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Abstract
Books and courses on research methods, statistics, or both, often necessarily focus on one topic at a time. This compartmentalized approach prevents students from seeing the big picture. To address this shortcoming, I developed an exercise through which students experience the whole research process in a single class period. From posing a question, through devising a method, collecting and analyzing data, to writing the report, students conduct all aspects of a basic research project. After the experience, students reported a significant increase in their understanding of the research process. In addition, students recommended using the exercise in future classes and at other universities. I end by discussing various ways that the exercise can be adapted to other class situations and content areas.
Books and courses on research methods, statistics, or both, often necessarily focus on one topic at a time. This compartmentalized approach prevents students from seeing the big picture. To address this shortcoming, I developed an exercise through which students experience the whole research process in a single class period. From posing a question, through devising a method, collecting and analyzing data, to writing the report, students conduct all aspects of a basic research project. After the experience, students reported a significant increase in their understanding of the research process. In addition, students recommended using the exercise in future classes and at other universities. I end by discussing various ways that the exercise can be adapted to other class situations and content areas.
The chapters in most texts, whether books on research methods, statistics, or both, focus on one topic at a time. A typical introductory research methods book has chapters on descriptive methods, experimental methods, ethics and single case and quasiexperimental designs (Shaughnessy, Zechmeister, & Zechmeister, 1999). A typical introductory statistics text covers such topics as central tendencies, variability, z scores, probability, sampling distributions and hypothesis testing, and various parametric and nonparametric statistics (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2004). Introductory statistics texts seldom show how a statistic is prescribed by the methods chosen, and introductory methods books rarely show how methods limit the statistics used. Although combined research methods and statistics books do some integration of methods and statistics topics, such books are typically divided into large methods and statistics sections (e.g., Heiman, 2001).
The compartmentalized approach is maintained as teachers’ curricula often mirror that of the textbooks they use. Indeed, one could argue that the novelty and the difficulty of methods and statistics concepts require addressing the topics one by one. Add students’ anxiety about statistics and methods to the newness of the topics (Onwuegbuzie, 2004), and this segmented approach seems logical, if not necessary.
Journals for full download on the link below
The compartmentalized approach is maintained as teachers’ curricula often mirror that of the textbooks they use. Indeed, one could argue that the novelty and the difficulty of methods and statistics concepts require addressing the topics one by one. Add students’ anxiety about statistics and methods to the newness of the topics (Onwuegbuzie, 2004), and this segmented approach seems logical, if not necessary.
Journals for full download on the link below
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