Research Methods: 9 Credits

Overview
Already armed with a Ph.D. and using research actively in my current employment, I was able to customize the Research Methods requirements and focus on advanced topics in research. Each of the research courses stimulated me to re-examine some of the old habits I've acquired over the years and explore opportunities to try new tools and techniques.

EDRS 810: Problems and Methods in Education Research
As someone who works with research every day, I saw this introductory course as an opportunity to get up to speed on current trends in education research in an academic setting, particularly since it had been some two decades since I was engaged in academic research. As Dr. Maxwell probed us to explore our preconceived notions about what constitutes sound research practice, I freely admitted to my own preference – fine, bias – for quantitative methods. In the business world, I had been accustomed to using qualitative research either as a precursor to a larger quantitative study or as a quick and dirty “sanity check” prior to undertaking a particular course of action in the marketplace. Hard data (i.e., numbers) have more credibility than anecdotes and stories, particularly when the two point you in different directions. Like most old dogs, it was going to be tough to teach me new tricks, I thought.

As we moved through the various assignments, fleshing out my own conceptual framework, examining articles about research conducted using qualitative methods and research using quantitative methods, I found my curiosity about qualitative research increasing. Just as an understanding of a learner’s emotional motivators can contribute to improving instructional strategies, an understanding of purchaser emotional motivators can contribute to improving vendor selling strategies. When my employer began considering offering education and training courses on our software products via distance learning, I was able to connect the research opportunity associated with this potential offering to the requirements of this course by developing a proposal for a qualitative research study about my company’s clients as distance learners. The prospectus for that study has been included in this portfolio as an example of how I was able to transfer my newly acquired knowledge and appreciation of qualitative research in an educational setting to an authentic research problem in a corporate setting. Top

EDRS 821: Advanced Applications of Quantitative Research Methods
There's nothing like an advanced course to make you realize how much you don't know, particularly when the course is taught by a mathematician rather than a social scientist. Kudos to Dr. Dimitrov for his patience with those of us whose math skills are rusty (where they exist at all) and were challenged to understand the mathematical symbols and proofs that are the foundation of the research methods like Analysis of Variance and Correlation with which we thought we were so familiar. Nevertheless, the course provided just the refresher I needed to complete an actual research project I was conducting for the University of Phoenix Online Campus. Using dummy data, I constructed a study on the affectiveness of a Problem-based Learning (PBL) software application I developed and used the lessons learn from this research prototype to refine the actual research project. Top

EDRS 822: Advanced Applications of Qualitative Research Methods
This seminar course, led by Dr. Evelyn Jacobs, provided me with the freedom to explore those topics that I deemed to be of relevance to me. Using a modular format, the seminar covered qualitative research designs and data analysis techniques. I learned very quickly that there is more to qualitative data analysis then finding common themes among participant verbatim responses. Analyzing how things are said - whether by using category analysis, narrative analysis, linking, or displays - allows the researcher to better understand how research participants organize their thoughts, draw upon their own conceptual framework, and make meaning of the topic under study. Drawing on the theories and techniques of Wolcott, Labov, Riessman, and other scholars of qualitative analyses, I was able to try my hand at a variety of qualitative writing approaches as we prepared individual "memos" on each of the methods covered. It was a particularly enjoyable experience because it allowed me to work with language in ways I normally have little opportunity to do. Importantly, I learned that the qualitative researcher has a choice of approaches, to be employed when he/she feels that an approach best represents the central ideas uncovered and also maps well to the intended audience. I have included an excerpt from the memo Qualitative Writing Approaches to Business Focus Group Data in this portfolio as an example of how I was able to exercise that freedom of choice and evaluate the outcomes of those choices against my business audience. All in all, this seminar was as beneficial as it was enjoyable. Top