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Conduct a search on the same general topic in both ERIC and
Education Index. Compare the usefulness of ERIC and Education Index in fi nding
related research on your topic. Compare and contrast two of the following: the
quality of abstracts, the journals covered, and the subject terms or
descriptors used by the index. Which index do you predict would be the most
useful in fi nding research on your topic?

1. Explain the organization and the purpose of the Mental
Measurements Yearbook.
2. What conclusion could be drawn regarding a work,
published in 1966, that was cited in 20 articles listed in the 2009 Source
Index of SSCI?

1. What purposes might searching the Social Science Citation
Index serve? In addition to information about an article’s citation record,
what conclusions might the SSCI help you draw about an author or about a
journal?

If you were interested in the effect of teachers’
stereotyping on the achievement of girls in math classes, what are some terms
for which you might search? Illustrate how you might combine them into online
search statements with Boolean operators AND, OR, or NOT.

1. How do indexing and abstracting periodicals, databases,
and aggregate databases differ?
2. Find two web resources on an educationrelated topic of
your choice, one from a commercial (.com) site and one from an educational
(.edu) site. Evaluate them using the criteria of authority, accuracy, and
timeliness. Are there notable differences between the sources? Explain.

1. What are the purposes of the hypothesis in research?
2. What is the difference between an inductive and a
deductive hypothesis?
3. Rewrite the following hypothesis in null form: “Children
who read below grade level will express less satisfaction with school than
those who read at or above grade level.”

State a hypothesis based on each of the following research
questions:
a. What would be the effect of using the Cuisenaire method
in teaching elementary arithmetic?
b. Is there a relationship between the gender of the tutor
and the gains made in reading achievement by black male elementary students?
c. Does living in interracial housing affect attitudes
toward members of another race?
d. Is there any relationship between the type of
reinforcement (tangible or intangible) and the amount of learning achieved by
socioeconomically disadvantaged children?
e. Does preschool experience reduce the educational gap
separating advantaged and disadvantaged children before they enter fi rst
grade?
f. Do teacher expectations of children’s intellectual
performance have any effect on the children’s actual performance?

Evaluate the adequacy of each of the following hypotheses.
If a hypothesis is inadequate, state the reason for the inadequacy and write an
adequate hypothesis.
a. “Teachers deserve higher pay than administrators.”
b. “Students who take a middle school government course will
be capable of more enlightened judgments concerning local political affairs
than will those who do not take the course.”
c. “Computer-based drill and practice is a better way to
teach slow learners multiplication combinations than is fl ash cards.”
d. “If students differ in their socioeconomic status, they
will differ in their English profi ciency scores.”
e. “Children who show high achievement motivation will show
high anxiety as measured by the Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale.”
f. “Positive verbal reinforcement of student responses by
the teacher will lessen the probability of future responses.”

1. Write a directional and a nondirectional hypothesis based
on the research question “What is the relationship between the rate of
maturation of adolescent boys and their self-concepts?”
2. Why should a hypothesis be clearly stated before a
quantitative research study is initiated?

Label the following hypotheses as research hypotheses or
null hypotheses:
a. “Students will receive lower scores on achievement tests
that measure the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy than on tests measuring
lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.
b. “There is no difference in the performance of students
taught mathematics by method A and those taught mathematics by method B.”
c. “The mean retention scores of children receiving
experimental drug X will not differ from the scores of children who do not
receive drug X.”
d. “Students taught by laissez-faire teachers will show
higher problem-solving skills than students taught by highly structured
teachers.”