tips on preparing a successful educational research proposal fiona fui-hoon nah, professor, bit...

Tips on Preparing a Successful Educational

Research ProposalFiona Fui-Hoon Nah, professor, BIT

Nancy J. Stone, professor and chair, Psychological Science

Diane Hagni, CERTI

March 7, 2014

Data about the mini-grant program

• 20 projects funded since spring 2011• Projects from 11 departments• Five team projects• Two awardees received multiple grants• 52% of awardees are tenure-track; 48%

non-tenure-track• Awardees have ranged from lecturers to

Curators’ Professors

Data about the mini-grant program

• Average award is $3,171; minimum awarded, $500, and maximum, $7,500, for a multi-disciplinary project

• Five projects had matching funds from their departments or other sources

• Go here for suggested areas of focus

Resources on CERTI site

http://certi.mst.edu/educationalresearch/

Comparison of grant programsGrant Program

Administered by Amount of funding

Focus of Program

Timeline for 2014

Other information

Educational Research Mini-Grants

Center for Educational Research and Teaching Innovation (CERTI); funding through Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Range from $1,000-$10,000; average award amount is $3,000-$4,000 for single PI project; one year project

Funding to promote teaching scholarship in the classroom – supporting projects that examine and improve teaching and learning practices

Letter of intent due – March 14; Proposal due – April 14;Awards announced in May; Funding released in May 2014 (50%) and at end of project, August 31, 2015 (50%)

Presentation required at S&T Teaching and Learning Technology Conference Educational Research Symposium in mid-March (latter part of grant cycle). For more information about the program, go to http://certi.mst.edu/educationalresearch/

eFellows grants

Educational Technology Office; funding through Provost’s office

3 tiers -- full course redesign ($5,000); step redesign ($2,000); teaching with technology ($1,000). These are one-year to three-semester projects

Funding to redesign courses for blended or fully online delivery using best pedagogical practices to improve student learning

Program Participation Workshops – March 20 and April 3;Letter of intent due – April 25;Proposal due – June 27;Awards announced – Aug. 15

Participation required in the eLearning Community of Practice three times per semester. Faculty will work with instructional designers on course redesign. For more information about the program, go to http://edtech.mst.edu/elearning/efellows/

What is educational research?

• A systematic process for understanding learning and teaching effectiveness – i.e., applying the scientific method

• A means to uncover the processes and interactions underlying learning and teaching, such as– Motivation– Acquisition of knowledge– Presentation of material– Impact of environment and interaction

General suggestions

• Be sure to follow directions closely• Be clear and specific

– Consider your audience– Justification – Research question– Procedure– What are you measuring? How will you measure it?– IRB (http://irb.mst.edu/)

• Social and behavioral science

Research question/statementNot specific or measurable

• Students will be better learners.

Specific and measurable

• Providing video demos with the lab instructions (i.e., specific intervention) will help students to improve their lab test scores (i.e., specific and measurable outcome[s]).

Students who receive <intervention> will achieve higher <outcomes – e.g., test scores> than students without <intervention>.

Hypothesis

Research strategy / assessmentNon-specific or unclear

• Students may incorporate the intervention and then provide feedback regarding the intervention.

Specific with adequate details

• An experimental study will be used to test the intervention where students will be randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions - <control condition – i.e., without intervention> and <treatment condition – i.e., with intervention>.

• Followed by research procedures and assessment details

Measuring outcomesNon-specific or unclear

• Student feedback will be gathered and assessed.

Specific with adequate details

• Satisfaction with the course will be assessed using the measurement items in Eastman et al. (2011) that were adapted from Oliver (1993). [Validated measure]

OR• We will develop our own

measures for assessing Satisfaction with the course to more specifically assess the unique aspects of the course. [“Homemade” measure]

Note: It would be helpful to review existing validated measures in the literature and adapt from them in developing your homemade measure.

Summary• Format (see call for proposals for more info)

– A brief abstract (100 words)– Purpose of project

• Motivation and significance of research project

– Pertinent information about your class (anticipated student enrollment, number of sections taught, etc.)

– Research question to be addressed• Clear educational research question/statement• Hypothesis/Hypotheses (preferred/recommended)

– Learning outcomes to be addressed• Be specific

– Methodology• Research design (e.g., experiment, survey, case study – can be combination)• Research procedures• Measurement of outcomes

– Evaluation and feedback• How will you document success and show how project objectives are achieved

– Budget with justification– Deliverables