Should teachers be paid based on their performance or should every teacher receive a standard salary?
Research topics in education are a far and wide subject that continues to evolve with the landscape of education. Here are some ideas for your research, as well as how to get started. By collecting data and performing analysis, those who address research topics in education can help to change the scope and quality of education around the world. Education research aims to develop new and improved teaching methods to resolve issues in learning and enhance overall understanding on behalf of students from all backgrounds, as well as discover the environments in which they learn best.
What is Education Research?
By approaching education with a scientific eye, education research involves the collection and analysis of data related to education. Using a variety of methods, education research may involve the evaluation of teaching methods, classroom dynamics, teacher training, student learning and more addressable concerns.
Education Research Topics
Since education involves so many moving parts and individuals from all different walks of life, experience levels and personal backgrounds, education research topics are vast and forever evolving. That’s why it’s important to stay up-to-date with what’s happening in the field so that your research can play a role in helping to shape the future of education.
Some major topics within the field include:
Ability Grouping: Ability grouping, or tracking, is the practice of pairing students together based on their abilities rather than age. In early childhood education, this is easier to do, but as time progresses and students develop at varying rates, it becomes harder to incorporate in a school setting successfully. You can look at how to strategically assess and define ability levels to group students beneficially, as well as how teachers can prepare lessons based on ability level.
Blended Learning: Blended learning is the mixture of online educational methods with traditional in-person practices. It combines a teacher’s presence with a student’s responsibility to take control of their own time to learn. This is a different style of learning than what University of the People offers, as everything at UoPeople is completely online. Blended learning is hybrid learning.
Busing: The research on busing examines the impact of bringing students from different districts to a school via buses. It may examine how this impacts student life, as well as the overall educational outcome for the institution. Busing began as a practice to decrease school segregation, but it continues to be a controversial and often analyzed situation in many public schools.
Class Sizes: As a growing problem, the supply of teachers worldwide falls short of the student demand. Therefore, class sizes are increasing. But how does a bigger student-to-teacher ratio impact learning? That’s what educational research aims to find out.
Computer Literacy: The growing reliance on technology and computers means that students worldwide should be prepared and taught how to use them. However, different countries and school districts have different access. Research on the topic looks at how computer literacy within the classroom affects a student’s present learning and future capabilities.
Early Childhood Education: Is preschool important, and if so, why? Education research utilizes various methods to analyze this and more. It examines the system at various levels since there are multiple jobs in early childhood education.
Home Schooling: Do homeschoolers perform better? What percentage of those who were homeschooled go to college? This and many more questions may be answered by conducting statistics surrounding the differences between homeschooled students and those who attend traditional educational settings.
Learning Styles: There are said to be 4 different learning styles in education, including: visual learners, auditory learners, reading/writing preference and kinesthetic. With the diversity of students, different learning styles and teaching methods may be effective for one student and not another. So how do institutions and schools devise teaching methods that work? Understanding and testing learning styles could be the answer.
Merit Pay: Should teachers be paid based on their performance or should every teacher receive a standard salary? There has been a lot of controversy over merit pay and how to record the effectiveness of a teacher’s work. Therefore, the research topic of merit pay is timely and important.
Standardized Testing: Regardless of where you are from or what you study, there’s a high chance you’ve had to take a standardized test in your educational career. But are standardized tests fair and accurate? If standardized testing did not exist, how would school districts and governments evaluate the effectiveness of public education? These are questions that education research around standardized testing looks to answer because they have serious monetary implications.