comment on others work

comment on students work… grading rubric included

1st student

After our assigned readings in Murnane & Willet (2011), I would say that we as a general group, are capable of producing “generalizable” knowledge. But it is not just as simple as generating a standard bench science study of cause and effect. General knowledge in education research requires that of any other research design; such as procedures and factors that must be included in the fundamental processes of all types of research. Without addressing the proper elements, and what Murnane & Willet (2011) refer to as “tenets”, the possibility of making a defensible causal claim about an educational policy becomes invalid.

The one difference between descriptive and casual research that Murnane & Willet (2011) point out, refers to whoever the researcher is that purposes the central question or the “centerpiece of research design”, and how they value that question in determining the origins of their subject sample. “This single issue and its consequences for design data analysis, and interpretation distinguish credible casual research from all other research” (Murnane & Willet, 2011).

I do believe that it is possible to use the tools that we have established to apply a “generalized” consensus across the vast array of educational systems, but it is all dependent on how the researcher draws upon his or her sample population and if there is a clear connection between the value of the sample group and the principal question predictor.

2nd student

Murnane and Willett (n.d.) discuss the cause and effect or casual relationship within research believing that casual research requires attention to “central tenets.” First off, researches must address casual questions which is the experiment (p. 30). Truly the objective of research is to determine how the outcomes of different sample populations differ. To make the research as clear as possible, as well as explicit, Murnane and Willette agree that defining the population of interest is critical for generalization.

It is critical for the analytical sample, or investigative sample to be fully representative in the sample.

I can certainly see how difficult it is for researchers to have a research study that is entirely generalized. I do believe that we can produce generalizable knowledge in education research, but it would have to be with a very controlled sample size/population. Surely we can use tools to generate questions that apply to a wide variety of schools, but I think it would be extremely difficult to have entirely “generalizable” research because with somany changing variables it can get to be difficult.