Educational Research

Dr. Aftab Ahmad Khan

Introduction
• To research is to get the truth.
• When we research, we are able to get better ways of doing things and
better products.
• No alternative to research, and hence the truth.
• Research – true knowledge
• Human knowledge works at two levels
i. Primary level
ii. Secondary level
Primary Level
• Used as basis for human activities

Example:
i. A teacher solves a mathematical or any other problem for the
students.

ii. A doctor uses his knowledge to diagnose and cure a disease.

iii. A psychologist uses various techniques to treat a psycho-patient

Secondary Level
• Existing knowledge is used to generate new knowledge.

• Increments in the existing knowledge

The activity that produces new knowledge - Research

Definitions/Description

• Educational research refers to a systematic attempt to gain a better

understanding of the educational process, generally with a view in
improving its efficiency.

• It is an application of scientific method to the study of educational

problems
Conti…
• Educational research is that activity which is directed towards the
development of science of behavior in educational situations. W. M.
Traverse

• The ultimate aim of such a science is to provide knowledge that will

permit the educator to achieve his goals by the most effective
methods. J. W. Best
Conti...
• Educational research refers to the systematic collection and analysis
of data related to the field of education.
• Research may involve a variety of methods and various aspects of
education including student learning, teaching methods, teacher
training, and classroom dynamics.
• Educational researchers generally agree that research should be
rigorous and systematic.
• Educational researchers may draw upon a variety of disciplines
including psychology, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy
Conti…
• Research is an intellectual activity which:

i. Corrects previous errors or misconceptions

ii. Brings light to new knowledge and adds an orderly way to the

existing body of knowledge

Conti…

• Research and the scientific method can be used interchangeably

Research is more formal, systematic and intensive process of working

on the scientific method of analysis

Aspects of Educational Research
Gary L. Anderson outlined ten aspects of educational research:
1. Educational research attempts to solve an educational problem.
2. It involves gathering new data from primary or first-hand sources or
using existing data for a new purpose.
3. It is based upon observable experience or empirical evidence.
4. It demands accurate observation and description.
5. It generally employs carefully designed procedures and rigorous
analysis.
Conti…
6. It emphasizes the development of generalizations, principles or
theories that will help in understanding, prediction and/or control.
7. It requires expertise—familiarity with the field; competence in
methodology; technical skill in collecting and analyzing the data.
8. It attempts to find an objective, unbiased solution to the problem
and takes great pains to validate the procedures employed.
9. It is a deliberate and unhurried activity which is directional but
often refines the problem or questions as the research progresses.
10. It is carefully recorded and reported to other persons interested in
the problem
Benefits of Educational Research for
Teachers
• Help you find solutions to particular problems arising in your classroom or
school
• Underpin professional learning of knowledge, skills and understanding
• Connect you with sources of information and networks of professional
support
• Clarify purposes, processes and priorities when introducing change – for
example, to curriculum, pedagogy or assessment

• Improve understanding of your professional and policy context,

organizationally, locally and nationally, enabling you to teach and lead
more strategically and effectively
• Develop your agency, influence, self-efficacy and voice within your own
school and more widely within the profession.
Some key underpinnings to the scientific
Method:
• The hypothesis must be testable and falsifiable.
• Falsifiable means that there must be a possible negative answer to the
hypothesis.
• Research must involve deductive and inductive reasoning.
• Deductive reasoning is the process of using true premises to reach a logical
true conclusion while inductive reasoning takes the opposite approach.
• An experiment should include a dependent variable and an independent
variable.
• An experiment should include an experimental group and a control group.
• The control group is what the experimental group is compared against.
Characteristics of research (An older description)
• An older description “ M O V I E”

M – Mathematical Precision and Accuracy

O – Objectivity
V – Verifiability
I – Impartiality
E -- Expertness
Characteristics of a Good Research
• Following characteristics of a good research.
i. Research is directed towards the solution of a problem
ii. Research is a continuous enquiry in search of knowledge
iii. Research emphasis the development of generalization, principles,
theories
iv. Research is based upon observable experiences and empirical
evidences
v. Research rejects revelation and dogmas as methods of establishing
knowledge
Conti…

vi. Research employs in depth review of related literature

vii. Research depends on valid and reliable data gathering procedure
viii. Research demands accurate observations and descriptions
ix. Research applies systematic and scientific procedure for the study
x. Research involves gathering of new data from first hand sources
(primary) or existing data (secondary sources) for a new purposes
Conti…

xi. Research is based on carefully designed procedure with rigorous

analysis
xii. Research requires expertise
xiii. Research is a objective, logical process and eliminate personal bias
xiv. Research involve the quest for answer to unsolved problems
xv. Possibility for Replication
Conti…

xii. Research is characterized by patient and unhurried activity

xiii. Research is carefully recorded and reported
xviii. Research sometimes required courage
xix. Quantitative Research involves hypotheses testing using suitable
statistical techniques
xx. Qualitative Research involve objective thick description on thin
data
Need for Research

i. Rapid expansion

ii. Democratization of Education

iii. Technological changes

iv. New Demands on Education

v. Interdisciplinary Approach to education

Conti…

vi. Knowledge Explosion

vii. Education and Productivity

viii. Scarce resources and Optimum Development

ix. Spirit of Research is needed everywhere

x. Research is needed to keep out of fixed track

Scope and Importance
• Education is considered as a vital tool for social as well as national
development.
• It has significant role in evaluating the human development of a country.
• When we assess the development of a person, society, community or a
Nation, the educational attributes, such as educational qualifications,
number of educated person in the society or community, number of
educational institution in the state or country with respects to its
population, rate of enrolment, retention, quality of education provided,
equity and equality for educational opportunity and so forth are
considered as the prime criteria for consideration.
Conti…
• Hence every nation in the world is giving emphasis to the
development educational sector of their country.
• Many innovative programs and projects are being prepared by the
policy makers as well as the academic bodies across the globe to
improve their educational quantity as well as the quality.
• These programs and project are prepared on the basis data
generated by extensive research
Purpose of Educational Research
• Some important purposes are presented as following.
a. To identify truth regarding Enrolment, retention, dropout, quality of
Education and so forth
b. To build new knowledge regarding the methodology, pedagogy or
other core subject areas
c. Adding of existing stock of knowledge related to educational field
d. To solve a problem related to classroom, institution, administrative
level, policy level
Conti…
e. Invention of new teaching methods, curriculum transaction
strategies, effective grouping technique and so forth
f. Realizing the exact problem of educational sector
g. Assess the Effect of New methodology of teaching
h. Identify and assess the ICT enabled classroom and teaching
i. To understand the teachers knowledge on latest evaluation
techniques
j. To identify the hindrances to achieve universalization of education
The Career Prospects of Educational Research
• Textbook Writer:
• Create and develop reading material for students from elementary to
college and university level education that would be easier and more
productive to read and understand.

• Curriculum Designer:
• Develop and implement new and efficient curriculum for teachers
and students that are better suited for modern-day circumstances
and academic standard.
Conti…
• Educational Consultant:
• Provide advice and guidance regarding better teaching methods, good
student career choices, and effective curriculum changes.

• Instructional Coordinator:
• Observe teachers and teaching methods for further improvement in this
regard. Oversee school curriculum and teaching standards.
• Educational Policy Analyst:
• Researches and analyzes state educational policies for the purpose of
improvement and making these policies more beneficial for students and
academic institutes.
Scientific Method
• The scientific method is a systematic way of learning about the world
around us and answering questions.
• It is a mathematical and experimental technique employed in
sciences
• It is the technique used in the construction and testing of a scientific
hypothesis.
• It is a process for experimentation that is used to explore
observations and answer questions.
• It is an organized and systematic way of answering a question.
Conti…
• The scientific method is the only scientific way accepted to back up a
theory or idea.
• This is the method on which all research projects should be based.
• This method is used by researchers to support or disprove a theory.
• The key difference between the scientific method and other ways of
acquiring knowledge are forming a hypothesis and then testing it with
an experiment.
Steps in scientific Method

i. Identification of a Problem or Question

ii. Stating appropriate Hypothesis

iii. Conducting an Experiment

iv. Results

v. Conclusion
Identification of Problem
Making an Observation
• The first step in the identification of a problem is to make an
observation about the world around you.
• The scientific method is used when one does not know why/how
something is occurring and wants to uncover the answer, but before
one can even question an occurrence, they must notice something
puzzling in the first place.
Conti…
Asking a Question
• Next, one must ask a question based on their observations, such as:I
i. Why/how is this thing occurring?
ii. Why/how does it happen this way?
• Sometimes this step is listed first in the scientific method, with
making an observation (and researching the phenomena in question)
listed as second.
• In reality, both making observations and asking questions tend to
happen around the same time, as one can see a confusing occurrence
and immediately think, “why is it occurring?”
Conti…
• When observations are being made and questions are being formed,
it is important to do research to see if others have already answered
the question, or uncovered information that may help you shape
your question.
• For example, if you find an answer to why something is occurring, you
may want to go a step further and figure out how it occurs.
Clearly Stated Problem
Clearly stated problem:
i. Provides a clear framework of the study.

ii. Enables the investigator to focus his attention on relevant facts and
conclusions.

iii. Provides a basis to the guide or advisor for guidance and help.

iv. Provides a basis for evaluation of the proposed project.

Considerations in Identifying the Problem
i. Problem area
ii. Significant problem
iii. Facilities available
iv. Guidance facilities available
v. Necessary competency
vi. Time factor
vii. Availability of the data
viii. Risks and costs
ix. Possibility of the publication of the result
Meaning of Hypothesis

• A proposition to be put to test to determine its validity.

• A tentative suggestion or provisional guess.

• A tentative generalization the validity of which remains to be tested.

• A statement temporarily accepted as true.

• A guess as to the probable outcome.

• A statement whose tenability is to be tested.

Conti…
• A hypothesis is an educated guess to explain the phenomena
occurring based on prior observations.
• It is a tentative answer to the problem in hand
• It is a statement used to predict the outcome of an experiment.
Usually, a hypothesis is written in terms of cause and effect
• It answers the question posed in the previous step.
• Alternatively, it may describe the relationship between two
phenomena.
Conti…
• One type of hypothesis is the null hypothesis or the no-difference
hypothesis.
• This is an easy type of hypothesis to test because it assumes changing
a variable will have no effect on the outcome.
• In reality, you probably expect a change but rejecting a hypothesis
may be more useful than accepting one.
• The other type of hypothesis is “alternate hypothesis”.
• When a researcher rejects the null hypothesis then he accepts the
alternate hypothesis.
Conti…
• Hypotheses can be specific or more general depending on the
question being asked, but all hypotheses must be testable by
gathering evidence that can be measured.
• If a hypothesis is not testable, then it is impossible to perform an
experiment to determine whether the hypothesis is supported by
evidence or not.
Importance of the Hypothesis
• Gives help in deciding the direction in which to proceed.
• It helps in selecting pertinent fact.
• It helps in drawing conclusions.
• It focuses research on specific points.
• It links facts together.
• It presents blind research.
• It serves as a guiding light.
Collection of Data/Experimentation
• After forming a hypothesis, an experiment must be set up and
performed to test the hypothesis.
• An experiment must have an independent variable, which is
something that is manipulated by the person doing the experiment,
and a dependent variable, which is the thing being measured (and
which may be affected by the independent variable).
• All other variables must be controlled so that they do not affect the
outcome.
• During an experiment, data is collected.
• Data is a set of values; it may be quantitative (e.g. measured in
numbers) or qualitative (a description or yes/no answer).
Conti…
• For example, if you were to test
The effect of sunlight on plant growth
• Amount of light would be the independent variable (the thing you
manipulate) and the height of the plants would be the dependent
variable (the thing affected by the independent variable).
• Other factors such as air temperature, amount of water in the soil,
and species of plant would have to be kept the same between all of
the plants used in the experiment so that you could truly collect data
on whether sunlight affects plant growth.
• The data that you would collect would be quantitative, since you
would measure the height of the plant in numbers.
Analysis of Data
• After performing an experiment and collecting data, one must analyze
the data.
• Research experiments are usually analyzed with statistical software in
order to determine relationships among the data.
• In the case of a simpler experiment, one would look at the data and
see how they correlate with the change in the independent variable.
Findings and Conclusions
• The last step of the scientific method’
• If the data support the hypothesis, then the hypothesis may be the
explanation for the phenomena.
• However, multiple trials must be done to confirm the results, and it is
also important to make sure that the sample size—the number of
observations made—is big enough so that the data is not skewed by
just a few observations.
Conti…
• If the data do not support the hypothesis, then more observations
must be made, a new hypothesis is formed, and the scientific method
is used all over again.
• When a conclusion is drawn, the research can be presented to others
to inform them of the findings and receive input about the validity of
the conclusion drawn from the research.
Cyclic process
Some key underpinnings to the scientific
method:
• The hypothesis must be testable and falsifiable.
• Falsifiable means that there must be a possible negative answer to the
hypothesis.
• Research must involve deductive and inductive reasoning.
• Deductive reasoning is the process of using true premises to reach a logical
true conclusion while inductive reasoning takes the opposite approach.
• An experiment should include a dependent variable and an independent
variable.
• An experiment should include an experimental group and a control group.
• The control group is what the experimental group is compared against.