Quantitative methods in educational research : the role of numbers made easy

219 Pages·2001·11.59 MB·English

by  Stephen Gorard

Quantitative Methods in Educational Research
Also available from Continuum:
Bill Gillham: Case Study Research Methods
Bill Gillham: Developing a Questionnaire
Bill Gillham: The Research Interview
Brahm Oppenheim: Questionnaire Design
Roy Preece: Starting Research
Richard Pring: Philosophy of Educational Research
David Scott and Robin Usher: Researching Education
Geoffrey Walford: Doing Qualitative Research
Jerry Wellington: Educational Research
Quantitative Methods
in Educational
Research
The Role of Numbers Made Easy
Stephen Gorard

Continuum
London and New York
Continuum
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11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038
© 2001 Stephen Gorard
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
First published 2001
Reprinted 2007
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN PB: 978-0-8264-5307-5
HB: 978-0-8264-5306-8

Typeset by Paston PrePress Ltd, Becdes, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd.,
King's Lynn, Norfolk
FOR SEE BENG HUAT
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Contents
Lisf of figures ix
List of tables xi
Abbreviations xiii
Preface XV
1
A changing climate for educational research 1
2 Sampling: the basis of all research 9
3 Collecting secondary data: the 'idle' researcher 43
4 Simple analysis: the index wars and other battles 57
5 Surveying the field: questionnaire design 80
6 Simple non-parametric statistics: minding your table
manners 109
7 Experimental approaches: a return to the gold standard? 133
8 Elementary parametric statistics: what do they signify? 151
9 Introducing correlations: progress via regression 167
Glossary of selected terms 183
Useful addresses 188
References 189
Index 199
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List of figures
2.1 Standard error decreases with size of sample 18
4.1 Frequency of mothers with degrees 1 62
4.2 Frequency of mothers with degrees 2 63
4.3 The 'growing' gap between girls and boys 68
5.1 Draft questionnaire on background to web-based
participation 104
9.1 Scatterplot for each local authority: GCSE benchmark
1998 against percentage of children eligible for free school
meals 168
9.2 Scatterplot for each school: proportion of students attaining
any qualification 1999 against school share of students
eligible for free school meals 173