New Understanding of Quan and Qual Research

The family of variables

I really like the inquiry "What variables influence outcomes" (p.114) and the example "a fender bender car accident" (p.115) that Creswell presents to explain the definitions of dependent, independent, control, and confounding variables. It is easier to understand than those theoretical explanations and gives me a vivid picture of what the family of variables looks like.

In my understanding, the most important thing to consider when studying the relationship between variables (i.e. independent and dependent variables) is that the relationship does exist or has the high potential to be established, or your research is only a fiction.

Differences between quan and qual

The cause-and-effect logic in quantitative research is more like the thinking pattern in natural science; while the exploration of a central phenomenon from multiple aspects in qualitative research is more like what the social scientists usually do.

In quantitative research, the researcher imposes his/her own view in the research site (i.e., researchers choose certain variables to study) and aims to develop a consensus of opinion from all participants. And the audience of research learns from what the researcher seeks to know. In qualitative research, the researcher usually begins with a general idea to explore, then develops or emerges research questions according to the participants' view during the process of both data collection and data analysis.

Work consulted:

Creswell, J. W. (2012). Chapter 4 in Educational Research: Planning, Conducting and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. Pearson Education: Boston, MA.

How to identify a research problem?

The first series of questions I would like to ask myself when identifying a research problem are:

• What is the issue I want to address? Have an introduction of the issue that can capture readers' attention and readers can easily understand what you are trying to do. 
• Why is it necessary and important to address the issue? Justify the research problem using scholarly literature, workplace or personal experience.
• How will my study build upon and then expand the existing literature of the issue? It is useful to find deficiencies in the literature of the area you want to explore.
• Who will benefit from my study, and how? The ethics review also requires the applicants to indicate the benefits of your study to the researcher, participants, research community, and society at large. Preparing for the ethics review helps me rethink who is the potential audience of my study and what are the benefits for my audience.

As you design and conduct a study, make sure that you are clear about the distinctions among the research topic, research problem, purpose, and research questions. They look similar, but differences exist (see p.60). The differences reflect the development of designing a research, from choosing a general topic at the very beginning, to formulating specific research questions.

Work consulted:

Creswell, J. W. (2012). Chapter 2 in Educational Research: Planning, Conducting and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. Pearson Education: Boston, MA.  

The benefits of research

Researches add to the existing literature in two ways. One way is to provide information that has not been previously studied (i.e., addressing a gap in knowledge, formulating new understanding of a topic). The other way is to provide additional results to confirm or disconfirm results of prior studies (replicate past studies with new participants in a new research site). I think my MA research can add to the existing literature of clickers in both the two ways. My research objectives include replicating prior studies about the use of clickers for active learning in higher education to test results with new participants (in this case, student teachers), and exploring the possibilities of using clickers to support knowledge building to further the understanding of clickers.

The research community is a knowledge buildng community. Researchers put their individual thoughts (i.e. research findings) out into open space (i.e., peer-reviewed journals, conferences) to receive agreements, disagreements, etc. Therefore, a researcher's individual thoughts can influence or be influenced by others' thoughts in a collective way. Opportunities are then given to the researchers to collaboratively improve ideas or create new research questions based on the known findings.

Work consulted:

Creswell, J. W. (2012). Chapter 1 in Educational Research: Planning, Conducting and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. Pearson Education: Boston, MA.