Educational Research Methods
A site to support teaching and learning...
Cyclic nature of research
Research activity can be understood as being cycles of activity.
In many areas of research, individual studies fit within research programmes, and each study has research questions motivated by the outcomes of previous research, and raises questions, hypotheses or areas of investigation for subsequent research.
Two of the common methodologies used in educational and social science research have cycles of activity built into the approach.
Action research has cycles of intervention, with the evaluation of each intervention informing the next.
Grounded theory uses theoretical sampling as part of an emergent design, so that the ongoing collection and analysis of data informs decisions about further data collection.
This is a personal site of Keith S. Taber to support teaching of educational research methods.
(Dr Keith Taber is Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.)
2015
