EDUC-6653I-4 Introduction to Educational Research Week 2 Discussion

EDUC-6653I-4 Introduction to Educational Research Week 2 Discussion


Identifying a Research Problem

Reflect on an educational problem or issue that you would like to study more deeply. The issue can be related to something you have observed in your practice, something you have read about in the news or in an educational journal, or anything you feel is of importance to the educational community as a whole. The issue should be related specifically to your master's specialization at Walden. (For example, if you are in the elementary reading and literacy specialization, the problem should be related to some aspect of literacy. If you are in a mathematics specialization, the problem must relate to some aspect of teaching mathematics.)

Note: Because you will build on this assignment throughout this course, you should select a topic that interests you and is related to your master’s specialization.
For the Discussion, you will describe this issue and engage in a dialogue about it. To begin, think about how you would define the problem for your colleagues. How did you become interested in it? Why is it significant?
With these thoughts in mind:
By Wednesday:
Post a brief description of the issue or problem. Based on what you have learned about the research process thus far, explain your rationale for why the problem is amenable to research.

I am thinking of developing a research question to help convince our administration team the value of moving our school to a laptop school. I enjoy technology, and have a difficult time understanding why other people (teachers, administration, parents ) do not.

I work at a private school in South Korea teaching grade 6 math and science. We just purchased one class set of laptops for our 4 classes at our grade 6 level (plus another set we can beg off grade 7 and 8 if they are not using them). The networking infrastructure has just been upgraded to support all the wireless activity that would come from a laptop school. We are trying one class set of laptops out to see how frequently they are used to determine if we should get more. The research questions I am looking at are something like.

1) I plan to determine the effect laptop usage has on math achievement scores in middle school students.

or

2) I plan to determine if it is more beneficial to middle school student achievement if students own their own laptops which they bring to school daily to use, or if it is more beneficial for laptops to be supplied to students to use in the classroom.

Not sure about the wording on the second idea, or how to make it more managable, it is kind of big.

1. I think the questions are amenable to reseach, because I am passionate about it, something Dr. Canipe suggested in his video was important to developing a research question.
2. There is a variable that can be controlled
3. I think the questions are researchable
4. There is a focused population (middle school students), perhaps I should narrow it to international middle school students