Reflection on the Course

Alhamdulillah, praise to Allah SWT, I managed to survive and finished the EDU 702 ~ Research Methodology class quite well. I would not say that this course is very interesting and invinting, however it is very informative and helpful.

To be honest, deciding to continue with my master after 5 years working was not an ideal decision that I regretted sometimes because I felt 'rustic' and need to catch up with my younger classmates. Sometimes I felt out of breath and wanted to give up. Especially when thinking about my research that is rather detail and a big deal while doing master. (obviously)

Thankfully, I enrolled in this EDU 702 in my second semester which is very helpful with the progress of my research. By the end of this course, I had completed Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 which had given a clear direction on how my research would turn out. I had a meeting with my supervisor, Dr Noor Zainab and Alhamdulillah, she did not have any problem with my research topic. She corrected my research questions and had given me a point of view on which angle to focused on with my wide scope in terms of the topic.

I would like to personally thank  my lovely lecturer Dr. Hamimah for every knowledge given and every guidance provided. I hope you will succeed  in all your future undertakings and granted health and wealth.



Lots of  

Finishing the Write-Up

Alhamdulillah.. I finished my Chapter 1,2 and 3 write up today. To be honest, it was the most challenging assignment to be completed for the whole 2 semesters of my masters. It was not an easy thing to clarify your stand with the back up of previous study. Definitely a lot of reading needed to be done. And to get study that was really similar to your ideas were not easy as well. Nevertheless this assignment is really helpful in getting us to really start on thinking about the dissertation topic and start writing Chapter 1,2 and 3.

Meeting 7

Saturday, 1st Disember 2018

For the last meeting, all of us were required to present our chapter 1, 2 and 3 for our research. There were 16 people altogether which means we could not take too much time to presentation. The time given were only for 10-12 minutes.

My presentation was a little bit haywire. To be honest, I don't really get to practice since there were so many presentations and assignments due on the 1st of Disember. However, I know that is not an excuse to perform badly. Hence, I did not really hope for high marks for this presentation, I just hope I have done enough to make it through to Part 3 next year. Here are some photos from my presentation. My slides got comment on being too colourful for a serious presentation. Have to bear that in mind for next presentation.

Chapter 1, 2, 3 Presentation Slides

Meeting 6

Saturday, 17th November 2018

The dreaded quiz came up for the 6th meeting. It started at 2.00 pm and finished at around 5.00 pm. We finished the class after a little bit housekeeping from Dr Hamimah on what to present for the final meeting. She also asked us to determine the data analysis for each research question because it had to be included in the write up for Chapter 1, 2, and 3

Validity and Reliability

Issues of research reliability and validity need to be addressed in methodology chapter in a concise manner.

Reliability refers to the extent to which the same answers can be obtained using the same instruments more than one time. In simple terms, if your research is associated with high levels of reliability, then other researchers need to be able to generate the same results, using the same research methods under similar conditions. It is noted that “reliability problems crop up in many forms.

Reliability is a concern every time a single observer is the source of data, because we have no certain guard against the impact of that observer’s subjectivity” (Babbie, 2010, p.158). According to Wilson (2010) reliability issues are most of the time closely associated with subjectivity and once a researcher adopts a subjective approach towards the study, then the level of reliability of the work is going to be compromised.

Validity of research can be explained as an extent at which requirements of scientific research method have been followed during the process of generating research findings. Oliver (2010) considers validity to be a compulsory requirement for all types of studies. There are different forms of research validity and main ones are specified by Cohen et al (2007) as content validity, criterion-related validity, construct validity, internal validity, external validity, concurrent validity and face validity.

Measures to ensure validity of a research include, but not limited to the following points:

a) Appropriate time scale for the study has to be selected;

b) Appropriate methodology has to be chosen, taking into account the characteristics of the study;

c) The most suitable sample method for the study has to be selected;

d) The respondents must not be pressured in any ways to select specific choices among the answer sets.

It is important to understand that although threats to research reliability and validity can never be totally eliminated, however researchers need to strive to minimize this threat as much as possible.

Instrumentation

Instrument is the general term that researchers use for a measurement device (survey, test, questionnaire, etc.). To help distinguish between instrument and instrumentation, consider that the instrument is the device and instrumentation is the course of action (the process of developing, testing, and using the device).

Instruments fall into two broad categories, researcher-completed and subject-completed, distinguished by those instruments that researchers administer versus those that are completed by participants. Researchers chose which type of instrument, or instruments, to use based on the research question. Examples are listed below:

Researcher-completed Instruments	Subject-completed Instruments
Rating scales	Questionnaires
Interview schedules/guides	Self-checklists
Tally sheets	Attitude scales
Flowcharts	Personality inventories
Performance checklists	Achievement/aptitude tests
Time-and-motion logs	Projective devices
Observation forms	Sociometric devices

Usability

Usability refers to the ease with which an instrument can be administered, interpreted by the participant, and scored/interpreted by the researcher. Example usability problems include:

1. Students are asked to rate a lesson immediately after class, but there are only a few minutes before the next class begins (problem with administration).
2. Students are asked to keep self-checklists of their after school activities, but the directions are complicated and the item descriptions confusing (problem with interpretation).
3. Teachers are asked about their attitudes regarding school policy, but some questions are worded poorly which results in low completion rates (problem with scoring/interpretation).

Validity and reliability concerns (discussed below) will help alleviate usability issues. For now, we can identify five usability considerations:

1. How long will it take to administer?
2. Are the directions clear?
3. How easy is it to score?
4. Do equivalent forms exist?
5. Have any problems been reported by others who used it?

It is best to use an existing instrument, one that has been developed and tested numerous times, such as can be found in the Mental Measurements Yearbook. We will turn to why next.