Facilitated by Dr. Rong Chen
For doctoral students who are interested in conducting rigorous quantitative dissertation studies, it is critical to: be familiar with the secondary datasets that are available and how to access them, know how to craft potential research questions from relevant data, and identify the appropriate methods and strategies for the selected research questions. Such knowledge and skills will also help prepare students to become competent researchers or administrators in educational, governmental, and other agencies concerned with educational measurement, statistics, and program evaluation. This seminar is intended to introduce students to the range of large-scale national and international data sources for quantitative studies and to provide examples of how these datasets have been used in educational research. By the end of the seminar, students will be able to understand where some important large-scale survey databases in education are available, the major research issues that may be addressed with these resources, and the advantages as well as challenges/strategies of using large-scale data. In addition, we will look at some example empirical studies that have utilized such data in educational research.