Which research method would best suit my reserach?

[Priya Muffin]

Hi!

I am doing research on “does class size affect student achievement”

My independent variable is :Class size

Dependent variable is: Student achievement

For student achievement I will be collecting data from TIMSS for Math and science.

Some of the confounding variables are:

Student level: Students socio-economic background and parents education.

School level: Teachers age, experience and level of qualification.

I am not sure as to which research method would best help me analyze the results and why that would be the best method to employ.

[Katie Metzler]

Hi Priya, is this for academic study? If so, the first person you should consult is your supervisor. There is lots of research that has sought to show the relationship between class size and achievement, and a lot of large scale studies have already been done. For example, the 4-year large-scale randomzed experiment called project STAR in Tennessee, which is very often cited.  http://aer.sagepub.com/content/37/1/123.short

A quick search in Google scholar will give you access to research which has already been published about this topic. http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=class+size+achievement&hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=on

Are you planning to do your own primary research or is your aim to synthesise research that’s already been carried out? As I said, your supervisor/teacher/research advisor is the best person to discuss this with if you’re doing research to meet academic requirements, as they will vary from institution to institution and we wouldn’t want to give you advice that didn’t match your the requirements of your course.

Best of luck! 

Katie

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