Welcome to RESINED, a collection of on-line materials that is
intended to help you understand research methods in education and to undertake your own
research project.
RESINED is used most often by students from the IMP programme who are undertaking their 'Research Methods' module (MERS501), prior to writing the proposal for their dissertation (and for those from The University College of Mark and St. John undertaking the equivalent module there).
If you are undertaking one or other of these modules then you should click hereto get details of what to do.
Guidance on completing the Dissertation Proposal for
the MA (Education) using form MA(Ed)2 for UoP students may be obtained by clicking here.
However, RESINED is also
relevant for you if you are:
a teacher undertaking SWIfT Professional Development, even if you
are just starting your first PGCert module;
an IMP (Education) student, even if you are just starting your
first PGDip module;
a participant registered on
the LTHE;
a tutor supporting students on SWIfT or IMP programmes;
a University of Plymouth MPhil/PhD student or supervisor.
For more general information about the University of Plymouth's International Masters Programme, go to:
Please visit the RESINED componentsfor information about research design,
different approaches to education research, various methods of both data
collection and data analysis. Note that you will find these components listed, for easy access, at the top of every page of RESINED.
See the section on recommended
reading for tips on where else to
look, including books, on-line courses, websites, glossaries and a CD-Rom.
We have also provided advice on printing. If
you need help or want to provide feedback, please click here.
These
materials are protected by copyright and may only be quoted from if due
acknowledgment is made. If you would like to include any of the content in
a publication, whether on-line or otherwise, you must obtain permission from the
author(s) concerned via Nick Pratt.
We now have a new generic email address for all RESINED communications. This is resined@plymouth.ac.uk.
After our move to the new ROLLE building, the Faculty of Education is now enjoying being in Plymouth. Andy Hannan, who first developed these materials, has retired and this site is now being run by Nick Pratt.
Have a look at V-ResORT, Virtual Resources for Online Research Training. This is an fdtl5 project funded by HEFCE. The focus of the project initially is Education Studies and there are some interesting video clips of experienced researchers talking about their experiences of doing research.
The Teacher Training Resource Bank (TTRB) is a
three-year project which aims to: make the Initial Teacher Education (ITE)
professional knowledge base more easily accessible; reference effective
practices in all subject areas and across phases; increase the quality and
range of ITE resources available; raise the status of ITE research and
knowledge; promote and effect change by supporting tested knowledge transfer
and adoption strategies; provide a personalised support service for teacher
educators and those training to teach.
Visit
the recently launched online Research Methods resource centre:
www.methodology.co.uk. The site has been set up to provide a source
of information for anyone teaching, studying or working with Research
Methods – including details on relevant books and journals, conferences,
organizations, software, mailing lists etc. It also provides free
access to a journal ‘article of the month’ on the homepage, and it is
planned to expand the site soon to include more interactive content,
such as a research methods blog.
Have a look at the The
Research Informed Practice Site (TRIPS) at http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/
It offers easy access to essential research findings for teachers,
governors, parents and all those who support them in the education of
school age students. If you would like to receive a monthly
update on latest research including research for practice issues
please email: victoria1.white@dfes.gsi.gov.uk -
to see the latest newsletter please click
here (Word 1.8 MB).
The
Question Bank at
http://qb.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ has many examples of lists of questions
used in structured interviews as well as what it calls
'self-completion questionnaires'. It's a good place to look for
examples, which you can normally use without worrying about copyright
(although you will need to acknowledge the sources in the normal fashion).
Please
click here to have a
look at the self-completion questionnaire issued to a sample of
school children aged 11-15 in 2006. This comes from the Families and
Children Study (http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/facs/index.asp)
conducted by the National Centre for Social Research. Note how the
designers have done their best to produce a child-friendly form, complete
with smiley faces!
Click
here to
read Tinkering with Transcriptions by Phil Bayliss, a very useful
and interesting discussion about transcribing.
There are lots of
software packages which facilitate content analysis of qualitative data
(see
http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/caqdas/). Weft QDA is a free
qualitative analysis software application - 'an easy-to-use tool to assist in
the analysis of textual data such as interview transcripts, written texts and
fieldnotes', which can be downloaded from
http://www.pressure.to/qda/. N6 and NVivo are provided over the
University of Plymouth server to all networked PCs. If you can’t find these via
Start > All Programs > Software M to O > N > N6 or NVivo 2 try installing via
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Run Advertised Programs. Copies of the
CD-ROM for home installation can also be obtained via the University of Plymouth library (Media
Services counter at Exmouth).
Are you looking for ideas to
inspire you with your own project or do you want to find other research on
the same topic to which you can refer? Information about
Education Research Data Bases may be found by clicking
here.
Have a look at V-ResORT,
Virtual Resources for Online Research Training. This is an fdtl5
project funded by HEFCE. The focus of the project initially is
Education Studies. The home page is at:
IMPORTANT: This site was password-protected but has recently become 'open' to the public. However, you will still need to type the username and password as before in order to gain access to some subject-to-copyright pdf documents.
SEARCH ENGINE:
We now have a search mechanism provided by 'FreeFind' in the top
right-hand corner of this page and on the home pages for each component.
When you conduct a search you will be provided with a results page with
some adverts at the top with links to relevant RESINED pages underneath.
The RESINED links usually give some details of the location within the
web-page. However, once you click on the link provided you may need
to use the search facility within your browser. For PCs using
Internet Explorer this works by holding down the 'Ctrl' key and hitting
the 'F' key, typing in the word(s) you are looking for where it says 'Find
what' and then clicking on 'Find Next'.
