Educational Research

I have some ideas of my thesis research, but I did not decide a specific topic. My initial idea is the side effect of using mobile devices in classroom, I have researched about this topic but I didn’t find any paper. So, I asked some of my classmates who are teachers, and they told me that there is some issues of using mobile devices in classes such as assign to facebook, messenger. The purpose of this topic is to identify the problems that may face teachers in classes in order to find solutions. However, I’m reading “Educational Research Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative, and Qualitative Research”, and I’ve learned a lot from this book such as the different kind of research (quantitative, qualitative and mixed research). Also, the similarities and differences between these methods of research have been explained in chapter one in this book. Summary information that I learned is mentioned below.

First, the definition of Research is: a process of steps used collect and analyze information to increase our understanding of a topic or issue.

The Six Steps in The Process of Research:

1- Identify a research problem

2- Review the literature

3- Specify the purpose of the research

4- Collect data

5- Analyze data

6- Report research.

These steps are the basic of any research.

Second, The Similarities and Differences Between Quantitative and Qualitative Research:

Quantitative: The researcher identifies a research problem based on trends or the need to explain why something occurs.

The literature in qualitative plays a major role in tow ways: justifying the need of the research problem and suggesting potential purpose and research questions for the study.

Data collecting in quantitative use more closed-ended approaches (strongly agree, agree…).

Gathering data: in this kind of research relies on statistical analysis (numbers).

Qualitative: The researcher identifies a research problem in which we don’t know and need to explore. I think the side effect of using mobile devices in a classroom requires qualitative method.

The literature justifies the need to study the research problem. But the literature doesn’t provide major direction for the research questions.

Data collecting in qualitative use more open-ended approaches (what do you think about….).

Gathering data: in qualitative statistics are not used to analyze data, words or images analyze which is used in this type of research.

These are the main ideas to distinguish between different type of research.