EDU 508 : Research Methods in Educational Settings

EDU 508 is a first-year graduate-level survey of quantitative and mixed (qualitative and quantitative) research methods commonly found in educational studies. The general content base of this course is twofold: 1) research planning and design and 2) data analysis and reporting. Through reading published empirical research, as well as class activities and discussion, students will recognize the theoretical, practical, and sociocultural constraints on all parts of educational research, from questions and design to analysis and interpretation. Students gain an understanding of common and differentiating features of typical research designs; ethical, legal, practical, and cross-cultural considerations in research studies in education; planning and integration techniques for mixed methods analysis; descriptive statistics and basic inferential statistics, including measures of central tendency, dispersion, correlations, and group comparisons; the role of validity, reliability, and fairness in design and measurement; and quality indicators in published research.