Welcome to EDF 5481-02 in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems!  On this site will be topics, readings, and dates for course assignmentsfor EDF 5481 section 2 for Fall 2017. Watch this website develop over the semester for more information.  Need still more information? Contact me via email: slosh@fsu.edu

PLEASE INFORM ME IMMEDIATELY IF YOU REQUIRE ANY ASSISTANCE WITH DISABILITIES!
 

MY OFFICE: 3204 Stone Building  850-644-8778    email is the fastest way to reach me slosh@fsu.edu

OFFICE HOURS: 1:30-3:30 P.M. Thursday & by Appointment (please see me about other days or times)

CRESWELL:   Creswell, J.W. (2015). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (5th edition). Boston: Pearson Education.
Creswell is a solid basic textbook for introductory research methods. GET THIS EDITION.

APA:  American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

the Publication Manual is one of those "bite the bullet" purchases. If you write a thesis or dissertation, submit a conference proposal--or write a paper for many courses, the situation will demand your use of "APA format". These situations will recur frequently. BE CERTAIN TO GET THE MOST RECENT EDITION: THE 6TH. Avoid economizing here by using an earlier edition!

Check for both texts at online sources such as Amazon; used copies may be available (be sure to buy the editions above).
Barnes and Noble now also handles textbooks and they constantly run "specials".

COURSE GUIDES (LECTURES) will be placed on the Internet on the myweb.fsu.edu server and linked in with each course topic.
Course Guides are also available in Blackboard under the COURSE DOCUMENTS folder.
These are required readings.

My overarching goal is to have you become conversant with major ideas, influences and vocabulary in research methods, especially those commonly used in behavioral and social research. These will enable you not only to communicate with others in your immediate discipline but also with practitioners in the behavioral and social sciences more generally.

I've created my required reading guides to serve as "lectures," basic orientations to the material we cover in each section. I also include some issues and controversies when I would like more coverage than I find in the course texts or when new research (e.g., analyzing "tweets" versus systematic surveys) is released. Reading the guides does not substitute for class attendance; they are to familiarize you with the material so that we can use class time for discussion, demonstrations, videos , and team-based learning.

To make things easier in tackling the material: I strongly recommend that you first read the associated and linked online guide for each of our major topics. Then read the assigned text chapters. In many cases, you will have a team-based/individual quiz on that topic and these summaries will give you a good idea of what will also be emphasized in our readings. In other cases, you will have an in-class team based project for a course unit.

Below is information about  assignments, due dates, and course weights. There will be five quizzes, each to be taken individually and by team. While each quiz will focus on the immediately prior material, please be advised that much of the methods material is cumulative in nature. In addition, if a concept or concepts appeared to give considerable trouble in one quiz, I might have at least one question addressing that concept on the following quiz. Quizzes will be a mix of short answer, short essay and have a strong problem-solving/evaluation orientation.

The first quiz is a practice quiz. I will only count the top three quizzes (for quizzes 2-5).

There will be five assignments. Assignments 1-4 will take place in your team-based learning group. Assignment 5 is individual to be turned in hard copy finals week.
I will only count the top three assignments of assignments 1-4.

Details on each assignment will be explained in class prior to the due date.
 
 

DATES	TOPICS	READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS
August 31-September 7	Introduction Developing a Research Question Types of Variables Concepts and Measurement Hypotheses Levels of Measurement	Navigating our course WEB site Online Guides 1 & 2 CRESWELL, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 APA, Chapter 1
SEPTEMBER 14	QUIZ ONE	PRACTICE QUIZ
September 7-21	Causality and Internal Validity Randomized treatment groups Experiments  Quasi-Experiments Threats to Internal Validity Experimental Objectivity Ethics in Research	Online Guides 3 & 4 APA, Chapters 1 (review), 2 & 6 CRESWELL, Chapters 5, 10
SEPTEMBER 21	ASSIGNMENT 1 IN CLASS	RESEARCH PROBLEM  STATEMENT
SEPTEMBER 21	THE "MILGRAM VIDEO" OBEDIENCE	An Experimental Example (includes ethics issues too)
September 28-October 12	External Validity and Generalizing Survey Research Probability and Non-Probability     Samples Questionnaire Design Interviewing Focus on Focus Groups	Online Guide 5 (and several associated links) CREWELL, Chapter 12   There will be a special WEB site (Guide 6) on focus groups.
SEPTEMBER 28	QUIZ TWO	Types of hypotheses; experimental studies
OCTOBER 5	ASSIGNMENT 2 in class	Research Hypotheses & Experiments
OCTOBER 19	QUIZ THREE	Survey designs
October 26	ASSIGNMENT 3	Question/Procedures Design & Survey Research
October 19-November 16	Generic differences between more and less structured research A "Whirlwind tour" of less structured studies: Ethnographies, Historical Research,Content Analysis,     "Gleaning"	Online Guide 7 CRESWELL, SKIM Chapters 7, 8, 13, 14, 17
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 5	DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME ENDS	Set your clocks BACK one hour.
November 10	Veteran's Day Observed	No FSU Classes
November 9	QUIZ FOUR	Qualitative research
NOVEMBER 16	ASSIGNMENT 4	Qualitative Design Critique
November 16-30	Research Resources: Archives, Searching, Accessing, On-line analysis	Online Guide 8
November 22-26	Thanksgiving holidays	No classes
November 30	QUIZ FIVE Team Evaluation	Online databases and resources
December 7	The Educated Consumer Our last day of class.	CRESWELL, Chapter 9
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 13 BY NOON	INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 5 DUE MY EPLS MAILBOX HARD COPY ONLY	ONLINE DATABASE ASSIGNMENT

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OVERVIEW IS AVAILABLE HERE OR IN BLACKBOARD SYLLABUS FOLDER

This page created with the late, great Netscape Composer
Susan Carol Losh August 26 2017