EDU 522: Research Methods: Improving Learning Organizations

Overview

In adult education, particularly related to corporate training or higher education, the adult educator may be called upon to justify the development or continuation of an educational program based on research into the efficacy of that program to achieve desired results.  Even if not required, the adult educator should be prepared to evaluate the results of a program in order to justify curricula and/or instructional practices.  These requirements necessitate the acquisition of skills in developing and evaluating research.  This course teaches the necessary skills to apply fundamental research skills in developing and delivering adult education programs.  The emphasis of the course is short-term, practical research applications (applied research as opposed to theoretical research).

This course is a practicum.  It utilizes a constructive approach, applying the principles of research methodology to build a practical application within an actual organizational setting.  The professional synthesizing project for this course is an applied research design, followed by the implementation of the research, collection of data, and production of a research report.  The student works with a sponsor within the organization to oversee and evaluate the research project.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Apply fundamental research skills to instructional design projects.
• Evaluate and assess instruction and its impact.
• Identify and catalog the various types of research methods appropriate for adult education applications.
• Identify and define a question or problem that will be the focus of an adult education research project.
• Find, analyze, and summarize relevant literature related to the subject of the research project.
• Design a practical research project to answer a research question related to adult education.
• Develop or select proper instrumentation for the conduct of a research project.
• Conduct a practical research project related to an adult education application with an organization.
• Analyze and report research results.
• Relate research results to the goals and requirements of an adult education application in an organization.

Required Texts
EDU 522 texts are available from the JIU/MBS bookstore