Analysis On The Resarch Methods Used In The The Post Graduates Dissertations

This research focuses on the 225 post graduates dissertations majored in curriculum and instruction theory from the University. The research methods of 225 doctors and masters are classified and made detailed statistical analysis.Based on Brezinka’s<Philosophy of Educational Knowledge> and<Education research methods> (Lianghua Liu), this research builds the basic analysis framework that includes 3 categories-philosophy research, empirical research and practical research.According to other researchers, there are 3 hypothesis:1. The trend of research methods of post graduates dissertations is from single to multiple.2. The number of speculative research (philosophic research) and practical research is larger than empirical research.3. There are lots of qualitative researches and a few quantitative researches.Through this study, we found that:firstly,98.2% of the dissertations use the empirical study as the main method and it have became the dominant method in the theory of curriculum and instruction of this university. Secondly, the variety of the methods is wider and wider and new research methods appeared frequently after 2006. Thirdly,59.8% of the masters’ theses and 57.9% of the doctors’ theses used qualitative research method and they were more than quantitative research. The result is different from the hypothesis in this research and we have tried to explain it. Furthermore, We find out that choosing research method is relative to researchers’ education background and different gender.Meanwhile, this research finds that there are many problems in the use of research methods of post graduates dissertations, for example, there are 17 master theses did not write the research method they had used. Another problem is non-standard use of the expression of the research methods such as different expression of documentary study:documentary analysis, documentary, documentary discussion, documentary research, documentary retrieve, etc. We suggest that researchers should pay more attention to the theory and practical training of the standard of dissertation writing and educational research methods...