Research Methods in Education

Citation

Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2018). Research Methods in Education (8th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

This is a large reference text: 45 chapters in five parts over about 850 pages of text (944 pages in all, per Routledge). Most chapters are by the three main authors; guest authors are credited for Chapters 16, 21, 23, 29, 30 and 45. Routledge says the five parts cover the context of educational research, research design, methodologies, methods of data collection, and data analysis and reporting. It adds that the eighth edition has new chapters on mixed methods, the role of theory, ethics in Internet research, research questions and hypotheses, Internet surveys, virtual worlds and netography, secondary data, statistical significance and effect size, and qualitative comparative analysis. The notes below follow the chapter titles and the publisher's description.

Chapters 1–6: The nature of enquiry: setting the field; Mixed methods research; Critical educational research; Theory in educational research; Evaluation and research; The search for causation

Part 1 sets out the field before any technique: what educational enquiry is, how critical approaches and theory shape it, and how research relates to evaluation and to questions of cause. Mixed methods and the role of theory are listed as new in this edition.

Chapters 7–8: The ethics of educational and social research; Ethics in Internet research

Part 2 starts with ethics, including a new chapter on research conducted over the Internet.

Chapters 9–11: Choosing a research project; Research questions; Research design and planning

These chapters take the reader from choosing a topic and framing questions to designing and planning a study. The chapter on research questions is new.

Chapters 12–14: Sampling; Sensitive educational research; Validity and reliability

The design part ends with sampling, research on sensitive topics, and the quality of data. Validity and reliability is the longest chapter in Part 2 (about forty pages).

Chapters 15–19: Qualitative, naturalistic and ethnographic research; Historical and documentary research; Surveys, longitudinal, cross-sectional and trend studies; Internet surveys; Case studies

Part 3 presents methodologies one by one. Historical and documentary research is by Jane Martin. Internet surveys is a new chapter.

Chapters 20–23: Experiments; Meta-analysis, systematic reviews and research syntheses; Action research; Virtual worlds, social network software and netography in educational research

The remaining methodologies cover experiments, synthesis of existing studies (by Harsh Suri), action research, and a new chapter on online settings (by Stewart Martin).

Chapters 24–27: Questionnaires; Interviews; Observation; Tests

Part 4 begins with the standard instruments, each given roughly twenty to forty pages.

Chapters 28–31: Using secondary data in educational research; Personal constructs; Role play and research; Visual media in educational research

These cover less conventional sources and methods. The secondary-data chapter is new; personal constructs is by Richard Bell, and role play by Carmel O'Sullivan.

Chapters 32–37: Approaches to qualitative data analysis; Organizing and presenting qualitative data; Coding and content analysis; Discourses: conversations, narratives and autobiographies as texts; Analyzing visual media; Grounded theory

Part 5 opens with a run of chapters on qualitative analysis, from general approaches to coding, discourse, visual material and grounded theory.

Chapters 38–44: Quantitative analysis, from descriptive to inferential statistics

Routledge's list jumps from Chapter 37 to 39; the DOI records of the book give Chapter 38 as "Approaches to quantitative data analysis". The sequence continues with Statistical significance, effect size and statistical power (new); Descriptive statistics; two chapters on inferential statistics (difference tests, then regression analysis and standardization); Factor analysis, cluster analysis and structural equation modelling; and Choosing a statistical test.

Chapter 45: Beyond mixed methods: using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to integrate cross-case and within-case analyses

The final chapter, by Barry Cooper and Judith Glaesser, presents QCA as a way to combine cross-case and within-case analysis.

Key Concepts

Parts 1–2: Context and design

• Mixed methods and the role of theory: new chapters on combining approaches and on the place of theory.
• Research questions and hypotheses: formulating what a study asks, given its own chapter.
• Validity and reliability: the quality criteria of data and findings.

Part 3: Methodologies

• Qualitative, naturalistic and ethnographic research: studying people in their settings.
• Experiments and meta-analysis: testing interventions and combining results across studies.
• Case studies and action research: studies of particular settings and of practice.

Parts 4–5: Methods and analysis

• Questionnaires, interviews, observation, tests: the core data-collection methods.
• Coding and content analysis; grounded theory: ways to analyse qualitative data.
• Statistical significance, effect size and power: how to interpret quantitative results.
• Qualitative Comparative Analysis: a technique linking cross-case and within-case analysis.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Range. The book covers qualitative, quantitative and mixed approaches, online research, and analysis, in one volume. Reviewers quoted by Routledge call it a "one-stop shop", and Peter Shukie says it serves both beginners and seasoned researchers.
• Organisation by stage of the project. The five parts follow the order of a study, and the reviewer David Lundie says the new material on research design and question setting helps newcomers through the process from inception to reporting.
• Currency. The edition adds chapters on ethics online, Internet surveys, virtual worlds and secondary data, topics that earlier textbooks of this kind handled less.
• Support materials. Routledge describes online slides, web links, practice data sets and a self-paced training programme for research methods.

Limitations

• Size. At 944 pages, the book is a reference more than a text to read through. Few courses can cover every chapter, and a beginner needs guidance on which to read.
• Breadth over depth for individual techniques. Most methods get one chapter. Statistics is covered in about seven chapters, which is less than a dedicated statistics text, and specialised techniques are better served by the focused texts in the course.
• Publisher-supplied evidence. The public reviews are those chosen by the publisher; they are positive and do not discuss weaknesses.

Where It Fits in the Course

Cohen, Manion and Morrison is the comprehensive reference of the educational research methods course. Bell, Waters and Johnson's Doing Your Research Project and Gary Thomas's How to Do Your Research Project are step-by-step guides for first-time researchers and are better starting points for a small undergraduate or master's project. Creswell and Guetterman's Educational Research is a step-by-step introduction that treats quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods in one framework, using annotated published studies.

For depth, Tisdell, Merriam and Stuckey-Peyrot's Qualitative Research is a graduate-level guide to qualitative design, and Murnane and Willett's Methods Matter is a graduate text on causal questions, randomised experiments and quasi-experimental designs; they go further than Cohen's chapters on qualitative research, experiments and causation. A common pattern is to start with a short guide, then use Cohen, Manion and Morrison as a reference to look up methods, and finally turn to a specialised text for the method actually chosen.

How to Use This Book

The book suits students and researchers at any level, from undergraduate dissertation to doctoral study, and it assumes no prior research training. Treat it as a reference to dip into.

A practical plan:

• Core for a first project: Chapters 1 and 9–11 to frame the study, Chapter 7 on ethics, and Chapter 12 on sampling.
• Choose your method: read the methodology chapter for your design (Part 3) and the matching data-collection chapter (Part 4), then the matching analysis chapters in Part 5.
• Quantitative work: read Chapters 38–40 before the inferential statistics chapters, and use Chapter 44 to choose a test.
• Quality: return to Chapter 14 on validity and reliability whenever you assess your own design.

Routledge says the book is supported by online resources, including practice data sets; use them for the statistics chapters. For a taught course, an instructor will normally select chapters; a student working alone should pick by project stage and ignore the rest until needed.