First, the concept, task and function of research design

1. General definition of educational scientific research design

In order to obtain objective, clear and reliable research conclusions with less manpower, material resources and time, the research methods, research operation procedures and control schemes are carefully, scientifically and completely conceived, determined, planned and expressed according to the determined research projects. In this definition, the former part is the purpose of design, and the latter part refers to the work content of research and design.

2. Educational scientific research and design has two basic tasks:

First of all, select and determine the methods of collecting and analyzing research data to ensure that the methods used in the research are reasonable, reliable and economical; Second, conceive and formulate the operating procedures and control schemes to achieve the research purpose, and ensure that the research is effective, objective and clear. The core content of research design is to ensure that research questions are answered and research objectives are realized.

The research methods and means are reasonable, and the methods and means adopted for a certain hypothesis or research content can meet the functions and potential conditions needed for testing, demonstrating and explaining the research content.

Reliable research methods and means mean that the methods and means used in the research are reliable and repeatable, and even if others do the same work, they can get basically the same results.

The economy of research methods refers to the overall consideration and careful calculation of funds, manpower, material resources and time, so as to strive for the maximum benefit with less investment.

To ensure that the research is effective, it first means that there is a real and definite relationship between the variables used in the research, which may be causal or related. For example, teaching methods and academic performance, social responsibility and learning ability; Secondly, the imagination and conception of this relationship is scientific, which stems from the support of theory, the inspiration of practice and the germination of inspiration. Properly manipulating defined variables in relationships can effectively control and test. Third, the statistical significance of this relationship, whether the mathematical inference tools used are appropriate, whether the data quality meets the required standards, and whether the sample size is appropriate; Fourth, the scope of application of research results. Education and scientific research must ensure a certain scope of application. If it only applies to one person, it is of little significance to education and scientific research.

Ensuring the objectivity of research means that the procedure and control of research must ensure that the influence between research variables can change in a real relationship, which cannot be fictitious or arbitrary, and the collected data reflects the real relationship and is accurate. For example, taking teaching methods and academic performance as two research variables, students' academic performance may be influenced not only by teaching methods, but also by individual tutors and some social or material encouragement. Therefore, it is necessary to design corresponding operating procedures and control schemes to ensure the real relationship between teaching methods and academic performance.

To ensure the research is clear, which means that the design should make the relationships reflected in the research more prominent and distinctive, or produce the largest number of reflection relationships. At the same time, the research results should not be vague or specious, but should be expressed by clear, convincing and reliable data or materials.

3. Study the design function

In any research, people always hope that the relevant resources can be reasonably distributed and effectively used, and the pursuit of maximum benefits. Research design is like a blueprint, which can provide a logical reasoning process for researchers, highlight the key points of research work and guide researchers to complete research tasks clearly, smoothly and economically. Research design is not only a plan, but also a strategy. Strict research design in advance is helpful to make the research have certain validity and reliability. Validity refers to the accuracy of the research results in answering the questions raised by the subjects and the authenticity of the research results reflecting the causal relationship or characteristics between things. Reliability refers to the reliability, accuracy and stability of research results. The level of validity and reliability reflects the value of the research itself. Research without validity and reliability is of no practical value, and research without value is meaningless. Any high-level research work depends on the objectivity, systematicness and scientificity of research, involving many problems such as theoretical conception and scientific methods, careful planning and rigorous implementation, and it is not arbitrary and needs research and design. At the same time, whether the research design itself is scientific, reasonable and perfect is directly related to the research process, cost, reliability and scientificity of the research conclusion. Therefore, it is very necessary to do a good job in research design strictly and prudently before conducting educational research. A good educational research design can ensure the development of research work to a certain extent, just as things have a good start, and a scientific "shortcut" to achieve the goal smoothly can get twice the result with half the effort.

Second, refer to the previous research work.

As a strategic consideration, research design should first consult relevant literature, analyze and draw lessons from previous research work, as a condition for new research or further research, and make choices and decisions on such issues:

(1) Can similar methods be found for reference in natural science and social science research? For example, is there any research to solve similar or identical problems? What are the components of the problem to be studied that are similar to those in other fields?

(2) In the past research, what methods were used to solve this kind of problem? How effective are these methods? For example, what can be used for reference, modification and substitution? What parts need to be added or deleted? Can you reduce the research steps? Can the variables in the study be eliminated or replaced?

(3) Can it be studied from other aspects? Can the problem be re-formalized? How can we change to achieve our goals more effectively? For example, which parts can be rearranged, pushed down or reassembled? Can the time sequence be rearranged? Can you add some conditions and assumptions? Is there any way to get higher-level information to make it closer to the unknown facts, and is there any information missing?

(4) whether to discuss with others, solicit opinions from others, etc.

The above ideas are very beneficial to carry out design research or optimize design scheme.

Third, the design of research objectives

The basis of designing research objectives is research hypothesis (or theoretical conception of research). Research hypothesis is a theoretical concept. In order to verify the hypothesis, it needs to be further transformed into several verifiable, operable and systematic goals, that is, to design certain research goals. Any research hypothesis (a hypothesis) can be divided into several corresponding research objectives, and different research objectives adopt different research types. For example, the two studies, "Comparative Experiment of Two Different Fractional Teaching Methods" and "Investigating Students' Attitudes to Labor Technology Courses by Questionnaire", are naturally different in the research variables and indicators and the choice of subjects because of their different research objectives. Similarly, the research hypotheses of relevance and causality need to be designed with different research objectives and verified with different research methods because of their different nature.

A good research goal design can meet the requirements of professional value, research strength, research conditions and research interests. Professional value refers to its scientificity, effectiveness, conciseness and repeatability in proving hypotheses. The research strength covers three aspects: the knowledge structure of researchers, including the core and edge of knowledge, the direction of expansion and the level of deepening; The thinking characteristics of researchers include the characteristics of thinking quality and thinking route (deduction and induction, accumulation and speculation, etc. ); Scientific research experience, including skilled use of various research methods and related experience. The research conditions are approximate estimation and simple planning of manpower and material resources needed to achieve the research objectives. Research interest means that researchers make a second choice according to their interests on the basis of rational choice, which belongs to an emotional choice. Compared with other practical activities, research activities need to give full play to the initiative and creativity of the subject. Choosing the content of interest will inevitably make the whole research activity a process of pursuing satisfaction and stimulate people's creative thinking.

The research goal is directly related to the choice of subjects, the determination of research variables, and the specific methods and ways to collect data. For example, if the Chinese Protestant method can improve students' writing performance by 15 percentage points, its research objectives can be designed as "teaching, recording and measuring the old and new teaching methods according to the comparative experimental method" and "analyzing the measurement data with statistical methods and explaining the effects of the two teaching methods with statistical conclusions". According to the research objectives, we can define and confirm the research objects and variables, and choose the corresponding and specific data collection methods and methods. Therefore, the design research goal is the premise of choosing the hypothesis proof method and operation link. Scientific research experience shows that it is best to state the hypothesis in written and operable form, and the research objectives must be operable, testable (or measurable) and repeatable, and briefly explained in written form. The advantages of doing this are: making researchers think more clearly and academically rigorous, and helping collaborators or research assistants understand the research topic completely and deeply, which can be used as the preface of the revised research report in the future.

Fourthly, the design of research methods.

In educational science research, there are various specific methods to collect facts and data. For example, laboratory experiment, field experiment, interview, observation, questionnaire, test, literature and so on. Each method can have different design methods and can be divided into many different types. For example, experimental methods can be divided into true experimental design and quasi-experimental design. There are different types of observation methods, such as time sampling and event sampling. Various specific research methods of educational science have their advantages, limitations and specific applicable conditions. At the same time, their forms, types and design methods of collecting facts and data are different. When designing research methods, we should choose the most suitable research method to solve the specific problems raised by the research topic according to the research objectives, the characteristics of the research objects (such as children and adults), the subjective and objective conditions of the research (such as the researcher's scientific research method literacy, research time, manpower and funds), the advantages and disadvantages of various methods and the applicable conditions. Because the same research topic can often use multiple methods to collect data, and each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, the comprehensive application of multiple methods is advocated in the research design of educational science in order to learn from each other's strong points and improve the overall reliability and validity of the research.

When determining the research methods, we need to comprehensively consider the following four aspects:

(1) The sampling method of the research subjects (define the research population, sample size, sampling means, etc. );

(2) The control methods studied (the way of manipulating and controlling variables, experimental treatment, equipment and program arrangement, etc.). );

(3) Methods of collecting research data (determination of measurement indicators, measurement methods, design of scales, provisions of data recording methods, etc.). );

(4) statistical analysis method of data (according to the characteristics of data, choose the way of data quantization processing and hypothesis testing).

Design of verb (verb's abbreviation) research plan

The first part is the expression of the theme

Topic expression usually adopts declarative expression, but it can also be expressed in the form of questions. Through the expression of the subject, this paper tries to form operable research content to guide the research process. Its scope must be limited enough to draw a clear conclusion. Large expressions can dominate small expressions, and the topic field is not a topic expression, but a broad area from which you can choose a topic. It is not difficult to do this. Different opinions in theory or academic point of view always exist universally and objectively. It is helpful to find a way to state the problem according to the theory or previous research results, and personal observation and experience can usually be used as relevant basis. A good research topic expression means a specific answer or conclusion. In order to illustrate the form of expressing the theme, some examples are provided:

(1) Compared with children who have never attended kindergarten, children who have attended kindergarten can achieve better academic performance in the first grade.

(2) Students' participation in competitive sports in middle schools will have a negative impact on their academic performance.

(3) Will racial segregation bring bad consequences to the self-image of minority children?

(4) Realizing that you are participating in the experiment will stimulate the reading performance of the subjects?

The expression of these topics contains more specific contents than the collection of information. They put forward an answer or conclusion and provide a focus for research activities.

The second part is the significance of this topic.

Seriously summarizing and expressing the theoretical significance and application value of the research will help people correctly judge the research value and get the necessary support for the research project. If this step is not done well, it will leave researchers with a meaningless topic, and they can only look up some data with no important value. The significance of the subject is mainly reflected in the scientific value of the research problem, and we should try our best to state the scientificity, instead of making a fuss on the surface and wasting energy. There are so many gaps in educational theory and so much work in educational practice, so we should try our best to avoid spending our energy on topics that have no practical or theoretical significance, or on worthless tentative or superficial research.

The third part defines, limits and defines the relevant content.

It is helpful to define all the terms in the study, and the conceptualizers in some studies should use operational definitions. For example, the concept of "learning ability" is abstract, so it cannot be used as a standard. If the operability of "learning ability" is defined as "reading 25,000 words of reportage in 10 minutes, and briefly describing the main contents, the error rate is less than 5%", then the research will be clearer and easier to implement because of the definition of observable behavior content.

Restriction refers to some conditions beyond the control of the researcher, which can limit the research conclusion and its application in other situations. Definition refers to the definition of research content or scope. Defining the boundaries of research content and scope and pointing out the limitations of its research conditions are helpful to understand the research. For example, the study on the learning attitude of students aged 10- 12 in a certain area can only involve the fifth and sixth grade students of ordinary families in this area. Of course, the choice of research objects or topics should not be extended to other fields (beyond the scope of the sample population). For administrative reasons, it should be noted that more classes cannot be used as experimental groups, the reliability of data collection methods cannot be determined, and restrictions such as random sampling and random grouping cannot be carried out.

The fourth part is the review and summary of relevant literature.

Summarizing the recognized authoritative monographs and previous research results can make researchers familiar with what is known, what is unknown and what is untested. Efficient research is based on past knowledge and research experience, so this step will help to avoid repeating useless research and provide appropriate and meaningful assumptions and suggestions for research. Citing those studies with the same or contradictory conclusions is helpful to understand the existing theories, research background and current problems. It is not always useful and appropriate to list a long list of papers related to the subject. Only those relevant, meaningful and explicitly discussed research documents should be cited in the research plan. When searching related documents, researchers should pay attention to some important contents:

(1) Reports on completed research topics closely related to the current research content;

(2) Research and design (including procedures and data collection methods);

(3) the selected population and the sampling method used;

(4) Give the defined variables;

(5) Irrelevant variables that may affect the research results;

(6) avoidable mistakes;

(7) Suggestions for further study.

Reading and analyzing the existing literature reviews of other professional researchers can get useful opinions and suggestions efficiently. However, this very useful comprehensive article, which focuses on introducing research, can only be used as a basis or reference point for new research and cannot be used to replace one's own independent research. Generally speaking, literature review is listed as the fourth step of the research plan, but in actual research work, retrieving and reading relevant literature is often the first step in the research process, which is overlapping.

Part V Assumptions

To carry out educational scientific research, it is usually necessary to form an appropriate hypothesis to further clarify the nature of the subject, inspire research ideas and guide the process of collecting information. Generally speaking, a good hypothesis has the following basic characteristics:

(1) should be reasonable and conform to a certain logical relationship;

(2) It should conform to known facts or axioms;

(3) It should be expressed in such a way that it can be designed to be tested in some way to judge its authenticity;

(4) It should be expressed in as simple terms as possible.

Research hypothesis is a rational guess or intuition, or a tentative answer to an unsolved meaningful question. The research hypothesis is based on previous studies or some theories, and it is easy to verify or falsify. Usually, the research process method (that is, from data collection, data analysis to the conclusion) is also the process method to prove the hypothesis.

Part VI Method Description

Usually, this part focuses on two contents: the research object and the research procedure.

The research object part should briefly explain the sampling methods of the research population and researchers, and determine the number of subjects and sampling methods in the population. The research variables and design control methods are summarized and improved. According to the general types of research, common variables include: age, grade, intellectual education (if different from the average level), achievement level of various scientific occupations, etc.

The procedural part mainly includes the types, quantity and arrangement of research methods adopted. What to do, how to do it, what data are needed, what data collection means and data analysis methods are used in detail. The content of this part should be as specific and detailed as possible, so that you can accurately understand the specific content and process of learning after reading it, leaving no doubt.

Part VII Timetable

Preparing a timetable can effectively budget the time and content of the study. Dividing the project into easy-to-start parts and roughly arranging the time to finish the work are conducive to systematically arranging the work and improving the research efficiency.

Some work in a research project has a strict order, and the follow-up work can only be started after the previous work is completed. For example, in the process of educational science research, the relevant literature review part is usually completed and finalized after the literature collection process. If the research project is very complex, you can use a flowchart or a time task diagram to describe the work sequence. Some academic research projects usually have strict time limits and "hard-core" deadlines for completing research reports. Therefore, it is very important to determine the time and objectives of the project plan. Some special research projects and specific professional research topics require researchers to submit regular reports to relevant departments or academic authorities in time. This situation will increase the workload of researchers, but it can also help them to carry out the stage, urge and help researchers to work in a planned way.