Once a research question has been formulated, researcher wants to turn it into as good a question as possible.

The question is

The question is

The question is

The question is

Feasibility is an important issue in designing research studies. A feasible question is one that can be investigated with available resources.

Some questions require a great deal of time and money; others require much less.

Unfortunately, the field of education, unlike medicine, business, law, agriculture, pharmacology, or the military, has never established an ongoing research effort tied closely to practice.

Most of the research that is done in schools or other educational institutions is likely to be done by outsiders often university professors and their students and usually is funded by temporary grants..

Thus, lack of feasibility often seriously limits research efforts. How do the students at Oceana High School feel about the new guidance program recently instituted in the district?

How would achievement be affected by giving each student his or her own laptop computer to use for a semester?

Because the research question is the focus of the research investigation, it is particularly important that the question be clear.

What exactly is being investigated? Let us consider two examples of research questions that are not clear enough.

EXAMPLE 1.

Is humanistically oriented classroom effective?

Although the phrase humanistically oriented classroom may seem quite clear, many people may not be sure exactly what it means.

If we ask , what is humanistically oriented classroom?

We begin to discover that it is not as easy as we might have thought to describe its essential characteristics.

What happen in such classrooms that is different from what happens in other classrooms? Do teachers use certain kinds of strategies? Do they lecture?

In what sorts of activities do students participate? What do such classrooms look like how is the seating arranged, for example? What kinds of materials are used?

Is there much variations to be found from classroom to classroom in the strategies employed by the teacher or in the sorts of activities in which students engage?

Do the kinds of materials available and/or used vary?

effective mean?

What does the term

EXAMPLE 2.

How do teachers feel about special classes for the educationally handicapped?

How do teachers feel about special classes for the educationally handicapped?

The first term that needs clarification is teachers.

How do teachers feel about special classes for the educationally handicapped?

The phrase feel about is also ambiguous .

How do teachers feel about special classes for the educationally handicapped?

The terms special classes and educationally handicapped also need to be clarified.

An example of a legal definition of an educationally handicapped student is:

A minor who, by reason of marked learning disorders, is unable to adapt to a normal classroom situation. The disorder must be associated with a neurological handicap or an emotional disturbance and must not be due to mental retardation, cultural deprivation, or foreign language problems.

Note that this definition itself contains some ambiguous words, such as marked learning disorders, which lend themselves to a wide variety of interpretations. This is equally true of the term cultural deprivation, which is not only ambiguous but also often offensive to members of ethnic groups to whom it is frequently applied.

As we begin to think about these questions it appears that terms which seemed at first glance to be word of phrases that everyone would easily understand are really quite complex and far more difficult to define than we might originally have thought.

Researchers have no choice but to be specific about the terms used in a research question, to define precisely what is to be studied. In making this effort, researchers gain a clearer picture of how to proceed with an investigation and in fact, sometimes decide to change the very nature of the research.

There are essentially three ways to clarify important terms in a research question.

to use what is often referred to as the dictionary approach.

A classroom in which:

1. The needs and interest of students have the highest priority;

A classroom in which:

2. students work on their own for a considerable amount of time in each class period; and

A classroom in which:

3. the teacher act as a guide and a resource person rather than an informant.

Notice, however, that this definition is still somewhat unclear, since the word being used to explain the term humanistic are themselves ambiguous. What does it mean to say that the needs and interest of students have the highest priority or the that students work on their own?

What is the considerable amount of each class period. What does the teacher do when acting as a guide or a resource person. Further clarification is needed.

Student of communication have demonstrated just how difficult is to be sure that the message sent is the message received. It is probably true that no one ever completely understands the meaning of terms that are used to communicate.

Another important point to remember is that often it is a compound term or phrase that needs to be defined rather than only a single word. For example, the term nondirective therapy will surely not be clarified by precise definitions of nondirective and therapy.

Researchers might think of a few humanistic classrooms which they are familiar and then try to describe as fully as possible what happens in their classroom.

Usually we suggest that people observe such classrooms to see for themselves how they differ from other classrooms.

Operational definitions require that researchers specify the actions or operations necessary to measure or identify the term.

For example here are two possible operational; definitions of the term humanistic classroom.

1. Any classroom identified by specified expert as constituting an example of humanistic classroom.

2. Any classroom judged to possess all the following characteristics:

The above listing of characteristics and behaviors may be quite unsatisfactory definition of a humanistic classroom to many people. But it is considerably more specific than the definition with which we began. Armed with this definition researchers could decide quickly whether or not a particular classroom qualified as an example of a humanistic classroom.

In essence, we need to consider whether getting the answer to a question is worth the time and energy.

In such knowledge important in some way?

If so, how?

These questions ask researchers to think about why a research question is worthwhile that is, important or significant.

It probably goes without saying that a research question is of interest to the person who asks it. But is interest alone sufficient justification for an investigation? For some people, the answer is a clear yes. They say that any question that someone sincerely wants an answer to is worth investigating.

Generally speaking, most researchers do not believe that research efforts based primarily on personal interest alone warrant investigation. Furthermore, there is some reason to question a purely curious motive or psychological grounds. Most questions probably have some degree or hidden motivation behind them, and for the sake of credibility, these reasons should be made explicit.

One of the most important tasks for any researcher, therefore, is to think through the value of the intended research before too much preliminary work is done.

Three important questions should be asked: 1. How might answers to this research questions advance knowledge in my field?
2. How might answers to this research question improve educational practice?

3. How might answers to this research question improve the human condition?

As you think about possible research questions, ask yourself: Why would it be important to answer this question?
Does the question have implications for the improvement of practice?

For administrative decision making? For program planning?

Is there an important issue that can be illuminated to some degree by the study of this question? Is it related to a current theory that I have doubts about or would like to substantiate? Thinking through possible answers to these questions can help you judge the significance of a potential research question.

There is and additional characteristic that good research question often possess. They frequently suggest relationship of some sort to be investigated. A suggested relationship means that two qualities or characteristics are tied together or connected in some way.

It is important to understand how the term relationship is used in research, since the term has other meanings in everyday life When researchers use the term relationship, they are not referring to the nature of quality of an association between people, for example. What we and other researchers mean is perhaps best clarified visually.

It will not involve physical or psychological harm or damage to human beings or to the natural or social environment of which they are a part

The term ethics refer to questions of right and wrong. What researchers think about ethics, they must ask themselves if it is right to conduct a particular study or carry out certain procedures Are there some kinds of studies that should not be conducted? You bet!

 Requires a group of high school sophomores to sign a form in which they agree to participate in a research stud.

Asks first-graders sensitive questions without obtaining the consent of their parents to question them.

 Deletes data he collects that do not support his hypothesis. Requires university students to fill out a questionnaire about their sexual practices. Involves a group of eight-graders in a research study that may harm them psychologically without informing them or their parents in this facts.

Each of the above examples involves one or more violations of ethical practice. When researchers think about ethics, the basic question to ask in this regard is, Will any physical or psychological harm come to anyone as a result of my research?
Naturally, no researcher wants this to happen to any of the subjects in a research study. Because this is such an important issue, we need to discuss it in some detail.

In a somewhat larger sense, ethics also refers to questions of right and wrong. By behaving ethically, a person is doing what is right. But what does it mean to be right as far as research is concerned?