"Educational Research" Some basic Concepts and Terminology

"Educational Research" Some basic Concepts and Terminology

What is Educational research?

Education research is the scientific field of study that examines education and learning processes and the human attributes, interactions, organizations, and institutions that shape educational outcomes. Scholarship in the field seeks to describe, understand, and explain how learning takes place throughout a person’s life and how formal and informal contexts of education affect all forms of learning. Education research embraces the full spectrum of rigorous methods appropriate to the questions being asked and also drives the development of new tools and methods. Education Research refers to the systematic collection and analysis of data related to the field of education. Research may involve various aspects of education including student learning, teaching methods, teacher training, and classroom dynamics.

Education research continues to remind us of the powerful impact teachers have on children. This impact is overwhelmingly positive—the studies we highlight here demonstrate specific ways in which teachers can or already do help students feel a sense of belonging in school and make gains in learning.

There are areas for improvement, though: Researchers have shown that different rates of suspensions and expulsions for black and white boys have more to do with adult perceptions of those kids than with their behaviour. New research also refined our understanding of many popular ideas, from learning styles to growth mindsets and the marshmallow test. But if there’s a common thread among most of these studies, it’s this: To boost student learning, focusing on academics isn’t enough. We should also think about how well students—and teachers—are supported.

Generates descriptions, and sometimes attempted explanations, of conditions, situations, and events that have occurred in the past. For example, a study that documents the evolution of teacher training programs since the turn of the century, with the aim of explaining the historical origins of the content and processes of current programs. provide information about conditions, situations, and events that occur in the present.

Involves the search for relationships between variables through the use of various measures of statistical association. For example, an investigation of the relationship between teachers’ satisfaction with their job and various factors describing the provision and quality of teacher housing, salaries, leave entitlements, and the availability of classroom supplies.

Causal research

Causal linkages between variables by observing existing phenomena and then searching back through available data in order to try to identify plausible causal relationships. For example, a study of factors related to student ‘drop-out’ from secondary school using data obtained from school records over the past decade.

Experimental research Is used in settings where variables defining one or more ‘causes’ can be manipulated in a systematic fashion in order to discern ‘effects’ on other variables. For example, an investigation of the effectiveness of two new textbooks using random assignment of teachers and students to three groups – two groups for each of the new textbooks, and one group as a ‘control’ group to use the existing textbook. Case study research generally refers to two distinct research approaches. The first consists of an in-depth study of a particular student, classroom, or school with the aim of producing a nuanced description of the pervading cultural setting that affects education, and an account of the interactions.