Deck 1: Research As Inquiry

Question 1

What are some cases where inductive reasoning would be better than deductive reasoning?

Answer 1

If you have several bits of information about a topic and you see a general trend emerging, then you would use the inductive type of reasoning. An example would be: If you noticed that student after student had a similar problem with a computation technique, you could conclude by induction that there might be a flaw in the instructional technique. If you were able to describe a general condition and then looked for the underlying cause, you would be using deduction. An example might be: If a principal did not receive reports from teachers on a timely basis, she or he might review the instructions to see if one or more items, or the time available to do the task, was the culprit. That would be deductive reasoning.

Question 2

What is a research question that you would like to answer? What are the variables? How would you collect the data to answer the question?

Answer 2

Responses will vary. Students should be directed to think of research issues as variables that are measurable and identify data sources to help answer the question.

Question 3

In what ways could a participant-observer conducting research be biased?

Answer 3

Students should recognize that there may be a "halo" effect or a Hawthorne effect in play, in which the researcher as a participant guides the result rather than allowing a negative result to occur.

Question 4

What are some examples of population parameters and the statistics that describe or approximate them?

Question 5

Give some examples of research that may be biased due to the source of funding for the research.

Question 6

Why is replication important to scientific research?

Question 7

Determine whether exit polls for national elections are experimental or nonexperimental research and identify sample statistics that may be computed on exit-poll data.

Question 8

Give some examples of nominal variables that are not ordinal, and ordinal variables that are not interval.

Question 9

Why is it important to read the literature in the conceptual area before you design a specific research question?

Question 10

Outline the steps you would take to design and carry out a research project based on the question, "Does consensus bargaining work?"