Building Research Skills

Locating and Defining the Parts of the Research Process

Objectives:
1. To be able to define each of the parts of the research process.
2. To be able to locate the parts of the research process in a research article.
Directions:
Before you begin, read the article, Class size and interaction in online classes (Orellana 2006).

This activity contains 14 questions.




Research is built around a research problem. What is a research problem?











In this article, what is the research problem?











How did the researcher justify that this problem needs to be studied? In
other words, why did the researcher think that this was an important
matter to study?












Who is the audience that the author says will benefit from this study? If
there is none mentioned, who do you think might benefit from reading this
study and why?












Why is it important in a research study to review the literature?













In this article, what purpose does the literature review serve?










What function does the purpose statement in a research study serve?











Does this study have a stated purpose? If so, where is it located in the
study?











Typically, researchers follow the purpose statement with research
questions. Are there clearly stated research questions that follow the
purpose statement?












What are at least three of the ways that researchers can collect data?











Did this study have more than one type of data?











In this article, how did the researcher collect data?











How did the researcher analyze the data in the study?












How did the researcher present the analysis of the data in the discussion section?



Exercise 2
Identifying the Parts of the Statement of the Problem in a Quantitative Article

Directions:
Using the article Class size and interaction in online courses by Anymir Orellana, answer the
following questions:

This activity contains 6 questions.




What is the topic for the article and where do you find it in
the article?












What is the research problem and where do you find it in the
article?












What is the justification for the research problem and where
do you find it in the article?












What are the deficiencies in the literature (what do we need
to know more about) and where do we find them in the
article?











What are the audiences for this study? If none are
mentioned in the article, what audiences would benefit from
reading this study?












What is the narrative hook? How might you re-write the narrative hook
to better introduce this study as a quantitative study?