MED 871 TUTORIAL QNS

Med871 Group Tutorial

· It is very important for students to participate group tutorials. It is the only time for students to have face to face communication with their tutors.
· To learn more from the tutorials, students need to read the textbook and to think the tutorial questions before coming for the tutorial.
· For this course, each tutorial will count 5% of the final marks: to participate the tutorial discussion (2%) and to hand in what have been prepared for the tutorial discussion (3%), which can be an outline for the discussion.

Tutorial 1
(Covers the first four topics on the CD and related chapters in the textbook)
1. Discuss the following questions in small group:
· What is research?
· How is educational research similar to and different from research in the natural sciences?
· What function does educational research play in educational policy making and daily teaching practice? Provide examples.

2. Discuss and provide feedback to each other in small group, then share the most interesting one(s) with the whole tutorial group.
Give one topic of educational research you would like to study
Specify your research problem(s)/question(s)
Specify your research hypothesis (if you have any)
What is the general procedure by which your study will be conducted?
What type(s) of research method might be most appropriate in order to adequately address your topic? The reason that you chose the particular type of research, and why do you think it is most appropriate for the topic?
How will you conduct your literature review?

Group Tutorial 2
(Covers the topics 5 to 7 on the CD and related chapters in the textbook)

1. Discuss and provide feedback to each other in small group, then share the most interesting one(s) with the whole tutorial group.

Based on the your own research topic presented in Tutorial 1
· How will you select your sample of participants?
· Provide the reasons to support your sample selection
· Describe the advantages and disadvantages of your sample selection
· How will you define the variables in your study? Will you provide any operational definitions to these variables?
· Discuss the reliability and validity of your measurements. What will you do to improve the reliability and validity?
· How are your research’s internal validity and external validity? What will you do to improve them?

Find one example of educational study (you can find from journals, internet, newspaper, or TV)
· Describe the research briefly
· Identify the research question of the study
· How was the sample selected in the study?
· Identify how the variables in the study were measured
· Make your comments on the reliability and validity of the measurements
· Any comments on the study? Any possible improvements for the validity of the study?

Group Tutorial 3
(Covers the last four topics in the CD and related chapters in the textbook)

1. Discuss the following questions in small group:
· What is the general purpose of data analysis in all types of research?
· How are qualitative data analyzed?
· How are quantitative data analyzed?
· What differences do you think are the most important between quantitative and qualitative data analyses?
· In Singapore, which are the ethical issues we cannot forget to consider? Which are not that important?
· How could ethical issues be related to your daily school work?
· What are the sections usually included in research reports?


2. Discuss and provide feedback to each other in small group, then share the most interesting one(s) with the whole tutorial group.

Based on your own research topic presented in Tutorials 1 and 2
· Specify the ways of data analysis
· Is there any alternative way of analyzing data? Explain your answer.
· Specify the advantages and disadvantages of your data analysis
· Does your study reach the ethical requirements?