STRATEGIES AND METHODS
Identify a Research Question
Collect Data
Analyze Data
Summarize Analysis Findings
Share Your Findings

There are several distinct steps a researcher goes through when conducting research, but they don't necessarily happen in a specific order and you don't need to finish one step before you move on to the next. Often steps are re-visited, adjusted, and put aside temporarily, to be taken up again later. We believe that all of the steps are crucial and, at some point, the researcher must finish the study. More on finishing the study later. We'll move on to the basic steps now.

Identify a Research Question
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1934

It is essential that, as a researcher, you choose the research question. Don't commit yourself to a research project designed around a question which someone else finds fascinating but which leaves you cold. If you are answering a call for volunteers to research a particular topic, do so only if the topic truly interests you and allows you to focus your part of the project on something that intrigues you.

Figure out what you want to know about a particular topic area and what sort of information or knowledge would be useful to you in your everyday work life.

Don't worry about whether someone has "already done" your research topic. No one has done it with your students, in your setting. If you've ever taken a course on the historical perspectives of education, you know that there is very little that hasn't already been done and, paradoxically, there is no philosophical canon so sacred to the study of education that researchers don't occasionally question and re-examine it.

In the following stage you will gather information (data) to help you address your inquiry, so limit your question to one that calls for the type of data you can provide. For example, it would be difficult to study how well students retain skills after they leave the program if you are working with a very mobile population, which frequently moves and often has phone service discontinued.

You may have trouble developing a research question. If nothing intrigues you, watch and wait. While you are waiting, begin keeping a work journal. Keep track of what you do in class and how the class reacts. Practice being a fly on the wall; write down what you see and hear. Also write about what you feel—your reactions, hunches, etc. Reflect on your observations. Chances are, before long you will begin to get very curious about some aspect of your class.

After you have a general idea of what you want to find out, you will need to focus or frame your question. This step is important.

If your question remains too general, you will find yourself with a confusing multitude of sub-questions. If you work with a question which is too narrow, you will block the emergence of any other possibilities.

Rule out questions which can easily be answered by "yes" or "no." Ask yourself: What concerns or intrigues me about this? What do I really want to know more about? Why do I want to know it? Pose your question in a way that will generate descriptions and observations as answers. Remember in the first section, we talked about asking "why" and "how." As Hubbard and Power (1993) suggest, "framing the question in this way helps make the research do-able in the midst of teaching: there is no rigid procedure that may interfere with the flow of the classroom and with the changing needs of students" (p. 23). Trust your hunches to guide your research.

Most importantly, don't become so cemented to your question that you can't allow yourself to change and adjust it along the way. You need to begin by framing your question, but as you begin to collect information and reflect upon it, you may very well gain insights that will lead you to re-adjust your question. It's not usually advisable to completely change the topic area mid- stream, but you can fine-tune your perspective.

Collect Data
It's all data.
personal conversation, Hanna Fingeret, 1993

There's more going on in your classroom than you think. One researcher described this stage of her project as "a human drama, being acted out every day."

There are a variety of ways to gather data. Plan to use more than one strategy. Triangulation is an accepted model. This simply means getting at the same information using different types of sources (three sources is standard). For example, if you want to learn something about student motivation, you might 1) use an in-take questionnaire, 2) video-tape student interviews, and 3) talk with teachers about what they believe motivates students.

Here is a list of methods for data gathering to get you started:

Teacher's log or journal

A teacher's log or journal is a notebook where a practitioner can keep track of what they are doing and, just as importantly, what their own thoughts and insights are about their practice. Keeping a teacher's journal is extremely useful, even if you never do any research. Get into the habit of writing observations and thoughts about your work. Some researchers do this during very brief quiet times in the classroom, others spend time after class taking notes or use larger chunks of time at the end of the day. Journal writing is second nature to some people and pure agony to others. If you fall into the latter group, you might want to ease yourself into journal writing by using the following methods:

* Try writing in your journal for just 10 minutes a day. Just keep spilling words on the paper (or keyboard).

* If you get stuck try filling in "I remember in class today..."

* Write what you did, what the students did, who yawned, who walked in late, who wasn't there, etc.

* Speculate about everything you've observed.

After a week or two of this, re-read what you have written; you may be pleasantly surprised at what you find. Look for a pattern in your concerns or delights, and brainstorm a list of things that you wonder about. Research has begun.

Observation

Learn to be a keen observer. If you have ever watched people in an airport, you know how much is going on all around us, everyday. In a certain sense, nothing that goes on in your class or program is insignificant. As one researcher said, "I began to see that everything is data."

Observation can take several forms. Use any form or forms which seem appropriate and helpful for your project. Here are some suggestions to think about:

* Observe your own students.

* Observe another teacher's class.

* Observe yourself - to keep track of what you see, write about what you do or ask another teacher to observe you and talk with you later. Consider making a video-tape of yourself teaching, to look at later.

In general, you want the observed to act as normal as possible, so sit in the back and don't participate.

Make sure you have permission to observe from the people involved. Written consent is the safest, although verbal consent is acceptable. Let the people you are observing know what you are doing, although it is not usually necessary or advisable to explain in great detail all you hope to accomplish. Be respectful and unobtrusive. Keep in mind that you are there to understand something, not to criticize.

Interviews
You can interview:
students
your colleagues
politicians
total strangers
anyone.

These interviews can be with:
individuals
or
groups.

When you conduct an interview you can use a list of questions you made up before the interview, recording each answer and then moving on to the next question. We refer to this as a scripted interview. As an alternative, you can conduct an interview in which you focus on a topic but do not follow a list of pre-made questions. In this type of interview, you will want to ask one or two opening questions, usually something that helps the person you are interviewing tie your research question into his or her own personal experience. For example, when a study of staff development was conducted, interviewers began by asking teachers to describe their first day and how well prepared they were. Needless to say, every teacher could relate this to his or her own experience. You can do both scripted and focus interviews with individuals or groups.

During a focus group interview, the researcher facilitates a conversation among five or so people, keeping the discussion in a general area, but allowing the participants to go off on related tangents and comment on each other's statements and questions. A scripted group interview is guided by a script of exact questions, with little or no follow-up, elaboration, or group discussion.

Scripted interviews produce responses which are fairly easy to categorize and analyze. However, the responses are not as rich in detail as the more free-wheeling give-and-take you get from a focus interview. In other words, you get more information from the focus interview, but you will have to work harder to figure out what it means.

Decide how you will remember everything that is said during an interview. You need to "capture" all the information for later analysis. In the old days, researchers just took notes. It still works and is the preferred method if the people you are interviewing are uncomfortable about being recorded. If you haven't established a trust relationship with the interviewees, take short notes as inconspicuously as possible. Here are some other methods to consider, depending upon the comfort level of the people you will be interviewing:

* Tape interviews on audio- or video-tape. Each presents some advantages and disadvantages, of course. Video-tape has the potential for saving lots of information, and is especially useful for capturing gestures and expressions. On the other hand, it is not easy to use skillfully. Many people feel very self-conscious in front of the camera. This can be a problem with the audio-tape also, although the technical aspects are easier to master.

* Tape telephone interviews, also. Phone-to-tape recorder devices are available at many electronics stores. Make sure you ask permission to tape phone conversations before you turn on the machine!

Ask people for their permission before you tape them. Commit yourself to confidentiality.

No matter which method you use to record interviews, spend some time immediately following the interview to complete your notes with your observations and insights. This is especially crucial if you are taking notes during the interview - you can't write down everything. Even if you have taped the interview, you will want to record your observations. (When the student said he really liked the new math book, did everyone nod in agreement or look like they thought he was crazy?) Most researchers develop a personal short-hand and then complete their notes while the details are still fresh in their minds. You lose those details quickly, so don't delay too long.

Surveys

Whip up a survey, stick on the mailing labels and wait for the results to come pouring back in. It sounds so simple, but beware!

It is very difficult to ask exactly what you want to ask in a survey in such a way that your reader knows exactly what you mean.

You really need to custom design a survey for the specific population who will be answering. Consider the people who will be reading your survey and answering the questions:

* How would they word the questions you want to ask?

* Will people be willing to write long answers to essay-type questions?

* Have you allowed enough space for longer, handwritten answers?

* How many surveys have these people received in the mail lately? Perhaps they are tired of answering them. This may be a problem if there are several practitioner-researchers in your area who are sending surveys to the same group of students or teachers.

If you still decide to do a survey, here are some steps to follow:

*Gather a group of people who are representative of the folks who will be receiving the survey and ask them to give you some advice.

* Show them what you are proposing and listen carefully to their comments.

* Send the survey to another representative group and ask them to fill it out.

* Did you get responses which answered the questions you were really asking? If not, try to re-word your survey and test it out again.

Student Writing

Entire studies have been conducted using only student writing as data. Students' writing can be from their own journals, samples of letters they write, or teacher-assigned writing. * Students grant permission for researcher to use their writing.

* Writing samples are collected by the researcher.

* Samples are examined for themes.

Records and Assessments

Depending on what you want to know, you may want to use:

attendance records
informal test scores
informal assessment,
such as portfolios.
Again, with informed consent.

Dealing with Preconceived Ideas

During this time, keep a lively commentary going in your journal about what you are seeing and hearing.
* Reflect on the information you're getting.
* Think about how it relates to your question.
* Admit your concerns, especially about any preconceived ideas you may have.

If you secretly want the results of your research to say a certain thing, admit this to yourself (preferably in writing) and then go about trying to prevent your predisposition from coloring what you see and hear. As you create questions for a survey or interview, ask yourself if you are setting up the respondent for a particular answer. You can also ask an objective person to review your questions. Anyone who truly cares about his or her work will have some strong opinions going into a research project, but research without honesty and integrity is useless.

Finishing the Collection Stage

When have you gathered enough information?
* Stop once it seems as though everyone is saying just about the same thing, or the same group of things.
* Go back to your original question.
* Does your collection of information still address it?
* Does it suggest that you ask the question in a different way?

Be wary of starting off in a new direction - tracking down a completely new research question - before you have finished analyzing and summarizing the first one. At some point, you must "get out of the field" and begin to analyze what you've collected. Most of us feel like we're not quite ready to do so, but practical restraints (time, money, irate family members, etc.) force us to stop.

Analyze Data

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
A.A. Milne, (1928)

So now you have a stack of surveys, transcripts and notes in front of you. What does it all mean? What can it teach you? You are ready to examine, or analyze, your data.

Analysis is best done over time. You begin analyzing when you first work to focus your research question, and you never really stop. Allow yourself plenty of time for this stage.

It is a good idea to lay your data aside for a while once you have stopped collecting them.

Revisit the things you've collected. You will want to:
* Re-read your journal.
* Listen to those taped interviews.
* Look at the surveys.
* Go through student writing samples.

At this stage, you look for trends, ideas, or concepts that just keep coming up.

Develop a system for categorizing these ideas or concepts. You will find it helpful to develop a framework - a structure for organizing your information. First, get all your information on paper. Write out transcripts of taped interviews, if possible. Many researchers use colored highlighter to categorize each quote or response in the interviews, surveys, writing samples, and their own journals.
* Use a different color highlighter to code each theme.
* Cut up (literally) the data into single colored bits.
* Pile the slips of paper by color/theme.
* Examine each pile, dividing strips into sub-categories if appropriate.
* Write a one or two sentence summary of each pile. These summary sentences are the themes (sometimes referred to as "trends") in your findings.

These themes may not be what you expected or what (in your heart of hearts) you had hoped. There might be contradictory ideas. Take them for what they are, no more, no less. While you can't write a summary sentence for each and every slip, you should make sure that each quote or comment is represented in one of the summary sentences. Careful use of the words "most," "many," "some," "few," etc. will help qualify what you say: to show that many, but not all, gave a particular type of response.

At this point it is helpful to write a one-page summary of all your findings.

This activity is sometimes referred to as "getting rid of data," or "chunking" data into larger categories, to make it more manageable and easier to examine as a whole.

It is especially useful now to read what other researchers have found.

Having slogged about in the data for a while, you will find that the research reports of fellow sloggers make much more sense than they would have before your research began. They may provide some insight into your own findings. We suggest you use an ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) search procedure to find research reports relevant to your own study. See Appendix A for more information about ERIC searches.

Begin with current research. You can read the abstracts to get the gist of each article or book and then read the ones which look particularly relevant to your work in their complete form. Pay attention to how the research was conducted and which themes emerged. Keep track of all the citations in the reports. Remember to look at the bibliography at the end. Before long, it will probably seem like everyone is quoting the same one or two studies. Track down those research reports and read them carefully. They are probably the seminal pieces, the major studies with which all the professional researchers in this field are familiar. Your findings may or may not agree with these important studies, but it's good to know how your results compare to the most prevalent studies in the field.

Summarize Analysis Findings
When you come to the end, stop.
Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventure in Wonderland

Knowing what you know now, what do you think? Does your study point you in a specific direction? Will you change anything in your program? Where do you go from here? The summarization stage is the place where new ideas and ways of thinking emerge from findings—those piled-up bits of data.

The most frequent result of conducting research is new questions.

Probably those new questions are better and more to the point than the original one. Most research reports end with a section that discusses the need for more research. This is not merely a plea for more funding; it is a natural consequence of looking closely at complex issues.

Share Your Findings
Findings are soon forgotten, but not ideas.
Glaser, 1978

What a lot of work, and what an exciting result! Share your results with your colleagues. There are two structured ways to do this:

Papers

We feel it is very important for practitioner-researchers to write about their research. Certainly you should share the information with your colleagues, so that it stays alive and current. The act of writing further develops the last two stages of analyzing and summarizing. You may think you have wrung all possible statements out of your data until you begin to write about it. Then you will see more and more springing from those weeks of collecting information. When you write, you must force yourself to be clear, organized, and precise. Each time you struggle to write about your research, you become a better thinker. It is arduous work for most of us, and very rewarding. See Appendix B for more help with writing a research paper.

The Research Network keeps copies of members' research reports on file and publishes the Year in Review, an annual compilation of research reports. The Network also encourages members to submit their papers to the ERIC system.

Presentations

Another way to share your results is through presentations before your peers. In Virginia, you have many opportunities to do this: the summer institutes (VAILLs), our professional organization (Virginia Adult And Continuing Educators - VAACE), and Yearly Evaluative Staff Meetings, just to name a few. When you present your study to others, three things happen: More practitioners become interested in this research activity, you gain confidence about your own prowess as a researcher, and you get the benefit of your audience's ideas, which will enrich your research now and in the future. Different research presentations will be interesting to different audiences. The staff at the Research Network can help you find appropriate presentation opportunities and suggest a possible presentation format.

NOTES

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