General Studies in Instructional Systems

In this article, I would like to look at trends in educational research.
Much of the research in the fields of education and psychology has adopted a scientific approach.
We are using the scientific method to try to get real answers to research questions.
New methods, theories and approaches to research and data analysis are being developed and practiced on a daily basis.

To what end do we do research?

It's because we have questions and we want to know the answers to them. We want to know the truth.
When we do research on education, we are dealing with a situation where there is a complex interplay of people, society, culture, and many other factors. It is very difficult to know the truth in these situations.
For example, how can you prove that Method A is better than Method B?
That's easy. Why don't you use Method A in one pair and use Method B in two pairs and compare the scores on the last test? The answer is likely to be something like...

Are you sure this is a good idea?

What is the population and what sampling technique will be used? Who are the subjects? Do the subjects reflect the characteristics of the population? Are the subjects evenly grouped when divided into groups? Which design of research methods will be employed? Who will conduct the experiment; if there are two or more groups, will they be taught by the same teacher? Will the classrooms be similar in location? What about the time of day to conduct the experiment? How will the data be collected? What about the reliability and validity of the tests? There are many things to consider when planning your research, such as how you will score the tests.

Conducting research on a population of research interests, whether conducted by individuals or small groups, or even on a large scale, can be a real challenge. For example, if we say "in higher education", the population should be all university students in the world, but conducting such a study would be enormously too costly and nearly impossible. However, such a survey would cost too much and would be nearly impossible to conduct. Therefore, we have to choose and decide on the best method under various constraints to conduct our research. Our research is only one point in a larger research stream. Other researchers conduct different studies on the same research topic and place the results as another point. The dots are joined together to form a line, and as more and more research is placed as dots, like a plane, the truth gradually emerges.

The need to take a scientific approach to research and take into account a variety of matters is to avoid placing points in the wrong places. We derive incorrect results from incorrect methods and place the wrong points against our research topic. This can cause confusion and delay in knowing the truth.

It is important to be aware of how to increase the internal and external validity of the research itself. It is also important to consider the limitations and constraints (limitation) of the study itself and the limits (delimitation) that have been set. The extent to which the results of the research can be generalized and why the results are the way they are is often related to the limitations and delimitations of the research itself.

Research methods and statistics are tools that can be utilized to find out the truth. If you have a lot of tools, the combination of them can help you to investigate many things.

So, let's read the issue paper and see what issues are being investigated with what tools, what trends in educational research, and since this is a 2005 paper, some of the methods that have emerged since then, and once we know what's been going on up to 2005, then we can read the references and see what research methods and Find out what methods have been developed to analyze your data. Then, go back to the research questions you want to solve and rethink what methods are best for you.

• Hsu, T. (2005). Research methods and data analysis procedures used by educational researchers. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 28(2), 109-133.
  （This paper has been mailed.）

1. Frankel, J. R., & Wallen, N. E. (2008). How to design and evaluate research in education. NY: McGraw-Hill. Higher Education
2. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (2009). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
3. Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C., Razavieh, A., & Sorensen, C. K. (2009). Introduction to Research in Education. Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
4. John W.Creswell(2003).Research Design Qualitative, Quantiative, and Mixed Methods Approaches Second Edition: Sage Publications.