EDUC47410: Secondary Data in Education Research

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• To develop knowledge and understanding of using existing datasets in education research.
• To develop skills in research designs using secondary data resources.
• To develop skills for analysing and interpreting findings from secondary data research.

• Educational activities naturally generate a large amount of data that can be used for conducting rigorous research. The ethics of research demands using existing available data, which is large-scale and independent of vested interest, before asking participants for more, and the investment of resources involved in collecting primary data. Moreover, advanced technologies have now made these datasets easily available for research. A growing body of local and international education research use these resources for informing policy and practice. Education researchers need an understanding of these existing secondary data resources and to be able to evaluate the strengths and limitations of research designs using secondary datasets. This module will introduce secondary data use in multiple research designs, enabling students to critique these datasets and judge published research based on secondary data resources.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• By the end of the module, students will be able to:
• show understanding of education research based on secondary datasets
• show knowledge of key national and international datasets

Subject-specific Skills:

• Use simple statistical operations for analysis.
• Perform basic statistical operations using relevant available software
• Write a simple report of obtained results.
• Search secondary databases relevant to education.
• Critique the quality of published research based on secondary data resources.
• Develop a research design using existing secondary datasets.
• Integrate knowledge of secondary data research in research practice

Key Skills:

• Demonstrate the ability to find secondary data resources.
• Demonstrate the ability to critique secondary datasets (in terms of quality, completeness, independence).
• Demonstrate skills for evaluating published research using secondary resources.
• Demonstrate skills for analysis and interpretation of findings.
• Use relevant available software for basic operations.
• Learn independently.

• Through lectures and hands on workshops supported by Study Guide resources. The Study Guide includes preparation for and follow up to teaching activities. This directed independent work is an important part of the module. Lectures enable the ideas of the module to be considered. Workshops enable students to develop their understanding of the ideas and consider them in a range of professionally relevant contexts. Activities in workshops include a variety of active learning approaches including discussion, group work, presentations, question and answer sessions, individual tasks. We will conduct three workshops in the available computer rooms for hands-on practice on searching and analysing secondary datasets. Preparation for the assignment involves students in wide reading and critical reflection on research based on secondary data resources.
• Assessment - a selection of practising data resources will be given to develop a research question and analyse the chosen data resource for answering the research question. The summative assignment will be a report of this small scale project.

Presentation (individually or as part of group) of a selected dataset in education or existing research based on the dataset. Verbal feedback is given to students' contribution during class teaching sessions. Staff can be contacted for individual help. Written formative feedback is provided for the academic outline of the assignment.

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