| Learning from Journal Articles Experience reveals that the study of research methods in education is greatly enhanced by reading published research. The textbook itself provides many examples of important concepts applied to research studies. Yet graduate-level study of research methods involve reading and analyzing actual reports of research. The learning resource contained in this file serves that purpose. The following matrix complements the textbook by providing access to 18 published research reports. The reports were selected for the purpose of providing students with practice in reading and analyzing research using a structure closely tied to the textbook. The reports have been cross-tabulated with 26 questions linked to the chapters in the textbook. Chapter topics form one axis of the matrix, research reports form the other axis, and the numbers of the questions to follow are contained within the body of the matrix. This organization assures that the article is well matched to the research topic and specific question. Each of the 26 questions represents core knowledge and together the questions define the major content coverage in the textbook. Reading and understanding published educational research is often the major goal of an introductory course in research methods. The linking of published research reports, thought-provoking questions, and key ideas contained within the textbook is designed to enable students to reach this goal. |
Links to the home pages for each journal are provided below:
| First Author | Year | Topic | Chapter(s) |
||||||||||
| 1&2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10, 11, 12 | 12, 13 | 14 | |||
| Ridley article |
2005 | Teacher Preparation |
1, 3 | 7, 9 | 10, 12, 13 |
14 | 16, 17 |
18 | 25 | ||||
| Warburton article |
2005 | Teacher Beliefs |
4 | 8 | 18, 19 |
20, 21 |
|||||||
| Oreck article |
2004 | Teacher Attitudes |
7 | 12 | 18, 19 |
20 | |||||||
| Sachs article |
2004 | Teacher Effectiveness |
1 | 4 | 12, 13 | 20, 21 |
23 | ||||||
| Smith article |
2004 | Teacher Expertise |
5 | 8, 9 | 12 | 20, 21 |
24 | 26 | |||||
| Kim article |
2004 | Teacher Preparation |
1, 2 | 4 | 13 | 15 | 18 | 20 | 23 | 25 | |||
| Cooper article |
2003 | Teacher Effectiveness |
5 | 7, 8 | 15 | 19 | 24 | ||||||
| Kunzman article |
2003 | Teacher Education |
1 | 4 | 19 | 24 | |||||||
| Lazerson article |
2005 | Detention | 2. 3 | 6 | 10, 11 | 16 | 18, 19 | 22 | |||||
| Gendron article |
2004 | Behavior Disorder |
10 | 23 | 25 | ||||||||
| Chen article |
2004 | Social Skills |
4 | 9 | 10 | 18 | 20 | 22 | |||||
| Desbiens article |
2003 | Behavior Problems |
4 | 6, 8, 9 |
11 | 17 | 22 | 25 | |||||
| McDonald article |
2003 | Exclusion | 2 | 4 | 7 | 24 | 26 | ||||||
| Sharp article |
2003 | Early Intervention |
5 | 7 | 20 | 25 | |||||||
| Jones article |
2005 | Career Preparation |
4 | 18 | 20 | 23 | 25 | ||||||
| Cornelius- White article |
2004 | Personality | 4 | 6 | 10 | 19 | 25 | ||||||
| Ceja article |
2004 | Resiliency | 4 | 12 | 14, 15 | 14, 15 |
23, 24 |
||||||
| Saracho article |
2003 | Literacy | 5 | 7 | 24 | ||||||||
| Article Review Questions The questions below are designed to guide your reading. The question numbers correspond to the numbers in the matrix above. 1. Can you identify examples of critical thinking in the research report? (Chapter 1) top 2. Other researchers answering the same research question posed in this study could easily arrive at a different answer. What methodological details of this study, if changed, might explain differences among findings? (Chapter 1) top 3. What "powerful ideas" described in Chapter 2 were apparent in the research report? (Chapter 2) top 4. Select one or more of the eight research perspectives well illustrated by this research, then describe where the research “fits” on one or dimensions from this perspective (e.g., quantitative versus qualitative). (Chapter 3) top 5. Did the authors describe their research approach using any of the variations described in Chapter 5? If so, which ones? What distinguishing feature permitted the use of that description? (Chapter 3) top 6. What specific aspect of this research convinces you that it conforms to legal and ethical guidelines? (Chapter 4) top 7. How would you evaluate the meaningfulness of the research question or hypothesis? (Chapter 4) top 8. Most generally, what resources were used to embed the purpose of research into a larger context (the literature review)? (Chapter 4) top 9. Generally, what types of data and measures were used in this research to answer the research question or test the research hypothesis? (Chapter 4) top 10. What major constructs were investigated in this research? How were they operationally defined? (Chapter 5) top 11. Can you identify different types of variables used in this research, namely independent, dependent, attribute, or extraneous? If there was an independent variable, was it true independent or quasi-independent? (Chapter 5) top 12. What major research question or research hypothesis was addressed in this research? (Chapter 5) top 13. Did these researchers attend to an alternative hypothesis? (Chapter 5) top 14. Is this research best described as theory-based, problem-based, or practical research? If it is theory based, what theory or theories guided the research? If it is problem based, does this research appear to be evaluation research, action research, or some other type of research? Would you classify it as practical? (Chapter 6) top 15. Can you describe the research in terms of an integrated process? (Chapter 6) top 16. Were these researchers concerned about sources of bias and threats to internal validity? If so, which ones? (Chapter 7) top 17. What control techniques were used by these researchers and for what purpose? (Chapter 7) top 18. How would you describe the researchers' sampling design? Was the sample size adequate, given statistical formulas or rule of thumb? (Chapter 8) top 19. How would you evaluate the external validity (including both population and ecological generalization) of this reported research? (Chapter 8) top 20. Did these researchers present information on the reliability of their measures? If so, what type of reliability was presented and how would you evaluate it? (Chapter 9) top 21. Did these researchers present information on the validity of their measures? If so, what type of validity was presented and how would you evaluate it? (Chapter 9) top 22. What type of experimental design was used in this research? What features define this type of design? (Chapter 10) top 23. What type of nonexperimental design was used in this research? What features define this type of design? (Chapter 11) top 24. What type of qualitative research design was used in this study? What strategies of qualitative data analyses were used? (Chapter 12) top 25. What statistical tests were used by these researchers? What information did these tests provide? (Chapter 13) top 26. If you wrote a critique of this reported research, what aspects of the study would be the focus of your section on strengths? What aspects of the study would be the focus of your section on weaknesses? (Chapter 14) top |
