Ed.D. Doctor of Education Doctor of Education Research Methodology 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: An Ed.D. researcher uses an interrupted time series design to evaluate a district-wide reading intervention. The key advantage of this design over a simple pre-post comparison is:
- It eliminates the need for a control group entirely
- It controls for pre-existing trends in the outcome variable (Correct answer)
- It allows random assignment of students to conditions
- It measures outcomes at a single point in time
Correct answer: It controls for pre-existing trends in the outcome variable
Interrupted time series designs use multiple pre-intervention data points to establish a trend, making it possible to detect whether an intervention caused a change beyond the existing trend.
Question 2: Which type of validity evidence is gathered when a researcher demonstrates that scores on a leadership survey correlate with supervisors' independent ratings of the same leaders?
- Content validity
- Convergent validity (Correct answer)
- Discriminant validity
- Face validity
Correct answer: Convergent validity
Convergent validity is demonstrated when a measure correlates positively with another measure of the same or related construct.
Question 3: A multilevel model (HLM) is preferred over ordinary regression when analyzing student achievement data because:
- It eliminates the need for a large sample
- It accounts for the non-independence of students nested within classrooms (Correct answer)
- It converts ordinal data to interval data automatically
- It removes the influence of outliers from the dataset
Correct answer: It accounts for the non-independence of students nested within classrooms
HLM addresses the statistical problem of non-independence (clustering) that occurs when students in the same classroom share environmental influences.
Question 4: In qualitative content analysis, the process of grouping similar codes into broader categories is called:
- Open coding
- Axial coding
- Pattern matching
- Thematic clustering (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Thematic clustering
Thematic clustering (or theme development) involves grouping related codes into broader, overarching themes that represent patterns across the data.
Question 5: A researcher's study on equity in gifted education deliberately centers the perspectives of historically marginalized families. This approach is most aligned with which paradigm?
- Post-positivism
- Transformative/emancipatory paradigm (Correct answer)
- Interpretivism
- Pragmatism
Correct answer: Transformative/emancipatory paradigm
The transformative/emancipatory paradigm explicitly centers equity, social justice, and the perspectives of marginalized groups as a guiding research principle.
Question 6: When an IRB classifies a study as 'exempt,' it means:
- The researcher does not need to inform participants about the study
- The study poses minimal risk and meets specific federal categories for exemption (Correct answer)
- The researcher may collect data without any ethical oversight
- Participants do not need to meet inclusion criteria
Correct answer: The study poses minimal risk and meets specific federal categories for exemption
Exempt status means the study meets specific low-risk federal categories but does not eliminate ethical obligations; the IRB still makes the exemption determination.
Question 7: A doctoral student's literature review reveals conflicting findings across five studies on the same intervention. The best way to resolve this conflict statistically is:
- Select the study with the largest sample and adopt its conclusion
- Conduct a meta-analysis to synthesize effect sizes across studies (Correct answer)
- Average the p-values from each study
- Eliminate studies with qualitative components
Correct answer: Conduct a meta-analysis to synthesize effect sizes across studies
Meta-analysis statistically combines effect sizes from multiple studies to produce an overall estimate of an intervention's impact, resolving conflicting findings systematically.
Ed.D. Doctor of Education Doctor of Education Research Methodology 4
An Ed.D. researcher uses an interrupted time series design to evaluate a district-wide reading intervention.
The key advantage of this design over a simple pre-post comparison is: