This course is an overview of the fundamentals of research and statistics. It is designed to provide students with the basic knowledge and skills needed to be successful in graduate level studies. Ethical issues related to research, including basic theory and practice, professional codes of ethics, governmental regulations, and confidentiality are addressed. Students will examine the issues of information and intellectual property, privacy issues in a digital environment and the relationship of individual, governmental and societal concerns in an ever advancing and changing electronic community.

Educational Research

• Examine various approaches to conducting educational research.
• Analyze various sources for research ideas.
• Identify the basic steps in developing a research plan.
• Examine scholarly literature to document research problems and solutions.

Organizing, Analyzing, and Interpreting Data

• Distinguish between the various types of scores that are used in educational research.
• Compare methods for collecting different types of data.
• Explain how elements of research can affect validity and reliability.
• Analyze the importance of sampling methods.
• Evaluate methods for analyzing data in qualitative research.

Descriptive Statistics

• Analyze the purpose of descriptive statistics.
• Identify appropriate uses for measures of central tendency.
• Analyze the elements of effective graphs and charts for data presentation.
• Analyze uses for z-scores when conducting research.
• Compare methods for organizing different types of data.
• Examine the purpose of standard deviation in data analysis.
• Examine the use of correlational statistics in educational research.
• Examine uses for frequency distributions in data collection and analysis.

Inferential Statistics

• Examine the purposes of tests of statistical significance in educational research.
• Identify the rationale for using null and alternate hypotheses.
• Determine when a variety of statistical procedures are appropriate for different research purposes.

Ethical Issues Related to Research

• Analyze examples of research situations involving legal, ethical, or human relation issues.
• Examine the elements of the American Psychological Association's (APA) written code of ethics.
• Outline guidelines for conducting research using human subjects.
• Examine the ethical issues that can arise when publishing reports of a research study.
• Define ethics and the need for them in the current information society.
• Apply methods for analyzing ethical issues in research and technology.
• Define ethics and the need for technology-related ethics in the current information society.

Intellectual Property, Confidentiality, and Privacy Issues

• Examine the different types of licensing associated with digitized works.
• Analyze the differences among copyrights, patents, and trade secrets.
• Analyze the concepts of e-mail ownership, privacy, rights, libel, and slander.
• Analyze existing laws and guidelines regarding e-mail.

Individual, Governmental, and Societal Issues

• Analyze the impact of technology on individual and social behaviors.
• Examine the implications of free speech on e-mail and the Internet.
• Examine the ethical ramifications of using the Internet to transport and store school, student/employee, and personal data.