Discuss historical research covering the concept of primary sources, secondary sources internal and external criticism.

Course: Research Methods in Education

Course Code 8604    

Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment

 ANSWER

 

The Historical Research

Nevins  (1962) illustrates the use of hypotheses in the historical research of Edward Channing in answering the question, “Why did the Confederacy collapse in April 1865?”Chinning formulated four hypotheses and tested each one in light of evidence gathered from letters, diaries, and official records of the army and the government of the Confederacy. He hypothesized that the Confederacy collapsed because of

1.  The military defeat of the Confederate army

2.  The dearth of military supplies

3.  The starving condition of the Confederate soldiers and the civilians

4.  The disintegration of the will to continue the war

Channing produced evidence that seemed to refute the first three hypotheses. More than 200,000 well-equipped soldiers were under arms at the time of the surrender, the effective production of powder and arms provided sufficient military supplies to continue the war, and enough food was available to sustain fighting men and civilians.

Channing concluded that hypothesis 4, the disintegration of the will to continue the war was substantiated by the excessive number of desertions of enlisted men and officers. Confederate military officials testified that they had intercepted many letters from home urging the soldiers to desert.

Although the hypothesis sustained was not specific enough to be particularly helpful, the rejection of the first three did claim to dispose of some commonly held explanations. This example illustrates a historical study in which hypotheses were explicitly stated.

 

Primary Sources of Educational Data

Many of the old materials mentioned in the preceding section provide primary evidence that may be useful specifically in studying the history of education. A number are listed here. Official  Records and  Other  Documentary  Materials.  Included in this category are records and reports of legislative bodies and state departments of public instruction, city superintendents, principals, presidents, deans, department heads, educational committees, minutes of school boards and boards of trustees, surveys, charters, deeds, wills, professional and lay periodicals, school newspapers, annuals, bulletins, catalogs, courses of study, curriculum guides, athletic game records, programs (for graduation, dramatic, musical, and athletic events), licenses, certificates, textbooks, examinations, report cards, pictures, drawings, maps, letters, diaries, autobiographies, teacher and pupil personnel files, samples of student work, and recordings.

Oral  Testimony.  Included here are interviews with administrators, teachers, and other school employees, students and relatives, school patrons or lay dozens, and members of governing bodies. Relics.  Included in this category are buildings, furniture, teaching materials, equipment, murals, decorative pictures, textbooks, examinations, and samples of student work

 

Secondary Source of Data

Secondary sources are the reports of a person who relates the testimony of an actual witness of, or participant in, an event. The writer of the secondary source was not on the scene of the event but merely reported what the person who was there said or wrote.

Secondary sources of data are usually of limited worth for research purposes because of the errors that may result when information is passed on from one person to another most history textbooks and encyclopedias are examples of secondary sources for they are often several times removed from the original, firsthand account of events.

Some types of material may be secondary sources for some purposes and primary sources for others. For example, a high school textbook in American history is ordinarily a secondary source. But if one were making a study of the changing emphasis on nationalism in high school American history textbooks, the book would be a primary document or source of data.

 

External Criticism

External criticism establishes the authenticity or genuineness of data. Is the relic or document a true one rather than a forgery a counterfeit, or a hoax? Various tests of genuineness may be employed.

Establishing the age or authorship of documents may require intricate tests of signature, handwriting, script, type, spelling, language usage, documentation, knowledge available at the time, and consistency with what is known. It may involve physical and chemical tests of ink, paint, paper, parchment, cloth, stone, metals, or wood. Are these elements consistent with known facts about the person, the knowledge available, and the technology of the period in which they remain or the document originated?

Internal Criticism

After the authenticity of historical documents or relics has been established, there is still the problem of evaluating their accuracy or worth. Although they may be genuine, do they reveal a true picture? What of the writers or creators. Were they competent, honest, unbiased, and actually acquainted with the facts, or were they too antagonistic or too sympathetic to give a true picture? Did they have any motives for distorting the account? Were they subject to pressure, fear, or vanity? How long after the event did they make a record of their testimony, and were they able to remember accurately what happened? Were they in agreement with other competent witnesses? These questions are often difficult to answer, but the historian must be sure that the data are authentic and accurate. Only then may he or she introduce them as historical evidence, worthy of serious consideration.

The following examples describe ways in which evidence is tested for authenticity. The first is an example of historical criticism of a scholarly type, carried on by scientists and biblical scholars, in which historic documents were proven to be genuine.

Experimental Research Designs

 

Discus experimental research designs in detail

Course: Research Methods in Education

Course Code 8604    

Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment

 ANSWER

 

Experimental Research

J.W. Best (1992, P.110) describes experimental research as the description and analysis of what will be or what will occur, under carefully controlled conditions.

According to Carter V. Good, and Douglas E. Scates (1954, P.809), "Experimentation is the name given to the type of educational research in which the investigator controls the educative factors to which a child or group of children is subjected during the period of inquiry, and observes the resulting achievements."

S.P. Sukhia, P.V. Mehrotra, and R.N. Mehrotra (1991, P.227) describe the experimental method as the application and adaptation of the classical method of the science laboratory. It is the most exacting and difficult of all methods and also the most important from the strictly scientific point of view.

The essence of an experiment may be described as observing the effect on a dependent variable of the manipulation of an independent variable. However, experimentation in education is useful to determine and evaluate the adequacy and effectiveness of educational aims and objectives through the measurement of outcomes. It serves as the basis for the formulation, execution, and modification of educational policies and programs.

It is further used to ascertain the effects of any change in normal educational programs and practices.

An experiment calls for the satisfaction of three basic interrelated conditions i.e. Control, Randomization, and Replication.

1.  Control is the basic element in experimentation. The influence of extraneous factors that are not included in the hypothesis are prevented from operating and confusing the outcome which is to be appraised.

Three types of controls are exercised in an experiment. These include:

i)  Physical controls.

ii)  Selective controls.

iii)  Statistical controls.

2.  Randomization is a very difficult to exercise complete control, efforts are made to assign cases in the experimental and control groups randomly.

3.  Replication implies conducting several sub-experiments within the framework of an overall experimental design.

Experimentation in education is not a perfectly precise method. Many variables in education are extremely difficult or even impossible to control. The basic condition of other things being equal is difficult for fulfillment in educational research. All experiments in education are ultimately experiments with children who for ethical reasons must not be subjected to conditions that may harm them. There are boundaries of a moral character for experimentation that must not be infringed.

There are many areas in which experimental studies in education can approximate strictly empirical research. For example, the teaching of spelling through different methods and, the difference between the effect of the authoritarian and the democratic setup in education are problems that have been handled scientifically through the experimental approach.

The following are the major steps in experimental research.

1.  Planning the experiment.

2.  Conducting the experiment.

3.  Reporting the results.

Furthermore, the experimental designs are classified as Single Design, Parallel Design, and Rotational Method. The details of all such designs are discussed below:

1. Single Design.

This type of experiment is carried out by comparing the growth of a single individual or group under' two sets of conditions. The experimenter observes the performance of the individual or the group before and after the introduction of the experimental variable. Let us say the experimenter is interested in evaluating the reading speed of a group of sixth-class students as affected by training. He will adopt steps like testing the group, allowing for a period of transition, and testing the group again.

2.  Parallel or Equivalent Group Design. 

In this two or more groups of subjects equivalent in all significant aspects are selected. One of these groups serves as the 'control group' and the other as 'experimental group'.

3.  Rotation Group Experimentation. 

This method involves the rotation of 'instructional factors of the experimental and control groups Pt equal intervals. This method is used to obtain control of pupil factors when groups cannot be thoroughly equated. It also neutralizes the teacher variable. Of the three designs of educational experimentation, this is the most valid and at the same time most complicated.

Need and Scope of Education Research

 

What is the need and scope of education research?   

Course: Research Methods in Education

Course Code 8604    

Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment

 ANSWER

 Need of Research

The following points will justify the need for educational research.

1.  Rapid Expansion and Democratization of Education. 

The need for education research to improve educational policies and practices is being realized increasingly. Education research has assumed greater urgency because of the very rapid expansion and democratization of education throughout the world during the last decade.

2.  Technological Changes.

The rapid technological changes have brought an increase in educational problems and both laymen and educators have felt that they can no longer depend upon trial and error. No amount of experience gathered and no amount of wisdom collected in the form of casual observations, traditions, or recommendations of groups or individuals can ever promise rapid progress and improvement as is needed all over the world.  Therefore, educationists are constantly searching for effective methods of instruction, more satisfactory techniques of evaluation, richer learning materials, more efficient systems of administration, and better human relations. Just as the sociologists, the anthropologists, and economists are carrying on research, so is the case with the educationists.

3.  New Demands on Education. 

With educational research, it may not be possible to develop new curricula, new teaching methods, and new teaching materials to meet the new demands placed on the educational systems of the world. Robert M.W. Travers in 'An Introduction to Educational Research' has. stated that educational research forms an indispensable basis for any  “national organization of education, especially  as regards curricula, syllabuses, and methods as well as for financing education, for its planning, and for the building of schools.”

4.  Interdisciplinary Approach to  Education. 

Education is a growing science and its foundations are to be explored for a study of the subject as an interdisciplinary approach. It is, therefore, almost imperative to study education in its proper perspective. Philosophy is the cornerstone of the foundation of education and psychology provides the bricks and mortar for laying the foundation of education on a scientific basis. Educational research is thus an indispensable development for its growth. Thus we can hardly afford to think of education in isolation today.

5.  Knowledge Explosion and the  Need for Educational Research. 

The world has witnessed an unprecedented explosion of knowledge. Since education depends on a corpus of knowledge, the need for research arises to study the changes in various disciplines and to make necessary adjustments in educational philosophy, programs, and policies. The means, methods, and machinery of education need to change in the light of a progressive social milieu, and changing economic, political, and social set-up.

6.  Education and Productivity. 

Education and productivity are positively

correlated and education needs planning according to manpower needs which in turn is based on research.

7.  Scarce  Resources and Optimum Development. 

It is through research only that we come to know how best to utilize the available resources for achieving the best results.

8.  Spirit of Research is Needed Everywhere. 

A spirit of inquiry adds to the competence and scholarship of the researcher.

9.  Research is Needed to Keep out of Fixed track. 

Research enables an individual to change his conservative outlook. It keeps us out of fixed track by making us mentally alive.

 

Scope of Research in Education

The importance of educational research in national development is now being increasingly realized all over the world. This is apparent from the educational progress in developing countries, particularly from the fact that education has become more and more effective, dynamic, and purposeful in countries where research has flourished. It is based on research that the function of education has been broadened. Educational research has a great bearing on the role of education in introducing social and economic charges.

Six Major Possibilities of the Utilization of Research Towards National Development

Six major possibilities for the utilization of research toward national development can be identified. They are:

1.  Educational research throws up valuable background data from which the planner can make his own assessment of the prevailing situation, especially of the magnitude, complexity, and ramifications of the problem he has to handle.

2.  Carefully designed analytic studies can illuminate critical areas of policy. The overt and covert dimensions of a given problem emerging in such studies provide the planner with a measure of foresight to deal with them effectively and efficiently.

3.  These studies open up the possibility of testing the validity of the assumptions that must, of necessity, be made by the planner in setting his proximate and ultimate objectives.

4.  They enable the planner to estimate the possible consequences and cost of the different choices available to them in determining the path for the attainment of their goals.

5.  Diagnostic studies suggest where and why particular projects gearing.  Their unattended consequences are also brought to light.

6.  Wide dissemination of educational research findings increases general awareness concerning the situation to be met as well as the policy designed for this purpose. This may enhance the credibility of particular policies and prepare the people for them. It may also help towards building up popular pressures for the reformulation of particular policies or for weeding them out altogether.

Concept of Research in Education

 

Explain the concept of research in Education. 

Course: Research Methods in Education

Course Code 8604    

Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment

 ANSWER

Concept of Research in Education:

According  to J.W. Best (1992), research is an  “intellectual activity which brings to light new knowledge or corrects previous error-and misconceptions and adds in an orderly way to the existing corpus of knowledge.”

The terms 'research and scientific method' are often used synonymously and 'research is considered to be more formal' systematic intensive process of carrying on the scientific method of analysis. There are seven elements of the scientific process namely:

i.  Purposeful Observation;

ii.  Analysis – Synthesis;

iii.  Selective Recall;

iv.  Hypothesis;

v.  Verification by Inference and Experimentation;

vi.  Reasoning by:

(a) Method of Agreement,

 (b) Method of Disagreement,

(c) Method

of Concomitant Variation, 

(d)  Method of Residues, and

(e) Joint Method of

Agreement and Disagreement;

vii.  Judgment.

It might be helpful to highlight some of the accepted connotations of research. These include:

1.  Research is simply a systematic and refined technique of thinking, employing specialized tools, instruments, and procedures to obtain a more adequate solution to a problem than would be possible under ordinary means. It starts with a problem that would be possible facts, analyses these critically, and reaches decisions based on the actual evidence. It evolves original work instead of a mere exercise of personal opinion. It evolves from a genuine desire to know rather than a

desire to prove something. It is quantitative, seeking to know not only 'what' but 'how much', and measurement is therefore, a central feature of it.

2.  Research 'per se' constitutes a method for the discovery of truth which is really a method of critical thinking. It comprises defining and redefining problems;

formulating a hypothesis or suggested solution; collecting, organizing, and evaluating data; making deductions and reaching conclusions; and at last, carefully testing the conclusions to determine whether they fit the formulating hypothesis.

3.  The systematic and scholarly application of the scientific method, interpreted in its broader sense, to the solution of educational problems; conversely, any systematic study designed to promote the development of education as a science can be considered educational research. Best (1992) thinks,  “Research is considered to be the more formal, systematic, intensive process of carrying on the scientific method of analysis. It involves a more systematic structure of investigation, usually resulting in some sort of formal record of procedures and a report of result or conclusions.”

4.  Moreover, research is a point of view, an attitude of inquiry, or a frame of mind. It asks questions that have not been asked, and it seeks to answer them by following a fairly definite procedure, is not a mere theorizing, rather it is an attempt to elicit facts and to face them once they have assembled.

5.  Research is also called a kind of human behavior. However, one general definition of research would be that which refers to the 'activity' of collecting information in an orderly and systematic fashion. Research is literally speaking a kind of human behavior, and 'activity' in which people engage. In education, teachers, administrators, scholars, or others engage in educational research when they systematically assemble information about schools, school children, the social matrix in which a school system is determined, the characteristics of the learner, or the interaction between the school and pupils.

6.  Educational research is normally considered as scientific research. Educational research is meant here 4ie the whole of the efforts carried out by public or private bodies to improve educational methods and educational activity in general whether involving scientific research and a. high level or more modest experiments concerning the school system and educational methods.

7.  The Webster's International Dictionary proposes a very inclusive definition of research as  “careful inquiry or examination in seeking facts or 'principles; diligent investigation to ascertain something.”

8.  D. Slesinger and M.  Stephenson in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences define research as  “The manipulation of things, concepts or symbols to generalize to extend, correct or verify knowledge, whether the knowledge aids in the construction of theory or in the practice of an art.”

9.  While discussing the nature and significance of educational research some scholars say,  “Educational research is that activity which is directed towards the development of the science of behavior in educational situations. The ultimate aim of such a science is to provide knowledge that will permit the educator to achieve his goals by the most effective methods”.

10.  Some scholars considered research as a process of developing process. According to them  “Research may be defined as a method of studying problems whose solutions are to be derived partly or wholly from facts. The facts dealt with in research may be statements of opinion, historical facts, those contained in records and reports, the results of tests, answers to questions, experimental data of any sort, and so forth. The final purpose of educational research is to ascertain principles and develop procedures for use in the field of education; therefore, it should conclude by formulating principles or procedures. The mere collection and tabulation of facts is not research, though it may be preliminary to it on even a part of thereof”.