Educational Research Methods 10

Research Methods for the Learning Sciences 85-748

Spring 2008 Syllabus Carnegie Mellon University

Class times:

4:30 to 5:50 Tuesday & Thursday

Location:

3501 NSH

Instructors:

Professor Kenneth R. Koedinger Office hours by appointment Location: 3601 Newell-Simon Hall Phone: 8-7667 Email: Koedinger@cmu.edu

Dr. Philip I. Pavlik Jr. Office hours by appointment Location: 300S Craig St, 224 Phone: 8-1618 Email: ppavlik@andrew.cmu.edu

Class URL:

Main page

Goals:

The goals of this course are to learn data collection, design, and analysis methodologies that are particularly useful for scientific research in education. The course will be organized in modules addressing particular topics including overview of methods, cognitive task analysis, qualitative methods, protocol and discourse analysis, and educational data mining and log analysis. A key goal is to help students think about and learn how to apply these methods to their own research programs.

Course Prerequisites:

To enroll you must have taken 85-738, "Educational Goals, Instruction, and Assessment" or get the permission of the instruction.

Readings Textbook:

"The Research Methods Knowledge Base: 3rd edition" by William M.K. Trochim and James P. Donnelly Other readings will be assigned in class.

Reading Reports:

Students are required to submit at least two posts per week to the course discussion group/blog before class, on either Sunday/Monday/Tuesday before class (for readings due Tuesday) or on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday before class (for readings due Thursday). These posts can be about

1. a question you had about the reading, something important you did not understand
2. an idea inspired by the reading
3. an interesting connection with something you learned or did previously in this or another course, or in other professional work or research
4. an on-topic, relevant response, clarification, or further comment on another student’s post

Grading:

There will be assignments associated with each section of the course. Grades will be determined by your performance on these assignments, by your participation in Reading Reports, and by your participation in class.

• Course work
  • 30% Reading reports
  • 70% Homework assignment for each of the 7 main sections
• Project & final paper?
  • Design a new study based on one (or more) of these methods that pushes your own research in a new direction.

Class Schedule:

(Topics continue into blanks!)

• 1-13-09 ERM Basic Research & Experimental Methods (Koedinger, Pavlik)
• 1-15-09 ERM
• 1-20-09 ERM
• 1-22-09 ERM
• 1-27-09 ERM Cognitive Task Analysis (Koedinger, Pavlik)
• 1-29-09 ERM
• 2-3-09 ERM
• 2-5-09 ERM Video and Verbal Protocol Analysis (Lovett, Rosé)
• 2-10-09 ERM
• 2-12-09 ERM
• 2-17-09 ERM
• 2-19-09 ERM
• 2-24-09 ERM
• 2-26-09 ERM Ethnography & Design Experiments?
• 3-3-09 ERM Surveys, Questionnaires, Interviews (Kiesler)
• 3-5-09 ERM
• 3-10-09 ERM NO CLASS – Spring break
• 3-12-09 ERM NO CLASS – Spring break
• 3-17-09 ERM Psychometrics, reliability, Item Response Theory (Junker, Koedinger)
• 3-19-09 ERM
• 3-24-09 ERM
• 3-26-09 ERM Educational data mining (Scheines, Pavlik)
• 3-31-09 ERM
• 4-2-09 ERM
• 4-7-09 ERM
• 4-9-09 ERM
• 4-14-09 ERM
• 4-16-09 ERM NO CLASS – Spring Carnival
• 4-21-09 ERM Cognitive Task Analysis - Revisited (Koedinger, Pavlik)
• 4-23-09 ERM
• 4-28-09 ERM Wrap-up
• 4-30-09 ERM Wrap-up