...The nature of educational research is analogous with the nature of research itself, which is systematic, reliable and valid to find the “truth”, investigates knowledge, and solves problems (William Wiersma, 1991). Moreover, educational research process involves steps to collect the information in order to investigate problems and knowledge. However, the educational research is more complex because it can use various approaches and strategies to solve problems in educational setting. It also can involve many disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, behaviour, and history. In addition, educational research is important because of contributing knowledge development, practical improvement, and policy information (John W.Creswell, 2005). Therefore, educators can use those research findings to improve their competences and teaching and learning process. Furthermore, the characteristics of educational research are a part of its nature. According to Gary Anderson (1998), there are ten characteristics of educational research. I tried to classify those into three categories, which are the purpose of research, the procedures of research, and the role of researcher. The purposes of research are to solve the problems, investigate knowledge, and establish the principles in educational phenomena. In short, it focuses on solving the problems and developing knowledge. Furthermore, procedure is an important characteristic of educational research, which involves colleting data with accurate...
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...CHAPTER 1: EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: ITS NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS THE NATURE OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH Educational Research: 1. is empirical 2. takes a variety of forms 3. should be valid 4. should be reliable 5. should be systematic Empirical - knowledge derived from research is based on data collected by the researcher The Systematic Process of Research 1. Identify the problem (and relevant related knowledge) 2. Review the information (via literature search) 3. Collect data (in an organized and controlled manner) 4. Analyze data (in a manner appropriate to the problem) 5. Draw conclusions (make generalizations based on results of analysis) The Validity of Educational Research Quantitative Research: Internal Validity - the extent to which research results can be accurately interpreted. External Validity - the extent to which research results can be generalized to populations and conditions. Internal validity is generally prerequisite to external validity. Qualitative Research: Truth Value/ Credibility - accurate representation of information from the researcher’s perspective and substantiating evidence) Comparability - the extent to which the characteristics of the research are described so that other researchers may use the results to extend knowledge. Translatability - the extent to which adequate theoretical constructs and research procedures are used so that other researchers can understand...
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...CHAPTER 1: EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: ITS NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS THE NATURE OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH Educational Research: 1. is empirical 2. takes a variety of forms 3. should be valid 4. should be reliable 5. should be systematic Empirical - knowledge derived from research is based on data collected by the researcher The Systematic Process of Research 1. Identify the problem (and relevant related knowledge) 2. Review the information (via literature search) 3. Collect data (in an organized and controlled manner) 4. Analyze data (in a manner appropriate to the problem) 5. Draw conclusions (make generalizations based on results of analysis) The Validity of Educational Research Quantitative Research: Internal Validity - the extent to which research results can be accurately interpreted. External Validity - the extent to which research results can be generalized to populations and conditions. Internal validity is generally prerequisite to external validity. Qualitative Research: Truth Value/ Credibility - accurate representation of information from the researcher’s perspective and substantiating evidence) Comparability - the extent to which the characteristics of the research are described so that other researchers may use the results to extend knowledge. Translatability - the extent to which adequate theoretical constructs and research procedures are used so that other researchers can understand the results. !...
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...CRITICAL EVALUATION OF A PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH PAPER The aim of this report is to critique the research paper entitled “Special Needs Characteristics of Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders That Affect Inclusion in Regular Education”, by Stoutjesdik, Scholte, & Swaab (2012). The aim of the research paper is to determine the special needs characteristics of children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) that predict the placement of these children in restrictive school settings. The researchers point out that children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) are often placed in the most restrictive educational settings, despite various countries’ aim to place all children in the least restrictive settings possible, based on the Salamanca Statement (1994). This is due to the fact that EBDs are considered the most challenging disabilities to be catered for in regular education settings. The researchers argue that there are differences in the characteristics between children with EBD that are educated in special education schools and those educated in inclusive education schools. It is argued that these differences play a significant role in the decision as to where a child with EBD is placed and the study seeks to answer two research questions: determination of the differences in characteristics between children with EBD placed in the two different settings, and determination of the the difference that contribute most to placement in restrictive education...
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...Dec 1st 2014 Nature vs Nurture The nature vs nurture debate has been a raging topic for decades now. It has caused much controversy in justifying human characteristics, especially concerning the defense of criminal behavior. Many people believe that our actions and conduct comes from the genes we possess, and that we are born with a higher likelihood to act in certain ways. Others believe that our behavior is a result of our childhood, and how we are brought up. Extensive research has been done on the nature vs nurture debate. Although both nature and nurture ultimately affect one’s behavioral characteristics, it seems nurture has a much greater impact. So, is our behavior affected by our heredity and genes, or by the environment we grow up in? What is nature? “Nature is your genes. The physical and personality traits determined by your genes stay the same irrespective of where you were born and raised” ("Nature vs Nurture." Diffen.com. Diffen LLC, n.d. Web. 3 Dec 2014). Taking in the consideration of I.Q., studies prove that genetics has a great effect. Adopted siblings have no more similar of an I.Q. than strangers, while blood related siblings have an I.Q. correlation of .6. Twins especially, having an I.Q. correlation of .86 (Nancy,L. Same-Age Unrelated Siblings: A Unique Test of Within-Family Environmental Influences on IQ Similarity. Journal of Educational Psychology. 1997 June; 89(2): 381-390.) DeNoto, 1 Nature vs Nurture The nature vs nurture...
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...SUBJECT AND TASKS OF PSYCHOLOGY IN HIGHER SCHOOL Psychology studies the individual and group mental phenomena of nature, the laws of development and the formation, role and place in the activities and behavior. Higher School of Psychology studies the mind and psychological features of activity of students, teachers and university leaders. The psyche of the individual includes mental processes, states and properties. Mental processes are divided into cognitive, emotional and volitional. Cognitive processes - sensation, perception, representation, memory, imagination, thinking and speech - it gives the opportunity to acquire knowledge and solve problems, to navigate the environment, explore the individual objects and the environment in general, to anticipate events. Emotional processes stain the whole inner life of man, are involved in the activation of his forces, "let know" about the compliance or non-compliance of what is happening needs and goals. Determined processes are expressed in the self-regulation, conscious, mobilizing and managing their behavior. This is most clearly manifested when they overcome difficulties and obstacles. Mental processes are included in the behavior and activities of people. There is not a problem that could be solved by them without manifestations of psychological processes. Mental conditions - it is a temporary state of mind in general (climbing, confidence, willingness, joy, doubt, depression, depression, etc...), That affect the level...
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...PARSING THE FIRST YEAR OF COLLEGE: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR STUDYING COLLEGE IMPACTS Patrick T. Terenzini Distinguished Professor and Senior Scientist Center for the Study of Higher Education 400 Rackley Building Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802-3203 Voice: (814) 865-9755 Fax: (814) 865-3638 E-mail: Terenzini@psu.edu and Robert D. Reason Assistant Professor and Research Associate Center for the Study of Higher Education Pennsylvania State University Voice: (814) 863-3766 Fax: (814) 865-3638 E-mail: Rreason@psu.edu Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, November 19, 2005, Philadelphia, PA. PARSING THE FIRST YEAR OF COLLEGE: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR STUDYING COLLEGE IMPACT Introduction For many college-bound students and their families, the first year of college is a make-orbreak period for learning, for decisions about continued college enrollment, and for discovering whether they made a good decision about which college to attend. Abundant evidence links students’ first-year academic performance to both persistence and degree completion (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005). In addition, about two-thirds (perhaps as much as 90 percent for cognitive skills) of the gains college students make in reading, math, science, the social sciences, and cognitive skill development will occur in the first two years (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Many students, however, are not in college long enough to realize those...
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...British Journal of Educational Technology doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00793.x Vol 39 No 5 2008 775–786 The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence Sue Bennett, Karl Maton and Lisa Kervin Sue Bennett is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong. Karl Maton is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney. Lisa Kervin is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong. Address for correspondence: Sue Bennett, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, Australia. Email: sue_bennett@uow.edu.au Abstract The idea that a new generation of students is entering the education system has excited recent attention among educators and education commentators. Termed ‘digital natives’ or the ‘Net generation’, these young people are said to have been immersed in technology all their lives, imbuing them with sophisticated technical skills and learning preferences for which traditional education is unprepared. Grand claims are being made about the nature of this generational change and about the urgent necessity for educational reform in response. A sense of impending crisis pervades this debate. However, the actual situation is far from clear. In this paper, the authors draw on the fields of education and sociology to analyse the digital natives debate. The paper presents and questions the main claims made about digital natives and analyses the nature of the debate itself...
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...SUMMARY * Abnormal psychology is the branch of psychology that studies unusual patterns of behavior, emotion and thought, which may or may not be understood as precipitating a mental disorder. * The field of abnormal psychology identifies multiple causes for different conditions, employing diverse theories from the general field of psychology and elsewhere, and much still hinges on what exactly is meant by "abnormal". * There has traditionally been a divide between psychological and biological explanations, reflecting a philosophical dualism in regards to the mind body problem. * There have also been different approaches in trying to classify mental disorders. * Abnormal includes three different categories, they are: * subnormal * supernormal * paranormal * The science of abnormal psychology studies two types of behaviors: * Adaptive behavior * Maladaptive behavior * Clinical psychology is the applied field of psychology that seeks to assess, understand and treat psychological conditions in clinical practice. * The theoretical field known as 'abnormal psychology' may form a backdrop to such work, but clinical psychologists in the current field are unlikely to use the term 'abnormal' in reference to their practice. * Psychopathology is a similar term to abnormal psychology but has more of an implication of an underlying pathology, and as such is a term more commonly used in the medical specialty...
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...Research Research is a systematic inquiry to describe, explain, predict and control the observed phenomenon. Research involves inductive and deductive methods (Babbie, 1998). Inductive methods analyze the observed phenomenon and identify the general principles, structures, or processes underlying the phenomenon observed; deductive methods verify the hypothesized principles through observations. The purposes are different: one is to develop explanations, and the other is to test the validity of the explanations. One thing that we have to pay attention to research is that the heart of the research is not on statistics, but the thinking behind the research. How we really want to find out, how we build arguments about ideas and concepts, and what evidence that we can support to persuade people to accept our arguments. Gall, Borg and Gall (1996) proposed four types of knowledge that research contributed to education as follows: 1. Description: Results of research can describe natural or social phenomenon, such as its form, structure, activity, change over time, relationship to other phenomena. The descriptive function of research relies on instrumentation for measurement and observations. The descriptive research results in our understanding of what happened. It sometimes produces statistical information about aspects of education. 2. Prediction: Prediction research is intended to predict a phenomenon that will occur at time Y from information at an earlier time X. In educational...
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...A review of the positivist and interpretive paradigms and discussion on how they are both related to the proposed study 'Chinese culture on learning and the use of meta-cognitive language-learning strategies at an institute of vocational education in Hong Kong'. By Manfred Wu "I certify that this work is entirely my own and has not been accepted as part of a submission to another degree course" _________________________ Word Length: 5,964 Abstract This paper begins with a review of the positivist and interpretive paradigms. After the description of a proposed study on Chinese values on learning and use of meta-cognitive language-learning strategies (MCLLS), how the study emerges from the two paradigms is discussed. Discussions show that the aims of the study of gathering descriptive data and exploring relationships between the two variables as well as the use of survey method are more pertained to the positivist paradigm as it shares features with the paradigm including a high degree of control over responses, use of statistics both for descriptive and for determining relationships and researchers being detached by adopting the role of an objective and passive informant. Other aims of generating insights on the two selected concepts, collecting information from respondents' frame of reference, focusing on the whole institutional setting and the use of semi-structured interview are more pertained to the interpretive paradigm. It is because...
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...DOMAINS AND DOMAIN LEARNING Knowledge Domains and Domain Learning Liliana Maggioni and Patricia A. Alexander University of Maryland In press Keywords: discipline, domain, learning, history, knowledge, mathematics, reading, science, writing. Abstract The roots of current disciplines and domains of study reach well back in history. An exploration of their development shows that these areas of knowledge have not only reflected cultural changes but have also influenced societies, especially through formal educational systems. Besides being characterized by their focus on a particular part of the world, disciplines are also distinguished by a specific way of thinking about their respective domains of study. Psychological research has identified several features of these pathways to knowledge (e.g., reading, writing, history, mathematics, and science) that generally define the landscape of academic practice. Although educational psychologists’ interest in how knowledge develops within specific domains has fluctuated across time, formal education throughout the world is organized around particular fields of studies and students soon come to characterize their experience of school in terms of subject matters. Thus, in education, domains seem to make a difference. The term knowledge domain refers to the part of the world investigated by a specific discipline. In other words, the domain can be characterized as the object (e.g., plants, numbers, or the past)...
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...n this paper, the nature of parental involvement in children’s education in the early years of school is investigated, as well as the relationship between parental involvement and children’s learning competence. The analyses use Wave 2 data from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) for children in the kindergarten cohort, who were recruited at age 4 into the study. At the time of the Wave 2 data collection in 2006, these children were in Year 1 and 2 at school. Research findings on parental involvement are first briefly reviewed, and then the analyses using the LSAC data are discussed. I Questions considered include: What expectations do parents have for their child’s education? How responsive do parents believe that schools and teachers are to their needs? What contact do parents have with their children’s school and teachers in the early years of school? Does parental involvement predict children’s learning competence? Engaging families in the education of their children at home and at school is increasingly viewed as an important means to support better learning outcomes for children. When schools and families work together, children have higher achievement in school and stay in school longer (Henderson & 34 Family Matters 2008 No. 79 Australian Institute of Family Studies Mapp, 2002; Jeynes, 2005; Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack, 2007; Reynolds & Clements, 2005). Although there has been considerable research on how parents influence...
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... | |I. Objectives: | | | |Define and explain the meaning of the related literatures and related studies. | |Enumerate and discuss the importance, purposes, and functions of Related Literature and Studies | |Enumerate and discuss the characteristics of Related Literature and Studies | |Enumerate and identify sources of Related Literature and Studies | | | |II. Direction | |...
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...EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: A DEFINITION AND KEY CONCEPTS It seems too simple to say that educational psychology is the psychology of learning and teaching, and yet a majority of educational psychologists spend their time studying ways to describe and improve learning and teaching. After reviewing the historical literature in educational psychology, Glover and Ronning (1987, p. 14) suggested that educational psychology includes topics that span human development, individual differences, measurement, learning, and motivation and is both a data-driven and a theory-driven discipline. Thus, our definition of educational psychology is the application of psychology and psychological methods to the study of development, learning, motivation, instruction, assessment, and related issues that influence the interaction of teaching and learning. This definition is broad because the potential applications of educational psychology to the learning process are immense! Today educational psychology is a vital discipline that is contributing to the education of teachers and learners. For example, Jerome Bruner, an enduring figure in educational psychology, recently noted the need to rethink our ideas of development, teaching, and learning and the interactions among them. Specifically, Bruner (1996) urged educators and psychologists to see children as thinkers, and stated: No less than the adult, the child is thought of as holding more or less coherent "theories" not only about the world but about...
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