S.R.S.D. Memorial Shiksha Shodh Sansthan, Agra, India€¦ · 07/07/2016 · of getting information, store and make its use as and when desired. Such type of activities are said

S.R.S.D. Memorial Shiksha Shodh Sansthan, Agra, India

Keywords: Internet, web resources, Educational Research Methodology.

Introduction

Experience is said to be a great teacher. This experience may be gained by the learner

through direct & indirect means. Direct access to the source for gaining firsthand experience is

neither always possible nor desirable. Consequently most of our learning is based on second

hand experiences in the form of information received by us about the objects, places, persons,

ideas and events. This information provides a base for knowledge and understanding about them

and the environment surrounding them. For this purpose the learner must be able to learn the art

of getting information, store and make its use as and when desired. Such type of activities are

said to be the part and parcel of ICT.

UTOPIA OF GLOBAL EDUCATION

A Peer Reviewed Refereed International Research Journal

ONLINE ISSN-2454-7387 Volume II, Issue I, June 2016, pp. 47-59

www.srsshodhsansthan.org

Web Resources for Educational Research Methodology: A Web Survey

Dr. Ajay Surana1 & Anita Jain

2

1HoD & Associate Professor,

2 Research Scholar

Faculty of Education, Banasthali Vidyapith

Banasthali, Rajasthan, India

Abstract

Thousands and thousands of multimedia web resources are available on internet on

different subjects and in various forms of text, images, ppt, audio-video file, etc. which has become

an important source for the research supervisor, teacher educator, research scholar and post

graduate students of Educational Research Methodology. This paper is the result of web survey and

analysis of the availability of web resources for Educational Research Methodology on internet and

identifies and classifies them on the basis of their type of web page format, media, language and

cost. The web survey is conducted through five search engines and predefined search keywords of

Educational Research Methodology. Total 248 web resources sites have been identified related to

25 keywords of Educational Research Methodology. Most of the resources are found through a

single popular search engine. 98% resources are available in text form. 95% web resources are

found cost free. Most of the web resources are available for theoretical orientation and about 44%

web pages are available in HTML format and less no. of resources are available in MP3 format.

IT, Vol. II, Issue I, June 2016 ONLINE ISSN-2454-7387

Web Resources for Educational Research Methodology..… 48 | P a g e

Use of ICT in education has the advantages like lower cost, time saving, flexibility, faster

response, greater effectiveness, better morale, greater competitiveness and easy access to

information and resources. Information via internet is available anytime, anywhere which makes

it popular choice for the people of information exchange. Influence of internet is predominant in

the field of education. IAMAIi surveyed that 60% Indian urban access internet for education.

ii

Researches and evaluation indicate that exposure to ICTs has really changed the lives of lecturers

and students in tremendous and positive ways. The process of learning has gone beyond learning

from prescribed text books. Today aspirers can satiate their thirst for knowledge by means of

internet. As wealth of information and knowledge is available on internet in different area and

context and this wide variety of knowledge is there in varied forms like text, audio, picture,

animations and in different languages etc.

So many studies have been conducted on ICT and education, use of internet in research

and studies related to e-resources. Carroll (2011) found that new technologies are transforming

current literacy practices and challenging what it means to be literate while Burkle, M. (2005)

reported that the increasing use of ICTs has brought changes to teaching and learning at all levels

of higher education systems.

Kumar, A. & Monika (2013), Agarwal, U. & Rajesh (2009) and Bhatti, R. (2010)

found that most of the respondents use internet for education and research. Parameshwar and

Patil (2009) found that all respondents have knowledge of Internet and nearly half of them use

the Internet for research but finding relevant information and information overload are the major

problems for them. Aqil Mohammad & Parvez (2011) concluded that Internet-based

information was the most satisfactory one for them but they faced the problem of information

overload. Purcell, K. and et. al. (2011) said that student can take advantage of the availability of

educational material in engaging multimedia formats, and many become more self reliant

researchers.

Illingworth (2001) concluded that World Wide Web has opened new horizons and

provided access to a new frontier and tool for the researcher. Pant, G. (2013) concluded that

sufficient study material is available on internet for different branches of biology, languages,

utility, multimedia and its cost. Margam, M. (2010) revealed that Electronic resources have

become an integral part of the information needs of research scholars.

mailto:[email protected]





Stuart Reeves and et.al. (2011) revealed that both faculty and students used e-resources

to access information available worldwide for teaching, learning and research. Lohar &

Roopshree (2006) concluded that the respondents were using electronic resources for finding

relevant information for research purpose but the main barrier to use electronic resources is too

much information.

In higher education (M.Ed & Ph.D.) Research Methodology is an important subject. To

understand Research Methodology is not really an easy task. Many even experienced student

researchers feel perplexed when it comes to Research Methodology as it requires much time

and devotion as well as profound knowledge of the subject matter. To teach this subject,

Teachers and Teacher Educators need up-to-date course material so that they can improve their

subject competency as well as can impart the quality education and satisfy the content need of

students.

M.Ed./M.Phil. /Ph.D. students refer books and library to access the desired content of

research methodology but they can’t get information any time anywhere from these resources.

Hence, they waste both time and money. On the whole, vast resources of knowledge/content are

available on internet. But the question is that are sufficient web resources of Educational

Research Methodology available on internet? If yes, where, on which link and in what

form? Nobody knows completely neither students nor teacher educators and research scholars.

They browse so many websites one by one to find out the relevant information. To find the

proverbial needle in this hay stack they consume their precious time and money. They need to

link their lessons or matter with the latest course material but do they have enough time to collect

material from various resources. The users, who do not know the right link, have to search lot of

websites to get desired content/knowledge. Sometimes these websites appear as pay site or ask

for login or subscription. So if they are provided such type of base, where they can get all the

reliable web resources at one place, will help them to access the study material of Educational

Research Methodology. It will prove a great advantage to them. They will be able to save their

precious time and money. They can improve their subject competency which is necessary for

students to improve their academic performances and for teachers and teacher educators to get

mastery over their subjects and for research scholar to do quality research. From the above

discussion, the following question may arise for research that-



Thousands and thousands of web resources are available on internet on different subjects.

Is it possible to identify and classify the availability of web resources for Educational

Research Methodology?

The Internet has a multitude of multimedia resources including online text, images, audio

files, interactive websites etc. Are available web resources for Educational Research

Methodology appearing in different forms like text, audio, picture, animations?

Information on internet is available free, full text, without registration, login or

subscription. Student can now have access to libraries around the world. Some charge a

fee but most provide free services. Is information of Educational Research Methodology

on internet is also available free or on payment? To find out the answers of all these

questions this study intends to investigate the following objectives.

Objectives

1. To identify the availability of web resources for Educational Research Methodology on

internet.

2. To classify the available web resources for Educational Research Methodology on the

basis of their types of web page format, usages, media and cost.

Hypothesis

The followings are the statements for hypotheses-

1. Sufficient web resources of Educational Research Methodology are available on internet.

2. We can classify the web resources of Educational Research Methodology on the basis of

its type of web page format, usages, media and cost.

2.1 Web resources of Educational Research Methodology are equally available on the basis

of their types of web page format.


of used media of web pages.


of usage of web pages.


of cost of web pages.



Methods

I. Research Methodology

In present research content analysis and survey method have been used and to fulfill the

objectives data has been collected from internet searches using the search engines and the

predefined keywords of Educational Research Methodology. The first 50 web sites on each

particular keyword have been identified and evaluated on the basis of its type, media, usage and

cost. Frequency and percentage analysis techniques have been employed to analyse the

Qualitative and quantitative data. Result has been interpreted with the help of graphical

representation and descriptive statistic.

II. Population and Sample

The population of this study includes all the search engines and infinite web pages available on

internet. Through purposive sampling following search engines have been taken in sample-

1) Google 2) AltaVista 3) HotBot 4) MSN 5) Ask

Next, 25 search keywords have been selected related to Educational Research Methodology.

Overall 6250 websites will be searched on all 5 search engines as follows:

25 search key words x 50 (web sites) = 1250 web sites

5(search engine) x 1250 (web sites) = 6250 web sit

III. Tools and Techniques

A research instrument is a tool used to collect data. In this research, self-made checklist has

been constructed to evaluate the features of available web resources as shown in appendix

1.Percentage analysis has been used to analyse the data.

Results and Discussion

First objective, “To identify the availability of web resources for Educational Research

Methodology”, has been achieved by using the five most popular search engines viz. Google,

Alta Vista, Hot Bot, Bing & Ask.com. With the help of 25 predefined search keywords related to

Educational Research Methodology, 248 web resources sites have been identified on internet.



Table -1 Available Web resources on Different Search Engines

Search engines Frequency of web

resources

%

Google 106 43

Alta Vista 39 15

Hot Pot 40 16

MSN 34 14

ASK 29 12

Total 248

The table 1 shows that 106 web sites are found on Google, 39 on AltaVista, 40 on Hot

Bot, 34 on MSN and only 29 were found on Ask.com. From the above table it is analyzed the

most of the web resources (43%) are searched through Google search engine and contribution of

ask.com is least. Thus, it is clear that adequate numbers of web resources are available on

internet related to Educational Research Methodology and it is possible to identify them with the

help of search engines. Thus hypothesis 1 is accepted, according to the result of the research.

Further to fulfill second objective, “To classify the web resources of Educational

Research Methodology on the basis of its type of web page format, usages, media and cost”, the

identified web resources have been classified on the basis of their types of web page format as

shown in graph 1.

Graph – 1 The available web page format

0

20

40

60

PDF HTML MP3 PPT DOC Others

23

44

1

18

6 7

Fre

qu

en

cy %

of

we

b p

age

fo

rmat

Type of Web Page Format



Graph 1 reveals that 44% of the web resources cited in the study are available in HTML

format, 23% web resources are in PDF format, 18% in PPT, 6% in DOC, 1% in MP3 and 7% are

available in other format. It is clear from the above graph that most of the web pages are

available in HTML format and few in MP3, so content of MP3 format should be uploaded more

on internet.

On the basis of the above analysis it is observed that web resources of Educational

Research Methodology are not available equally on the basis of their types of web pages. Thus

hypothesis 2.1 is partially accepted.

Usages

After this they are classified on the basis of their usage. The identified data has been

evaluated and sorted in three categories viz. theoretical orientation, data analysis and report

writing for Educational Research Methodology. The graph 2 shows that almost 100% web

resources are found useful for the theoretical orientation, 39% web resources for data analysis

and 26% web resources for report writing.

Graph -2 Available web resources on the basis of its usage.

It is clear from the above graph 2 that almost all identified web resources are useful for

theoretical orientation of Educational Research Methodology and less number of identified web

resources is useful for report writing.

But it is found that web resources of Educational Research Methodology are not equally

available on the basis of usages. Thus, the above hypothesis 2.2 is partially accepted according to

the results.

0

50

100

TheoreticalOrientation

DataAnalysis

ReportWriting

100

39 26

per

cen

tag

e

Usages



Media

Further in the process of data collection and classification it is observed that web

resources of Educational Research Methodology are available in different media forms like text,

picture, animation, graphic and video. Some web resources are available in more than one form

of media i.e. some are found in text with picture, some in text with graphic etc.

Graph-3 Available multimedia content

The above graph 3 shows that 98% web resources are available in text format, 27% in

picture form and 22%, 6% and 5% resources are available respectively in graphic, video and

animation. It can be concluded that web resources in multimedia is available in adequate amount

and it is possible to classify them on the basis of multimedia content. But it is found that they are

not equally available on the basis of media used for web pages. Thus, the hypothesis 2.3 is partially

accepted according to the results.

Cost

Further these identified web resources have been classified on the basis of its cost as the

web resources on internet are available on cost or cost free.

Table- 2 No. of web resources on the basis of cost

Cost No. of Web resources %

Payable web resources 12 5

Free Web resources 237 95

Total 249 100

0

20

40

60

80

10098

27

5 22

6

Fre

qu

ency

of

med

ia c

on

ten

t

Media content



The table 2 shows that web resources of Educational Research Methodology on internet

are available cost free and payable. It is analyzed that out of 248 identified web resources sites

237 web resources sites are available free of cost on internet and 12 web resources sites are

payable. The e–content on one of the web link is available in both modes and it is counted in

both categories separately that why the total identified web sites are 249.

It can be concluded that most of the web resources of Educational Research Methodology

are non payable they can be accessed freely by stake holders and they can do their research cost

effectively.

While very few resources are available on cost but they can be accessed after paying

some amount. But it is found that they are not equally available on the basis of cost of web

pages. So, it can be said that the hypothesis 2.4 is partially accepted.

Discussion of Results and Implications of the Study

From the result of the present study it is found that sufficient numbers of web resources

of Educational Research Methodology are available on internet as Jaya (2010) retrieved 363

websites of mathematics with the help of search engines.

It is found that we can classify the web resources of Educational Research Methodology

on the basis of its type of web page format, usages, media and cost as Geeta (2013) found

sufficient study material for Biology on internet for different branches of biology, languages,

utility, multimedia and its cost.

The researcher found that web resources of Educational Research Methodology are not

equally available on the basis of usages as Darren R. Hargrave, Ursula A. Hargrave, and Eric

Bouffet (2006) concluded in their medical research that Web sites were found deficient in topics

covering etiology, late effects, prognosis, and treatment choices.

It is also found that most of the web resources of Educational Research Methodology are

non payable they can be accessed freely by stake holders.

Further it can be concluded that such richness of the web resources of Educational

Research Methodology on internet can provide tremendous opportunities to the students and



educators to develop very interesting courseware. As Kristen, Rainie, Heap, Alan, Buchanan,

Judy (2011) also interpreted that student can take advantage of the availability of educational

material in engaging multimedia formats, and many become more self reliant researchers.

Implications

As per the research presented here, the following Educational implications can be seen-

With the help of identified web resources in various types and forms i.e.video, graphic,

pictures, animation and text, the difficult concept of Educational Research Methodology

can be made easy for teacher educators and research supervisors, they can teach Research

Methodology effectively and interestingly and guide & supervise the M.Ed. students and

research scholars competently.

Students can be motivated for self study; they can carry out their dissertation and research

work in a smooth and efficient manner with the help of available web resources of

Educational Research Methodology.

It is recommended that administrators of educational institute should provide better ICT

facilities for the enhancement of research activity.

Training to the stakeholders should be given for the better use of web resources in their

institutes since an adequate number of resources are available on internet.

Conclusion

Thus it can be concluded that lots of web resources are available on internet for

Educational Research Methodology and they are available in various types and forms. Hence, to

utilize the web resources to its maximum the internet facility should be made available in

Schools of Education premises and awareness about web resources should be created through

training programme, seminars, workshops, guest lecture so that users can be encouraged to use

web resources, they can overcome the difficulties faced by them in the use of information and

doing research.



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Appendix 1

Check List to Evaluate the Features of Web Resources

S.N. Check points Sub-check points Response

1 Search Engine

1. Google

2. Alta vista

3. MSN

4. Bing

5. Hot bot

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

2 Type of web

page

1. HTML

2. PDF

3. MP3

4. PPT

5. Doc

6. Others

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

3 Media

1. Text

2. Picture

3. Animation

4. Graphic

5. Video

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

4 Usage

1. Theoretical

orientation

2. Data Analysis

3. Report writing

Yes/no

Yes/no

Yes/no

5 cost 1. Payable

2. Cost free

Yes/no

Yes/no

Documents

S.R.S.D. Memorial Shiksha Shodh Sansthan, Agra, India€¦ · 07/07/2016 · of getting information, store and make its use as and when desired. Such type of activities are said