CHAPTER 1: APPLICATION PROBLEM
5. It is evident that from the three listed uses of research results, the second application, that is, to generate decision making that leads to action, applies to the example research result above. Survey of the respondents (teachers) revealed that they found the strategy module lacking on such topics as a rationale for the strategy, a clear specification of the type of student who would benefit from the strategy, and alternative techniques to respond to student difficulties. The curriculum developer, then, should come to the decision to revise and improve on the strategy module in order to be more useful to the intended users, who are the teachers. The decision should then be followed by an action to revise the module as suggested by the respondents, so that the objective to help adult basic education teachers teach a reading strategy could be realized.
CHAPTER 2: APPLICATION PROBLEM
1. Classify each as a type of research design: experimental, non-experimental, quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method.
A pilot investigation of the validity of the Back Stroke Test to identify problem swimmers ~ QUANTITATIVE
A comparison of the effect of two reading programs on fourth-grade classes in Kalamazoo ~ NON-EXPERIMENTAL
An investigation of the structure of attitudes of college students ~ QUALITATIVE
The effect of extrinsic rewards on the motivation of randomly assigned children to play groups ~ EXPERIMENTAL
A survey of principals’ general attitudes toward collective bargaining as well as interviews with a small number of principals ~ NON-EXPERIMENTAL
A study of the relative effectiveness of different counseling techniques used by counselors over the past five years ~ MIXED METHOD
An investigation of the difference in attendance between students in two high schools with different leadership styles ~ NON-EXPERIMENTAL
A posttest-only study of the effect of humorously written review sentences on comprehension for two groups of children ~ EXPERIMENTAL
A study of the meaning of merit pay to teachers ~ QUALITATIVE
CHAPTER 6: APPLICATION PROBLEM
1. List potential threats to internal and external validity for case 1.
The potential threats to the internal validity of case 1 are: (1) HISTORY – History threats can occur in this research setting as the students may be affected by something that happens during the duration of the tennis class; (2) PRETESTING – Since the researchers conducted a pretest, the items in the test could be enough to change the performance of the class; (3) ATTRITION – or mortality can affect the internal validity of the research because since this is a normal PE class, students, at one time or another, may drop out from the class and therefore become lost in the research; (4) TREATMENT REPLICATION – is a threat to the internal validity of the research to the extent that the reported number of students in a class is not the same as the number of independent replications of the research in other classes; and (5) SUBJECT EFFECTS – may lead to the students changing their performance level because they were informed that the class they will enroll in is different in composition from the other tennis classes offered during the term, and would want to present themselves in the most positive manner.
The potential threat to the external validity, on the other hand, is the ECOLOGICAL aspect of external validity. The performance of the students may become affected by the time of the day that the tennis class is offered, as there are morning, noon and afternoon classes. The pretest sensitization could also become a source of threat to the external validity of the study. Also, the effects caused by the presence of the researchers in the class, particularly the Hawthorne effect, may challenge the external validity of the study in that the students may react in certain ways because of their knowledge of aspects of the research.
VARIOUS METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION
SURVEY – Questionnaires for surveys are typically open-ended or closed ended. The latter is easier and quicker to answer, that is why it is more employed in research than the former. Being the most common data collection method, it has advantages as well as disadvantages. An advantage is that it is relatively easy to conduct and provides quantitative data otherwise absent in other data collection methods. Research usually has time constraints, and using questionnaires in the conduct of surveys allow the researcher to leave the forms to respondents while conducting other aspects of the study, allowing for multi-tasking. Face-to-face surveys are also the norm. This is done especially when the questions that the researcher has prepared are open-ended, which means that follow-up questions are possible. Although this eats up more time than the previously mentioned method, the researcher has the advantage of being more involved in the data collection process and thus, can provide more input in the analysis and evaluation sections of the research.
OBSERVATION – This involves the actual participation of the author of the research in the data collection process. It has the advantage of not relying on users’ perceptions. Direct observation has its disadvantage, though in that not every goal the researcher would want to study can be directly observed. It is also rather clumsy; it can interfere with activities; and it is costly in terms of time, money, and personnel, unlike in survey where the cost of doing such is relatively small. Through this, the primary data of the research could be gathered. Although there is no interaction with the respondents unlike in the surveys, this method allows the respondents to act naturally and then the researcher just draws conclusions from the way they behave during the time of observation. Observation may be interpretive or ethnographic, and may come in the form of a participant observer or case studies.
FOCUS GROUPS – Focus groups are used to understand the perceptions and feelings of users. They do not supply a consensus but are more suited for surveying a variety of points of view. One advantage of focus groups is that you can easily ask follow-up questions and obtain much more detailed information. The downside, on the other hand, focus groups is that they can be costly in terms of money, time, and labor. This method is a major qualitative method which could explicitly uses group interaction to generate data and insights that would be unlikely to emerge without the interaction found in a group. The technique inherently allows observation of group dynamics, discussion, and firsthand insights into the respondents’ behaviors, attitudes, language, etc.
DOCUMENTS – Historical data, literature review, meta-analysis, diaries, content analysis and secondary data (data mining) are some of the types of documents which could be used to gather secondary data for the research. These methods identify trends in leisure research and practice. Participants keep diaries and journals researcher conducts content analysis of studies, reports and diaries. Knowledge from these secondary sources often proves important to the conduct of the research in that it provides insight to the researcher and could guide the direction that the research is going to take. A major advantage of this method is that the documents are usually easy to acquire, and in a number of accessible media. There is often a wealth of information already available on the topic of the research. On the negative side, it is not conclusive. The data gathered from this method needs to be coupled with actual data or the primary data garnered by the researcher in order for the study to be reliable and valid.
ISSUES OF RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
The related research issues of reliability and validity ask researchers to consider whether they are studying, what they think they are studying and whether the measures that the research is using are consistent. Researchers are often challenged by the difficulty of producing a reliable and valid research output, as researchers can go to great lengths and make every attempt to ensure accuracy in their studies, and still deal with the inherent difficulties of measuring particular events or behaviors and proving that such measures are acceptable and legitimate. The dangers of generalizing from research that is inconsistent, invalid, unreliable, and incomplete could prove to produce more problems for the researcher, as he or she is faced with ethical issues as well.
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