Reviews:

OhioLINK ETD

More Like This

Download Full Text
1.36 MB PDF file

Title

A Grounded Theory for Research Synthesis of Selected Distance Education Literature

Author

Chen, Tsang-yao Polo

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Educational Research and Evaluation (Education), 2005.

Advisor

Rosalie Romano

Pages

180p.

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was twofold: 1) in conducting a research synthesis of distance education research studies using grounded theory methodology, this investigation derived a grounded theory from the distance education literature synthesized; and 2) in order to apply grounded theory for research synthesis, a procedure to coalesce grounded theory and research synthesis methods was developed. Distance education programs have proliferated during this past decade along with the advancement of new technologies. The distance education research community, in the meantime, has sought for better understandings of the field and called for more theoretical explorations to further the field of study. Within these efforts is a line of research which reviews distance education research journal articles to arrive at better understandings about distance education. Research synthesis, as a family of research methods with diverse theoretical and procedural inclinations, is the analysis of analyses. Research synthesis serves various purposes; one of them being synthesizing primary research studies into more general and theoretical conclusions. With the attempts in creating approaches for research synthesis, however, there is no well-recognized method for including both qualitative and quantitative research studies in one research synthesis effort. Yin (1991) suggested that grounded theory can be used to conduct the research synthesis of multivocal literature. This investigation aimed for realizing that proposal and used the field of distance education literature as the target of synthesis. Resulted from this investigation were 1) a substantive grounded theory for distance education as a field; and 2) a procedure for applying grounded theory for purpose of research synthesis. With much of the endeavor putting into synergizing grounded theory and research synthesis, this investigation has been more a journey on methodological discovery than on distance education research.

Subject Headings

Education, General

Keywords

Grounded Theory; Research Synthesis; Distance Education