From educational policy issues to specific research questions and the basic elements of research design

Abstract

This module concentrates on such decision-oriented research, and seeks to help researchers identify important issues needing attention, through a systematic ‘mapping’ of the educational territory. It then proceeds to find ways to establish priorities, using a consensus-building approach to select projects from the infinite number of problems which exist ‘out there’. Finally it comes down to specifics, with a discussion of ways to develop specific aims from general aims, and operationalize these through the use of research questions and hypotheses. The last section gives some illustrations of exactly how this can be carried out in a systematic way.