Week 1 Focus: Course overview, syllabus, assignments, and philosphy.
Week 2 Focus: Understanding research as an iterative, reflexive process; overview of quantitative and qualitative approaches; selecting appropriate research approaches. Examine 2 research articles in detail (quantitative & qualitative examples)
Week 3 Focus: Ethical considerations in research; identifying and framing research problems; academic writing and ethical practices. Identifying a research problem.
Week 4 Focus: Formulating focused research questions; conducting systematic literature searches; synthesizing literature
Week 5 Focus: Thinking methodically, Paradigms: Sets of basic beliefs that guide mehodological thinking, positivism, critiques of positivism, post-positivism, constructivism
Week 6 Focus: Each research method has it's advantages and disadvantages, one is not better than the other, "The Coffee Shop Revisted"
DUE: Research Problem (# 1 to 3 minimum); plan presentaton (wks. 12 and 3)
Week 7 Focus: Different qualitative methods use different strategies of inquiry; grounded theory research article, literature review exercise
Week 8 Focus: Analysis of qualitative data: an ieterative and dynamic strategy, ethnographic research article, literature review continued
DUE: Research Problem (# 4 to 7 minimum)
Week 9 Focus: What you need to think about in order to design credible quantitative research, experimental design article
Literature Review (20%) can submitt sooner
DUE: Proposed Method & Procedure (15%)
Week 10 Focus: Measuring variables to enable valid research findings, are you measuring what you think your are; correlational and survey design research articles (2 this week)
Week 11 Focus: What is a mixed method research approach, action research research article & presentations start
Week 12 / 13 Focus: Synthesis and Overview: the 'big' picture. Student Presentations (25 -30 min. plus 10 minute Q & A) . Declaring research design decisions. Course wrap-up. What we have learned
DUE: Participation & Engagement (10%). The research proposal and self eval is due (10 days after the course is over
