Course Description
Critical evaluation of research literature, research paradigms, future research needs, and research design/methodology in workforce education.
Athena Title
Edu Research In Workforce Ed
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in WFED 9100E
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course will provide opportunities to examine and discuss a variety of topics and issues relevant to educational research. Upon completion, participants will have had opportunities to: 1. Become familiar with current schools of thought in educational research, especially as these philosophies relate to conceptualization, design, and analysis. 2. Read and comprehend correlational, survey, experimental, and qualititative research studies. Specifically, participants will begin to (a) interpret correlation coefficients (bivariate), multiple regression, and multivariate correlations, (b) identify variables, sample, experimental design, procedures, analysis and implications of experimental studies, and (c) describe purpose, sample, instrumentation, procedures, and analysis of survey and qualitative research. 3. Describe major educational research designs and identify major strengths and weaknesses of each (inc., correlation, experimental, survey, causal-comparative, and qualitative). 4. Given general research problems or objectives, determine the most appropriate research design and statistical analysis to use for the situation. 5. Understand and apply knowledge of various research sampling techniques. 6. Identify sources of threat to internal and external validity, inappropriate data analyses, inadequate discussion and interpretation of results, and questionable ethical practices. 7. Understand and be able to apply standard methods for questionnaire/instrument development, pretesting and modification, administration, and treatment of data. 8. Develop a research prospectus that outlines and describes an empirical/analytic study (correlational, experimental, causal-comparative, or survey), interpretive study, or a critical research study. The prospectus will include a rationale for the study, research questions or objectives if appropriate, research design (inc., sampling techniques, instrumentation, and procedure/time line), and description of anticipated data analysis.
Topical Outline
The course syllabus is a general plan for the course; deviations announced to the class by the instructor may be necessary. Major emphasis in this course will be placed on assisting class participants to: 1. Understand the major research paradigms applicable to vocational education contexts. 2. Recognize well-designed research studies in workforce education that use a variety of methods including correlation, experiment, causal-comparative, qualitative, and survey. 3. Evaluate research with a critical eye by analyzing and summarizing research articles, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and prescribing recommendations for improvement. 4. Determine appropriate research designs and statistical application/data analysis techniques to a variety of issues and problems faced by researchers in workforce education. 5. Plan and organize a research study that employs acceptable research design, procedures and techniques, and statistical analysis.
Syllabus
Public CV