Research Methods

NSF- User-Friendly Handbook for Mixed Method Evaluations:

 ISWorld’s “Qualitative Research on Information Systems:”

IS World’s “Survey Research in IS:”
 

Management Information Systems Research:
 

Ron Rice’s bibliography on statistics and research methods useful for studying new media:
 

Judith Wilde and Suzanne Sockey, EVALUATION HANDBOOK:

Bill Trochini's (Cornell) Center for Social Research Methods, a website is for people involved in applied social research and evaluation.

FIPSE Evaluation Bibliography

Evaluation of Online Courses

The Web of Asynchronous Learning Networks home page.
 

ERIC is the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) At its Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation site, you can find "links to some of the best full-text books, reports, journal articles, newsletter articles and papers on the Internet that address educational measurement, evaluation and learning theory."
   

Flashlight: Helping You Analyze and Improve Educational Uses of Technology (charges fees)

U of Illinois Online Resources:

Research Reports from "CTER," an online Master of Education Degree in Curriculum, Technology, and Education Reform offered by the U. of Illinois Online

Shadish, William (1998). Some Evaluation Questions. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 6(3). Available online:   

The “No significant difference” phenomenon:
  

Educational Resources Information Center:


(Canadian) TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence:

Assessment Report Available from National Academy of Sciences The Committee on the Foundations of Assessment was established by the National Academy of Sciences to address the critical need for "new kinds of educational assessments that better serve the goals of equity." Their report "Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment" was released in pre-publication form and can be ordered from the NAS website

Links to Educational Research Methods Resources

Educational Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
(On online description and order form for a good text on educational research methods)

Resources for Faculty Teaching Online:  

ONLINE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: This web site was developed by Central Queensland University in Australian and is "devoted to world's best practice in online collaborative learning in higher education, and related topics: here you'll find links to online articles, books, journals, and other relevant information."
 

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)is a continuously growing collection of online learning materials and support resources that help faculty enhance their online courses.
 

Learning to Teach On-Line (LETTOL): LeTTOL is for teachers, lecturers, trainers, materials developers, and academic or technical managers. It provides an opportunity for participants to gain an understanding of how on-line learning works
 

New Jersey Virtual U’s Faculty Center:

Usable Web - Many links to resources for creating user friendly websites:
 

Illinois Online Network’s “Resources,” including especially, “Instructional Design for Online Courses:”
 

Research Instruments

Sample Focus Group Topic Guide (for teachers who had participated in a teaching enhancement workshop)

Online Journals

Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks

Journal of Interactive Learning Research (JILR)

Journal of Interactive Media in Education[On-Line]

Journal of Computer Mediated Communication (JCMC) (occassional special issues and frequent articles on CMC and education)

The Technology Source (ISSN 1532-0030), a peer-reviewed bimonthly periodical published by the School of Education, UNC-Chapel Hill, is to provide thoughtful, illuminating articles that will assist educators as they face the challenge of integrating information technology tools into teaching and into managing educational organizations.

The Online Journal of Distance Education Administration

Funding Sources

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Learning Outside the Classroom: The    Sloan program in asynchronous learning, Anytime, Anywhere, Online

FIPSE:

Learning Theories and Educational Research

 

Martin Ryder, "an engineer trapped in a teacher's mind," has put together a remarkably comprehensive gathering of categorized links about learning theories. We especially recommend these two pages to begin exploration. For theoretical resources for Psychology and Learning, see:
 

Celebrities in Cognitive Science: Authors. In this section, Ryder highlights his pick of celebrity cognitive scientists.
 

The Theory Into Practice (TIP) database was assembled by Greg Kearsley. TIP is "a tool intended to make learning and instructional theory more accessible to educators. The database contains brief summaries of 50 major theories of learning and instruction. These theories can also be accessed by learning domains and concepts."

The Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education at the University of Michigan develops theories and practices for learner-centered technology and curriculum. For a complete list of papers see:
 

We highly recommend this online paper: Learning Theory in Practice: Case Studies of Learner-Centered Design by Elliot Soloway et al.

Brigham Young University's Instructional Psychology & Technology program has a virtual learning library. At this site, you can find important links to learning theory and research (learning theories), measurement and evaluation, instructional design and education topics.
 

Community Learning Network of the Open School (Open Learning Agency) in Vancouver, British Columbia has assembled a page on Learning Theory. "Proponents of information technologies in education speak of assisting student-centered learning through technology's ability to access, store, manipulate and analyze information, thereby enabling learners to spend less time gathering information and more time reflecting on its meaning."

At Funderstanding, a site devoted to helping corporations make better products for children's learning, they have put together an overview of the main Learning Theories: Constructivism, Behaviorism, Piaget's, Developmental Theory, Neuroscience, Brain-Based Learning, Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, Right Brain/Left Brain Thinking, Communities of Practice, Control Theory, Observational Learning, and Vygotsky and Social Cognition.

Carolyn D. Jacobson has used an online mindmapping tool to describe learning theories visually. This is an excellent method of visualizing the connections among the theories from Jacobson's lens. While many of the websites linked belong to others, we recommend the innovative way that she has organized the information.
 

The JSU Encyclopedia of Psychology has a section called, Paradigms and Theories. This database is worth a visit at

We especially recommend this page on cognition:

Call For Papers - 36th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, 2010, "mini-tracks" on Technology Mediated Learning and Asynchronous Learning Networks.

The 8th Sloan-Consortium International Conference Online Learning: Emerging Standards of Excellence in Asynchronous Learning Networks will be held on November 8-10, 2009 in Orlando, Florida.

Frontiers in Education 2009- Boston November 6-9

36th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, 2010
( Includes "mini-tracks" on Technology Mediated Learning and Asynchronous Learning Networks)

CSCL 2010 (Norway)

Ray Schroeder, University of Illinois at Springfield has created Web Log ("blog" for dealing with online learning)

Distance-Educator.com The site provides a daily newsfeed of distance education and online learning headlines, resource and book listings, feature articles, feature sites, research reports,and more.

Other

A moderated and highly  structured discussion about the drivers and designs for the next generation of On-line Learning Systems.