Research and Statistics Courses

Graham Tall     research@grahamtall.com      February 2004  

Only the workshop is now being offered at the University of Birmingham.

M.Ed./M.A.         EDEM05
Educational Research Module.  This module introduced Master's students to:
            Research paradigms   (Scientific/Positivist/Quantitative & Socio-Anthropological/Interpretive/Qualitative)
            Research methods      (Questionnaire,  Interview,  Observation, Sociograms, Reading tests)
            Statistical Tests           (Samples and Populations, null hypothesis, significance, types of error etc.)
            Ethics

M.Phil./Ph.D./Ed.D.            Quantitative Workshops  and  Research Module 3
Quantitative Research Course and Workshops  
The underlying stance of the course is of  the need to analyse information as fully as possible.  The relevance of collecting quantitative information should always be considered - it is NOT only relevant for those using the Scientific/Positivist paradigm. Quantitative information is essential in qualitative analysis. At its lowest level, it is just as relevant to know the number of people approached and successfully interviewed as to know the percentage response rate of those given a questionnaire. The problem with essentially qualitative terms like ‘some’ and ‘many’ is that the words are intrinsically vague, and that vagueness can create inaccurate impressions that could be avoided by the general use of fractions (‘over half’, ‘two-thirds…’) or the specific use of percentages.

Simple statistics: mean, median, mode, standard deviation, semi-inter-quartile range & correlation.

The use of spreadsheets EXCEL & MSWORKS and the MSWORKS  database.

Structure and analysis of questionnaires.

Types of Interviews

Methods of Observation

Factor and cluster analyses.

The relevance and meaning of a range of parametric and statistical tests.

The use of SPSS.

Analysis of Qualitative Information (use of NVivo, NUDIST)

An underlying assumption of the course is that many of the students will have little experience of using a computer to analyse quantitative information and their knowledge of statistics will be limited to aspects such as:

1.    the ability to calculate the arithmetic mean and percentages.
2.    recognition of terms such as normal distribution, standard deviation and correlation, but with little
       understanding of what those terms actually mean.

Most of the students will :
a) be wary of using statistics.
b) be unfamiliar with the use of computers beyond their use as a word processor.
c) have never used a statistical package.
d) have minimal ability to create a computer spreadsheet.
e) have little, if any, ability to create and use a computer database.
f) have little understanding of interval, nominal and ordinal numbers.

Microsoft WORKS/EXCEL and SPSS  software are used in the module.

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