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QUESTIONS Thate Éducational Rechearchers ASK:

The specifi c question chosen for research, of course, depends on the area that
interests the researchers, their background, and the particular problem they
confront.

THEORETICAL QUESTIONS:

Questions of a theoretical nature are those asking "What is it?" or "How does
it occur?"Research with a theoretical orientation may focus on either developing new
theories or testing existing theories.or "Why does it occur?" Educational researchers formulate "what"
questions more specifi cally as "What is intelligence?"or "How does personality develop?" or "Why are.
some children more achievement-oriented than other children?"
the relationship.Probably more common in quantitative educational research are studies that
aim to test already existing theories.Theories of learning have thus been developed because investigators have shown the relationships among
certain methods, individual and
environmental variables, and the effi ciency of the learning process.From the fi ndings, they may begin to formulate a theory about
the phenomenon.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS:

Many questions in educational research are direct and practical, aimed at solving specifi c problems that educators may encounter in everyday activities."What is the
relative effectiveness of the problem discussion method as compared with the
lecture method in teaching high school social studies?" or "What are the most
effective means of providing remediation to children who are falling behind?"The two types of questions differ primarily on the basis of the
goals they hope to achieve rather than on the study's level of sophisticationThese practical questions can be investigated just as scientifi cally as the theoretical problems.

BASIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH:

Another system of classifi cation concerns whether research is basic or applied.Its essential aim is to expand the frontiers
of knowledge without regard to practical application.Basic research is research aimed at obtaining empirical data used to formulate
and expand theory.Later, social scientists found
that the reinforcement theory resulting from that research had educational
applications.Much early psychological
investigation of reinforcement was basic research.Applied research aims to solve an immediate practical problem.Through applied research, educators can often solvetheir problems at the appropriate level of complexity--that is, in the classroom
teaching-learning situation.Researchers developing
general theories of learning, for example, often go into classrooms because to
understand how children learn investigators must consider variables such as
context and social structure that are not present in the artifi cial environments
of the laboratory.The trend has been for basic research to move more
toward classroom studies because the fi ndings of applied research may help basic researchers complete theoretical formulations.Research along this basic-
applied dimension is usually classifi ed on the degree to which the fi ndings are
directly applicable to solving a practical problem.This classifi cation of research is not always distinct, however, because there
are varying degrees on the basic-applied continuum.Likewise,
progress in educational practice is related to progress in discovering general
laws through basic psychological, educational, and sociological research

LANGUAGE OF RESEARCH:

Any scientifi c discipline needs a specifi c language for describing and summarizing observations in that area.Scientists need terms at the empirical level to
describe particular observations; they also need terms at the theoretical level for
referring to hypothetical processes that may not be subject to direct observation.Scientists may use words taken from everyday language, but they often ascribe
to them new and specifi c meanings not commonly found in ordinary usage.One of these terms is construct

CONSTRUCTS:

To summarize their observations and to provide explanations of behavior, scientists create constructs.They hypothesized that intelligence infl uences
learning and that individuals differ in the extent to which they possess this trait.Defi ning constructs is a major concern for researchers.
represent, the greater the possibility for misunderstanding and the greater the

Constitutive Definition:

A constitutive defi nition is a formal defi nition in which a term is defi ned by using
other terms.An operational defi nition serves
this purposeIt is the dictionary type of defi nition.

Operational Definition:

meaning to a construct by specifying operations that researchers must perform to measure or manipulate the construct.Scientists may deal on a theoretical level with such constructs as
learning, motivation, anxiety, or achievement, but before studying them empirically, scientists must specify observable events to represent those constructs and
the operations that will supply relevant data.Operational defi nitions may not be as rich as constitutive defi nitions but are
essential in research because investigators must collect data in terms of observable events.Operational defi nitions help the
researcher bridge the gap between the theoretical and the observable.Often, investigators choose from a variety of possible operational defi nitions those that best represent their own approach to the
problem.selected to represent the constructs. In practice, an investigation of the relation
between the construct creativity and the construct intelligence relates scores on
an intelligence test to scores on a measure of creativit

VARIABLES:

Researchers, especially quantitative researchers, fi nd it useful to think in terms
of variables.The researcher could use a standardized achievement test, a teacher-made test,
grades in science class, or evaluations of completed science projects.A variable is a construct or a characteristic that can take on different values or scores.

Types of Variables:

There are several ways to classify variables.When researchers classify subjects by sorting them into
mutually exclusive groups, the attribute on which they base the classifi cation
is termed a categorical variable.Independent variables are antecedent to dependent variables and are known or are hypothesized to infl uence the dépendent
variable, which is the outcome.Home language, county of residence, father's
principal occupation, and school in which enrolled are examples of categorical
variables.The simplest type of categorical variable has only two mutually exclusive classes and is called a dichotomous variable.Some categorical variables have more
than two classes; examples are educational level, religious affi liation, and state
of birthIn nonexperimental studies, it is often more diffi cult to label variables as independent or dependent.We call the variable that inevitably precedes another one
in time the independent variable.

CONSTANTS:

However, if you wish to determine the effect of testing procedures, classroom
grouping arrangements, or grading procedures on students’ motivation, then
motivation becomes the dependent variable. Intelligence is generally treated as
an independent variable because educators are interested in its effect on learning, the dependent variable. However, in studies investigating the effect of preschool experience on the intellectual development of children, intelligence is the
dependent variable

The opposite of variable is constant.Figure 2.3 illustrates a process for classifying variables and constants