WGU Research Foundations (C224) EXAM (2025) QUESTIONS
AND (elaborated) WITH COMPLETE SOLUTIONS
Abstract - ✔✔a brief summary of what is included in the
article.
*provide a concise breakdown of article goals, methods, and
tentative results.
Action Educational Research - ✔✔*focuses on solving local
problems that practitioners face
*addressing and solving specific problems which local
practitioners confront in their schools and communities,
conducting research directly within the classroom or work
environment
Action Research - ✔✔Applied mix of exploratory and
confirmatory
action research lit review - ✔✔the literature review assists
researchers in anchoring their practices in a research base so
they are more likely to select strategies based on evidence
and simultaneously generate high quality evidence to support
their findings and practices.
,Action Research Strengths - ✔✔Can be conducted by local
practitioners
Produces lifelong learners
Empowers practitioners to contribute to knowledge
Integrates theory and practice
Action Science (AS) - ✔✔focuses on research in learning
organizations. Experimentation to understand change.
Looking at the practicing process of experimentation. Does
everything in the machine work? Can things improve?
Alternative Hypothesis - ✔✔States that the population
parameter is some value other than the value stated in the
null hypothesis.
annotated bibliographies - ✔✔are rarely published
*can provide a way of highlighting strong and weak sources,
organizing information, and finding patterns of findings,
methods, or conclusions from the literature*
APA literature reviews - ✔✔often published in journals as a
valuable source of information for researchers to help develop
,their own research questions, as well as provide students and
practitioners with valuable insight into a developing problem
or education issue
*can stand alone*
Applied Educational Research - ✔✔*focuses on real-world
questions and applications
*focuses on answering real-world, practical questions in order
to provide relatively immediate solutions.
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) - ✔✔focuses on finding the best in
people and working together to achieve a jointly constructed
and shared purpose, vision, and goal. Discovery, Dream,
Design, and Destiny
Assumptions of Mixed Method Research - ✔✔Incompatibility
thesis, Compatibility thesis, pragmatism, ontology,
epistemology
Basic Educational Research - ✔✔*focuses on generating
fundamental knowledge
, *aimed at generating fundamental knowledge and theoretical
understanding about primary human functions and other
natural processes
Biased Samples - ✔✔nonrandom sample that are almost
always systematically different from the population on certain
characteristics
Case Study - ✔✔Rich, holistic narrative which triangulates
data and places the case into a meaningful context
Purpose: Addressing research questions through in-depth
analysis. Environment based on a set of circumstances.
Categorical variable - ✔✔a variable that is made up of
*different types or categories* of a phenomenon
different groups
Causal research question format - ✔✔Does variation (or
change) in (independent variable) produce changes in
(dependent variable)?
Ex. Does variation in amount of homework assigned produce a
change in students' test performance?
AND (elaborated) WITH COMPLETE SOLUTIONS
Abstract - ✔✔a brief summary of what is included in the
article.
*provide a concise breakdown of article goals, methods, and
tentative results.
Action Educational Research - ✔✔*focuses on solving local
problems that practitioners face
*addressing and solving specific problems which local
practitioners confront in their schools and communities,
conducting research directly within the classroom or work
environment
Action Research - ✔✔Applied mix of exploratory and
confirmatory
action research lit review - ✔✔the literature review assists
researchers in anchoring their practices in a research base so
they are more likely to select strategies based on evidence
and simultaneously generate high quality evidence to support
their findings and practices.
,Action Research Strengths - ✔✔Can be conducted by local
practitioners
Produces lifelong learners
Empowers practitioners to contribute to knowledge
Integrates theory and practice
Action Science (AS) - ✔✔focuses on research in learning
organizations. Experimentation to understand change.
Looking at the practicing process of experimentation. Does
everything in the machine work? Can things improve?
Alternative Hypothesis - ✔✔States that the population
parameter is some value other than the value stated in the
null hypothesis.
annotated bibliographies - ✔✔are rarely published
*can provide a way of highlighting strong and weak sources,
organizing information, and finding patterns of findings,
methods, or conclusions from the literature*
APA literature reviews - ✔✔often published in journals as a
valuable source of information for researchers to help develop
,their own research questions, as well as provide students and
practitioners with valuable insight into a developing problem
or education issue
*can stand alone*
Applied Educational Research - ✔✔*focuses on real-world
questions and applications
*focuses on answering real-world, practical questions in order
to provide relatively immediate solutions.
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) - ✔✔focuses on finding the best in
people and working together to achieve a jointly constructed
and shared purpose, vision, and goal. Discovery, Dream,
Design, and Destiny
Assumptions of Mixed Method Research - ✔✔Incompatibility
thesis, Compatibility thesis, pragmatism, ontology,
epistemology
Basic Educational Research - ✔✔*focuses on generating
fundamental knowledge
, *aimed at generating fundamental knowledge and theoretical
understanding about primary human functions and other
natural processes
Biased Samples - ✔✔nonrandom sample that are almost
always systematically different from the population on certain
characteristics
Case Study - ✔✔Rich, holistic narrative which triangulates
data and places the case into a meaningful context
Purpose: Addressing research questions through in-depth
analysis. Environment based on a set of circumstances.
Categorical variable - ✔✔a variable that is made up of
*different types or categories* of a phenomenon
different groups
Causal research question format - ✔✔Does variation (or
change) in (independent variable) produce changes in
(dependent variable)?
Ex. Does variation in amount of homework assigned produce a
change in students' test performance?
