Course Description
Consideration of critical research issues in the field; review of resources for higher-education research; specification of appropriate research questions; survey of alternative research philosophies, paradigms, and methods; evaluation of alternative research designs.
Athena Title
RESEARCH INTRO
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The course is designed to introduce first-year doctoral students to the empirical study of higher education as a research field. A faculty member of the Institute of Higher Education will be the major instructor, but students’ course experiences will be broadened by the inclusion of other Institute faculty in selected sessions. By the end of this course, students should have learned about: 1) critical contemporary research issues in the field of higher-education studies; 2) major available resources for higher-education research; 3) the formulation of empirical research questions that may be addressed rigorously, feasibly, and productively to expand knowledge in the field; 4) alternative research philosophies, paradigms, and methods for research in higher education; 5) effective approaches for evaluating alternative designs for research in this field In the course of the semester, students will be asked to begin regularly reading and occasionally reporting on the field’s research literature. This will not be a research-methods course and no advanced knowledge of statistics or qualitative methods is assumed, expected, or required. Nonetheless, students will be expected by the end of the course to understand the key factors influencing the choice of a research topic, the choice of a theoretical/conceptual framework for an analysis, and the choice of an analytic approach for addressing a research question.
Topical Outline
1. Higher education as a focus of empirical study 2. Professional associations, societies, and organizations in higher education 3. Central research resources in the field: published and electronic sources 4. Principal theoretical and analytic traditions in the field: an initial overview 5. Significant contemporary research issues in the field 6. Assessing knowledge claims: an introduction 7. Formulating research questions: the pursuit of rigor, feasibility, significance 8. Introduction to alternative research approaches in the social sciences: philosophies, paradigms, and methods 9. Guest research presentations by faculty to highlight the variety of research interests and approaches in the Institute 10. Evaluating alternative research designs
Syllabus
Public CV