Week 1

• No additional readings this week

Week 2

• Parents who abduct: A qualitative study with implications for practice
• Guiding Questions document in Word or rtf format
• Teachers' Evaluative Comments and Pupil Perception of Control (2.2 MB PDF file)
• Article Critique of "Teachers' Evaluative..." in Word or rtf format

• Statement of the Problem Sample Assignment to use as a model

Week 4

• Open and read this short explanation of hypotheses and research questions and a focus on the null hypothesis from Patten (1997).  You may download it in Word or RTF format. There are short exercises with answers provided to check your comprehension. We will talk more about some of these in future weeks.
• Open and read this short 2 page explanation of the four scales of measurement from Patten (1997).  You may download it in Word or RTF format. There is a short exercise with answers provided to check your comprehension.
• Open and read these short explanations of variables in non-experimental and experimental research from Patten (1997).  You may download it in Word or RTF format. There are short exercises with answers provided to check your comprehension.

Week 5

• No additional readings this week

Week 6

• No additional readings this week

Week 7

• Open and read the short explanations of the topics [from Patten (1997)] listed below for more information related to different types of sampling .  You may download each of them in Word or RTF format. There are short exercises with answers provided to check your comprehension.

  • biased and unbiased sampling (Word or RTF)
  • simple random and systematic sampling (Word or RTF)
  • stratified random sampling (Word or RTF)
  • other methods of sampling (Word or RTF)
  • introduction to sample size (Word or RTF)
  • a closer look at sample size (Word or RTF)
• Case Studies on Sampling
• Open and read the short explanation of operational definitions below.  You may download it in Word or RTF format. There are short exercises with answers provided to check your comprehension.
  • operational definitions of variables (Word or RTF)
  • operational definition exercise (Word or RTF)
• Case Studies on Operational Definitions
• Open and read the short explanations of the topics [from Patten (1997)] listed below for more information related to different types of reliability and validity.  You may download each of them in Word or RTF format. There are short exercises with answers provided to check your comprehension.
  • introduction to validity (Word or RTF)
  • judgmental validity (Word or RTF)
  • empirical validity (Word or RTF)
  • judgmental-empirical validity (Word or RTF)
  • reliability and its relationship to validity (Word or RTF)
  • measures of reliability (Word or RTF)
• Case Studies on Measurement

Week 8

• Case Studies on Experimental Designs

Week 9

• No additional readings this week

Week 10

• No additional readings this week

Week 11

• No additional readings this week

Week 12

• No additional readings this week

Week 13

• No additional readings this week