lower)	Adequate (B/B+)	Proficient (A-/A)	Comments
Adequacy of the Research Studies	Only one of the articles is original research. Or there are not three complete articles.	At least 2 of the articles are original research studies with the collection and analysis of some type of data.	All 3 of the articles are original research studies with the collection and analysis of some type of data. The articles cover a range of perspectives and/or methodologies.
Format of the Citation	Missing or errors present that would make it difficult to access the study.	Citations are complete and accurate There are numerous format errors or inconsistencies.	Citations are complete and accurate. The formatting follows APA or other guidelines.
Clarity & Completeness of the Abstract Template	Incomplete, and/or significant errors.	Essentially all of the elements are addressed for each of the studies but there may be some minor gaps.	All of the elements are addressed for each of the studies without any errors.
Connection to Proposed Research Plan	Not included, significant errors or no specific connection made.	A specific connection is made between the study and planned research.	A specific connection is made between the study and planned research. The discussion of the connection elaborates on how the study moves the writers understanding or planned research forward.
Analysis of the Quality of the Research Study	Not included or significant errors,	Comments correctly on the quality in terms of either design and/or conclusions or comments on the source of the article in terms of being peer reviewed or not.	Comments correctly on the quality in terms of either design and/or conclusions and Comments on the source of the article in terms of being peer reviewed or not.
Summary of the Set of Articles	Not included or significant errors, or no meaningful information provided   No meaningful connection made to planned research	Includes accurate comparison of articles on a limited number of dimensions; Limited concrete detail or includes unimportant details; May have made a superficial connection with planned research.	Includes accurate comparison of articles in terms of theory, design (subjects and procedures), results/findings and strengths and weaknesses. Makes a well thought out connection with planned research.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rubric Hints (aka areas where students tend to have difficulty):

(1)   As you are reading the articles and writing the abstracts, we want you to think about and focus on the sample and methods used.  Describing the actual results or findings are secondary because we want you to be gathering ideas about the methods you could possibly weave into your own research topic, such as survey questions or intervention materials.

(2)    Be sure to comment on the quality of the article and its potential use in your own research study.

(3)   Be sure that your overall summary includes a comparison of the participants and methods used in the research studies.  Again, as with the individual studies, the focus on the summary is on the variety, or similarity of methods and samples used by the various researchers. 

(4)   If you use EBSCO to find articles, please note that EBSCO itself is not a database but rather “database delivery service”.  Check out “Dealing with APA Formatting Issues” on the course website for more information:  http://rockyshwedel.ipage.com/edu738resources/edu738_hints_tips_and_faqs/edu738_faqsandhints.html

(5)   Be sure to look over the exemplars on the “Assignment #1 – Overview and Exemplars webpage: http://rockyshwedel.ipage.com/edu738assignments/assignment1/assignment1_overview_exemplars/assignment1_overview_exemplars.html .

 

Assignment #1 – Key Components from Research Articles

You should use  this template to record relevant information and to compare the set of articles.

 

If you prefer to work directly on GoogleDocs, here is the link to a template you can copy into your own area. And be sure to share it with us once you have finished!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M2C5OTiMhST4_5E0uWNXMn-C8CIRm98DozrOevFyS58/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

Name:

 

Topic Area of Interest:      

 

 

Article	Citation	Theory/Rationale & Hypotheses, Research Questions	Sample
#1
#2
#3
Comparison among all 3 articles (similarities & differences)	Not Applicable

 

 

Article	Instruments	Procedures	Analysis
#1
#2
#3
Comparison among all 3 articles (similarities & differences)

 

 

Article	Results	Conclusions & Next Steps	Limitations – as cited by the author(s)
#1
#2
#3
Comparison among all 3 articles (similarities & differences)

 

 

 

Article	Original Research?	Peer Reviewed	Is Discussion based on results? Explain
#1
#2
#3
Comparison among all 3 articles (similarities & differences)	Not applicable	Not applicable

 

 

 

Article	Usefulness to your own Research
#1
#2
#3
Comparison among all  articles (similarities & differences)