RESEARCH
The overall aim of the course
why you should study it
The overall aim of the course is to prepare you for writing your master project (dissertation) in terms of academic requirements you are expected to fulfil.

This course would:
1. Provide you with the basic information needed to understand the research process, from idea formulation through data analysis and interpretation.
2. Enable you to use this knowledge to design your own research study on a topic of personal interest.
3. Allow you to read and understand educational research literature.

The main outcome is to design your own research study
what you will be able to do in terms of your own research
Here's what you will be able to do after successfully completing the course:
  • identify the basic components involved in the research process;
  • distinguish between quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research;
  • identify research trends and gaps in education;
  • formulate and clarify a research question;
  • identify variables that might be investigated by educational researchers;
  • formulate a research hypotheses that might be investigated in education;
  • conduct a search of the literature for your research;
  • describe different approaches to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research designs;
  • use different data collection and data analysis methods.
Semester Projects
what will help you demonstrate your skills
The tasks are aimed at sharing your vision for your own research:

RESEARCH JOURNALS IN YOUR FIELD — 4 pts
Identify and evaluate academic journals relevant to your research area. 

RESEARCH TRENDS — 10 pts
Look through some journals in your field. Read abstracts for articles related to your area of interest / research and identify the most popular topics and themes.

RESEARCH ANALYSIS — up to 8 pts
Thoroughly analyze article(s) related to your research.

PRELIMINARY LITERATURE REVIEW — 6 pts
An overview of the main points of each source related to different themes of your research that combines them into a coherent whole.
Final project: Presentation of the research (10 points)
what will help you demonstrate your skills at the end of the course
The main assignment is to present your research and its methods.

Presentation of your research must include:
  1. The title of your research;
  2. The hypotheses of your research, its dependent and independent variables;
  3. The main arguments ("reasons") that support your hypothesis based on the literature analysis you have conducted;
  4. Summary of current research trends you identified while working with sources;
  5. The significance of your research based on the research trends or/and the analysed literature;
  6. Methods appropriate for your research and how they will help you prove your hypothesis and measure the indicated variables;
  7. Data collection options and limitations of the chosen methods.
Presentation: Checklist
— All the seven components are presented
— All the components are aligned with each other:
  • the title is connected with the hypothesis;
  • the hypothesis is consistent with the main arguments;
  • the significance is based on research trends / analysed literature;
  • the methods are consistent with the hypothesis and arguments
— The presentation takes 8 minutes maximum.
— All slides follow the rule of 7: no more than 7 lines of text or 7 bullet points (the heading included).
Final assessment: Exam questions (10 points)
what will help you demonstrate your knowledge at the end of the course
The face-to-face exam is aimed at the revision of the main theoretical themes of the course combined with your own examples taken from literature and your own research.

Examples of examination questions:
  • What is a research question? What are its main characteristics? What is the research question of your MA project? What is the research question of the arcticle you analyzed?
  • What is a working hypothesis? What is the working hypothesis of your MA project? What is the hypothesis of the arcticle you analyzed?
  • Explain the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Give examples of such sources related to your research.
  • What are the dependent & independent variables? What the dependent & independent variables of your research? What other variables might affect scientific research?
  • Name the main methods of data collection in qualitative / quantitative research. What are their characteristics? How were they applied in the article you analyzed?
  • What are the most important stages of data analysis in qualitative / quantitative research? How were they applied in the article you analyzed?
  • What is the main aim of the Results section? How was it presented in the research article that you analyzed?
  • What is the main aim of the Discussion section? How was it presented in the research arcticle you analyzed?
Assessment system
how the teacher will evaluate your work
Your score = points gained for:
  • active participation in seminars (presenting homework, answering questions, group work, etc.)
  • dealing with your individual projects
  • final assessment
The grading scheme ranges from 0 to 100 points
  • Participation in seminars = about 37 points max
  • Individual projects & assignments = about 28 points max
  • The final assessment = 20 points max (10 points for the exam, 10 points for the presentation)
  • Additional test = 10 points max
  • Attendance (more than 66 %) = 4-5 points
4-point scale and the grading scheme:
less than 50 points = Fail
50—64 points = Satisfactory
65—84 points = Good
85—100 points = Excellent

The full grading scheme is available in the course folder.
Course folder
Google Classroom 101 Modern technologies of teaching English
Google Classroom КТИ Cognitive technologies and AI
1. Research Process: Overview
Types of research. The dissertation structure
2. Research questions
Problems, questions, variables, hypothesis
3. Types of sources & literature review
Main types of sources and how to find them
4. Methods
Quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method studies
5. Method section of your research
How to describe research approaches, participants, and procedure
6. Data collection & analysis
How to clearly describe the specific steps of data collection and data analysis
7. Results
How to present the results of your study
8. Discussion
What to include in the Discussion section
9. Intro & Outro
What the conclusion should consist of
COURSE CONTENT
1. Research Process
Experienced researchers often consider many of these components simultaneously as they develop their research plan:
  • Statement of the research problem
  • Formulation of an exploratory question or a hypothesis:
  • Definitions
  • Review of the related literature
  • Methods: participants and procedures
  • Instrumentation: data collection & analysis tools.

Presentation 1

Handout 1

MINI-PROJECT 1

The goal of this assignment is to help you develop the skills to identify and evaluate academic journals relevant to your research area. 

Step 1: Understand the categories
You will identify and categorize journals into three groups based on their scope and focus:  
1. Overarching broad focus: Journals that cover a wide range of topics within education or related fields (e.g., Educational Researcher, Review of Educational Research).  
2. Discipline-specific focus: Journals that focus specifically on your area of research within education (e.g., Language Teaching Research, Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence).  
3. Specialized focus: Journals that target a very specific niche within your discipline (e.g., The Reading Teacher, Journal of Second Language Writing).  

Step 2: Conduct your search Use the following strategies to identify relevant journals  
1. Reliable academic databases:  ERIC, ProQuest, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar 
2. Citation tracking: Look at the reference lists of key articles in your field to identify where leading researchers publish.  
3. Journal rankings: Consult journal ranking tools like Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) or Google Scholar Metrics to evaluate the impact and relevance of journals.  
4. Use AI-powered research tools like Perplexity AI to discover relevant journals. These tools can help you:  
   - Identify high-impact journals in your field.  
   - Find related articles and their publication sources.  
   - Explore trends and gaps in the literature.  

Step 3: Organize your findings
Create a list of 9–16 journals, grouped into the three categories mentioned above. For each journal, provide the following information:  
1. Journal name & link to its homepage
2. Scope/Focus: A brief description of the journal’s focus (1–2 sentences).  
3. Relevance to your research: Explain why this journal is relevant to your research (1–2 sentences).  

Your submission should include a table with your list of journals, organized into the three categories.  



2. Research questions
MINI PROJECT 2

1 Traditional Version

Select one of the journals and begin with the volumes/issues from 3 years previous and complete the following steps:
1 Look through the table of contents to identify articles that are related to your area of interest / research.
2 Read the abstracts for each article and record the topics and themes you see based on the abstracts in your blank chart, giving each topic or theme its own row. You may notice that there are broad, general topics/themes and more specific subtopics/subthemes.
3 Rearrange your table as necessary to record subtopics/ subthemes underneath their more general categories. use the numbers column to show the relationship between general topics/themes and subtopics/subthemes (e.g., 1 is a general or unique category, but 1a is a subtopic or subtheme of 1).
4 As you read the abstracts, record some basic bibliographic information about all of the articles that focus on a specific topic or theme.
5 Continue this process until you have looked at the most recent 3 years of one journal.
6 Repeat the entire process using a different journal. Again, do not make a new table—just add to the table you have already started.
By the time you complete this process using at least 3 years of two different journals, you should have a clear idea of what the current research trends in your discipline are.
If there are few research articles related to your project, move on to another journal.

You may use these works for inspiration:
Research trends: Reading fiction
Research trends: Web platforms for lexical skills

2 AI Version

Complete manual

Presentation 2
3. Types of sources & literature review
The boundaries of the groups are fuzzy, but knowing these categories can help you plan your research.
1 Consult Primary Sources for Evidence
2 Read Secondary Sources to Learn from Other Researchers
3 Read Tertiary Sources for Introductory Overviews

Theory & presentation

Literature Review must...
• bridge your dependent and independent variables;
• be organized thematically around the main arguments ("reasons") in favour of your
hypothesis;
• logically prepare the reader for the method section of your research;

Literature Review: Example of organization
The Use of E-learning Tools in Teaching Intonation to Linguistics Students
1.1 Foreign accent, intelligibility, and pronunciation teaching
1.2 Main features of pronunciation and prosody
1.3 Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Teaching (CAPT)
1.4 E-learning tools for teaching intonation
1.5 Visualization of speech
4. Methods
5. Methods section of your research
6. Data collection & analysis
7. Results
8. Discussion
9. INTRO & OUTRO