Please check, just in case…
Announcements
 CITI training and ILL article request
due next week.
 Questions? Make an appointment.
Research Methodology Teams:
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Experimental:
Quasi-experimental:
Single-case:
Survey:
Case study:
Interviews:
Ethnography:
Questions,
comments, or
quandaries?
APA Tip of the Day: Reference Lists
 Your reference list comes at the end of your
paper and starts on a new page.
 The heading at the top of the page should
say References and should be centered
and start with a capital letter.
 Your references should be double spaced,
with no extra spaces in between. There
should not be any extra space or lines
between the heading and your first
reference.
Reference Lists, cont.
 Your references should be ordered
alphabetically and when there are two
citations by the same exact author(s), by
year, put the earliest first.
 Use “hanging indentation” for references in
your reference list.
 There should be an exact concordance
between your in-text citations and your
reference list, except for:
• In-text references to classical works (e.g. the
bible)
• References to personal communications.
Today’s Topic:
The paradigm
wars
What is
research?
Redefining
research as
disciplined inquiry
Differences in opinion:
 What are the primary purposes of
research.
 What counts as acceptable evidence.
 What are acceptable methodologies.
 Whether true objectivity is
possible.
 Underlying concepts, like
validity and reliability.
Small Group Activity:
Consider the pairs of articles
and commentaries from
Learning Disabilities Quarterly.
What is this argument all about?
Identify specific places in the
text that seem to give you clues
as to the underlying debates.
Quick Write
What do you think are
the best kinds of
research and why?
epistemology/paradigm
theoretical/conceptual
framework
research question
methodology
methods
Epistemology
Your stance toward “the
truth.” Does the truth exist
objectively or is it a social
construction? Who
determines what the truth is
and how truth is
determined?
What is a Fact?
“that which actually exists; reality;
truth... something known to exist
or to have happened... a truth
known by actual experience or
observation; that which is known
to be true.”
(Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged
Dictionary, 1989, p. 509)
Three questions to
ponder:
 How do we really know when
something is true?
 What do we accept as evidence
of “the truth”?
 Are some ‘truths’ really
‘assumptions’?
Paradigm:
“Paradigms represent a
distillation of what we think
about the world (but cannot
prove). Our actions in the
world… cannot occur
without reference to those
paradigms: ‘As we think, so
do we act.’”
Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 15
Another definition of “paradigm”:
“A paradigm is a world view, a
general perspective, a way of
breaking down the complexity of
the real world. As such,
paradigms are deeply embedded
in the socialization of…
practitioners: paradigms tell them
what is important, legitimate, and
reasonable.”
Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 15
Paradigms in Education:
The three most commonly
recognized paradigms in
education are:
1. Positivism
2. Interpretivism
3. Critical theory
The paradigm wars
-Is it just esoteric
ivory tower
intellectualism?
Theoretical/conceptual framework:
Those theories or large ideas (e.g.
a definition of/perspective toward
literacy, a particular theory of
language development) that drive
your work. These guide the type of
research question that will be
asked or considered relevant or
appropriate to ask.
Research Design
What kind of a
study is it?
Research Designs:
Methods:
What kind of data are you
collecting?
How are you collecting it?
How are you analyzing it?
Kinds of data:
observation
interview
intervention
database
documents
recordings
tests
questionnaires
work samples
Looking ahead…
The relationship
between paradigms
and research methods
Please take a
minute for the
minute paper.
And don’t forget to turn
your phone back on.