This is a brief summary of the key points from Creswell John’s book “Educational Research.” The analysis focuses on the key points from chapter one of the book. Croswell begins by defining the meaning of research. Research is a process where the researcher engages a group of logical process to understand an issue or a topic. In chapter one, the author defines research explicitly in a practical context, discusses why research is important and describes the six main steps of doing a research. He also identifies how research can be done ethically. The author suggests that research can be done through two main approaches; qualitative study and quantitative study, depending on the problem under investigation (Creswell, 2002).
According to Creswell (2002), the research adds to people’s knowledge. Educators are on a continual search for knowledge and improvement. By doing research, we find solutions, and we gain knowledge. Croswell also says that research enhances practice. Research suggests ways of enhancing practice. Educators and teachers become more effective experts when they are armed with research results. Creswell also confirms that research is important for informing policy, helping educators to be even better practitioners and adds information to policymakers.
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Creswell (2002) has identified the research process cycle to contain six main processes. These include reporting and evaluating research, create research problem, reviewing research literature, explain research aim/purpose, data collection, and analysis and interpretation of data. These are further summarized below in detail.
Regarding quantitative parent involvement research, the authors emphasize of use of extensive literature to create a research background. In the literature, the researcher recommends the use of parent involvement procedure, with the decision focusing on the discussion of four key factors that are likely to impact on parental involvement. The four factors that are expected to influence parental participation include parents’ self-efficacy, parent’s role construction parent’s perceptions of invitations of students’ and parents’ perceptions of teacher invitations.
The author also suggest that in quantitative research questions, the researcher asks specific questions to be able to get observable and measurable data on variables. The main questions and statements of direction in research, the research questions, the purpose of the study, and the hypothesis have to be specific because the researcher only works with specific variables in a study (Creswell, 2002). From the study of the variables, the researcher obtains assessments or measures on record scores on a scale from his observations. Data has to be retrieved to conduct an analysis.
For quantitative parent involvement research, the authors select a few factors they believe will justify parental involvement. The researchers state their research purpose or aim of the study and also identifies the main questions that the research will be answering. The researchers are specific that they are mainly interested in examining four variables that impact on parental involvement at school and home. The researcher then explains the methods they expect to use in measuring these four factors.
The researchers conducted a quantitative data collection. They use an instrument to estimate the study variables. The researchers define an instrument as a tool for observing, measuring, or documenting quantitative data. An instrument contains several questions created and is presented to the correspondents to answer. The authors give examples of instruments as standardized tests, questionnaires, and checklists that a researcher may use to observe students’ or teachers’ behavior. The instrument is sent to the participants, and the researcher collects feedback data in the form of numbers. For example, the students may be ticking against the checklist on the instrument as the researcher makes the observations as the student do so. The author affirms that the larger the number of the research participants, the better and stronger the case under investigation.
Reference
Creswell, J. W. (2002). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative (pp. 146-166). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
