What’s Educational Research and What Does It Have to Do With Me? Educator Perceptions

• In Event: Students' and Instructors' Conceptions and Applications of Teaching and Learning Research Methods

Abstract

Despite the emphasis placed on the research competency of all education professionals, many education graduate students struggle to find meaning, connections, and motivation in their research methods courses and consider those courses one of the most challenging—and least pragmatic—courses in their graduate programs. To address this problem, we launched a mixed-methods study, examining graduate students' conceptions of educational research and exploring key demographic and programmatic factors that shape their learning experiences and outcomes in different sections of an introductory research methods course required of all master's students in our college. This paper reports key results from the survey component of the project that investigated students' conception of educational research and their professional identities as teachers-researchers.

Authors

• Xiaoxia A. Newton, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Jada Marie Deiderich, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools

• Jae Hoon Lim, University of North Carolina - Charlotte