General Education Course Descriptions

GEDU - 601. Philosophical Foundations of Education (3)

Basic philosophical principles underlying the field of education, the relationship between philosophy and education, critical analyses and evaluation of philosophers of education, and implications for practice.

GEDU - 603. Methodology of Educational Research (3)

An introduction to the process and methods of educational research articles and to developing a preliminary plan or proposal for research in the field.

GEDU - 605. Practitioner Research (3)

Practitioner Research provides background in the theory and practice of conducting inquiry-based research in one's own classroom, school or educational setting with the objective of developing a plan of action. This course is designed to train students to identify a problem at their site, to investigate this problem through a review of the literature, and to conduct a field project using appropriate research methodology.

GEDU - 620. Technology & Education (3)

A survey of the digital technology revolution as it has affected and may affect teaching and learning in schools, universities, the workplace, and at home. The course includes "hands on" laboratory time for the exploration of educational aspects of the new technologies.

GEDU - 700. Philosophical Foundations of Education (3)

Philosophical foundations of modern educational thought and practice in America, it also explores contemporary educational ideologies in the U.S.

GEDU - 701. Anthropology of Education (3)

Fundamental principles of anthropology as applied in education, business, and community learning contexts. An overview of the history, tradition, and political ideologies of two or more countries, other than the United States, provides a backdrop for the study of culture, technology, and values in an American pedagogical setting.

GEDU - 702. Sociology of Education (3)

This course will focus on sociological and sociocultural theory and research related to education and schooling in the United States. The embedded contexts of the classroom, school, community, and wider society, and how these contexts reflect and interact with one another will be studied. Topics will include the roles of schooling in society, teaching as a profession, school culture, research in classrooms and schools, and school reform. Students will examine how race, gender, social class, and ethnicity influence conceptions and experiences of schooling.

GEDU - 704. Psychological Foundations of Education (3)

Systematic exploration and critical investigation of the theoretical foundations and the practical problems and issues encountered in the application of psychology to education.

GEDU - 705. Law and Education (3)

Survey of federal and state statutory and case law in the following: compulsory education, loyalty, religion, freedom of speech, due process, equal protection, termination, evaluation, negotiations, records, discrimination, the Civil Rights Act as amended, special needs, ADA, and civil and tort liability.

GEDU - 706. Applied Educational Statistics (3)

A conceptual and procedural understanding of descriptive and inferential statistical procedures in educational research.

GEDU - 707. Advanced Statistics (3)

Prerequisites: GEDU - 706, GEDU - 708. A continuation of applied educational statistics (706) and an introduction to multivariate statistical analyses used in research in education. Among the subjects to be considered are the following: factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA), analysis of covariance, repeated measures ANOVA, multivariate ANOVA, multiple regression, discriminant analysis, and factor analysis.

GEDU - 708. Research Methods in Education (3)

Introduction to quantitative and qualitative educational research traditions, procedures, theories, and methods. Includes practical applications to educational problems. Recommended that 0704-706 be taken before 0704-708.

GEDU - 710. Analysis of Variance Designs (3)

Prerequisites: GEDU - 706, GEDU - 708. The use of analysis of variance techniques in research designs. The course aligns specific research designs (experimental, quasi-experimental, and ex post facto) with specific analysis of variance techniques. The complete range of univariate analysis of variance designs are covered (including factorial ANOVA, repeated-measures ANOVA, split-plot ANOVA, and the analysis of covariance). The issues of power, practical significance, and multiple comparison tests are also addressed.

GEDU - 711. Survey Research (3)

Prerequisite: GEDU - 708. Introduction to the logic and methods of survey research. Common problems of conceptualizing, planning, conducting and analyzing surveys along with strategies, designs procedures and techniques used to solve such problems.

GEDU - 712. Qualitative Research in Education (3)

Prerequisite: GEDU - 708. This course revolves around the theory and methods of qualitative research, drawn from the social sciences of anthropology and sociology, as applied to education. Students will learn to formulate a research question, collect data through observation and interviewing, and analyze data. Coursework includes a student-developed research project.

GEDU - 713. Content Analysis (3)

Prerequisite: GEDU - 708. This course examines issues related to the collection and analysis of textual and other representational data for research purposes, covering several approaches to content analysis, both qualitative and quantitative.

GEDU - 714. Educational and Psychological Measurement (3)

Prerequisites: GEDU - 706, GEDU - 708. Principles of classical, modern (item-response theory), and cognitive test theory applied to educational and psychological measurement and their application to doctoral research. Applications to both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced testing orientations will be stressed throughout the course. The focus will be on test development and test evaluation.

GEDU - 715. Anthropological Research in Education (3)

Prerequisite: GEDU - 708. A survey of social anthropological schools of thought including functionalist, structuralist, critical, and interpretive. Attention is given to styles of anthropological research including ethnographic, symbolic, historical, documentary, autobiographical, participatory, and textual analysis. An examination of major anthropologists and their contribution to study concepts of culture form various perspectives. Application of selected autobiographical principles to the study of one professional, domestic, or international setting.

GEDU - 716. Program Evaluation (3)

Prerequisite: GEDU - 708. Introduction to program evaluation. Basic issues of evaluation design, data collection, interpretation, and communication of results are discussed. Emphasis is placed on designing evaluations based on an understanding of how programs are implemented.

GEDU - 718. Ethnicity and Multicultural Issues in Research (3)

Prerequisite: GEDU - 708. An examination of various research paradigms employed by social scientists, educators, human service professionals, and community agencies interested in the study of comparative group behaviors, educational strategies and learning patterns within racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse populations.

GEDU - 720. Techology and Education (3)

A survey of the digital technolgy revolution as it has affected and may affect teaching and learning in schools, universities, the workplace, and at home. The course includes "hands on" laboratory time for the exploration of educational aspects of the new technologies.

GEDU - 721. Correlational Designs (3)

Prerequisites: GEDU - 706, GEDU - 707, GEDU - 708. Correlational approaches to analyzing educational data, including simple and multiple regression, path analysis, LISREL, and hierarchical linear models.

GEDU - 722. Meta-analysis (3)

Prerequisites: GEDU - 706, GEDU - 708. This course deals with the methods and process of meta-analysis, which is a quantitative review of the literature. Students will have the opportunity to plan a meta-analysis and to evaluate published meta-analyses in an area of education.

GEDU - 723. Participatory Critical Pedagogy Research (3)

Prerequisite: GEDU - 708. A discussion of the theoretical foundations of participatory critical pedagogy research as well as a description of effective processes to conduct research utilizing this methodology. Students will be encouraged to (a) define and/or refine the methodology of their own dissertation and (b) acquire experience in the process of dialogic retrospection - the praxis of dialogue as an emancipatory tool, the creation of a text from dialogue transcripts and the analysis of the generative themes contained in the dialogue.

GEDU - 724. Introduction to SPSS (3)

Prerequisite: GEDU - 706. A second course in statistics using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Topics include file organization, data entry and cleaning, variable creation and recoding, data analysis, record keeping, reliability analyses, merging data files, and SPSS data analysis procedures (descriptive, comparative, correlational, classificatory), and table creation.

GEDU - 725. Skills for Scholarly Writing (3)

This course is designed to assist doctoral students to learn a style for scholarly writing, including the dissertation. Dissertation writing requires a distinctive type of writing, an academic, scholarly approach that meets local conventions, in contrast to an "essayist," term paper method of writing or a popular periodical style. The tasks, activities, and discussions of this course will include attention to approaches to formal writing that retain clarity, logic and interest, applications of APA as appropriate to dissertation writing, and a review of common grammatical usage.