The elaboration of the methodological design; another important challenge of educational research

"Investigating is seeing what everyone has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought." Albert Szent-Györgyi

It is not the interest of these notes to theorize about the aspects of the methodological design of educational research. The intention is focused on going back to some essential elements that allow its construction, based on the practical example of a theoretical design.

elaboration-methodological-design-educational-research

The fundamental categories of a theoretical design are collected in the table below:

CATEGORIES	ENUNCIATION
PROBLEM SCIENTIFIC	How to improve the skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the 4th grade of primary education?
PURPOSE OF RESEARCH	THE PROCESS OF TEACHING LEARNING OF THE SUBJECT LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION IN BASIC EDUCATION
FIELD OF ACTION	The skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the 4th grade of primary education
OBJECTIVE	Develop a system of learning activities to improve the development of skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in 4th grade of primary education
QUESTIONS SCIENTIFIC	1. What are the theoretical and methodological foundations that support the teaching-learning process of Language and Communication in primary education?
2. What is the current status of the development of skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the fourth grade of primary education?
	3. How to structure a system of learning activities to improve the development of the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the fourth grade of primary education?
SCIENTIFIC TASKS	1. Systematization of the theoretical and methodological foundations that support the teaching-learning process of the subject Language and Communication in primary education
2. Diagnosis of the current state of the development of skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the fourth grade of primary education.
3. Development of a system of learning activities to improve the development of the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the fourth grade of primary education.
OUTCOME	System of learning activities to improve the development of the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the fourth grade of primary education

I always comment with the students who have taken the Educational Research Methodology subject with me that, if the previous steps have been taken well, there will be no major difficulties for the construction of the methodological design.

It should be remembered that the methodological design of the research is nothing more than the system of sampling methods, instruments and decisions that will allow the expected results to be reached and thus solve the scientific problem.

Its components are: population, sample, research strategy, research methods and instruments, scientific novelty, contribution to theory, practical significance, applicability, and summary of the parts of the thesis.

I propose to look at the following image to go on to specify some characteristics that must be taken into consideration when delimiting the population and the research sample:

Said in the simplest way possible, the population is any set of elements that has one or more common properties defined by the researcher, and can be from all reality, to a very small group of phenomena. The exhaustive study of complete populations is usually expensive and complex, with high investments in human and economic resources, hence the need for the use of sampling techniques in scientific work. The image presented below reiterates the differences between the population and the sample:

The sample is a relatively small group of population units, which supposedly represents to a greater or lesser extent the characteristics of that population. It is, in short, a finite subset of a population. The number of elements that make up the sample is called the sample size. The sample size is established through formulas based on the degree of confidence and precision that we propose. For its part, the form of choice is essential for the sample to be representative of the population from which it is drawn.

Now, in the field of Research Methodology, good practices, advanced pedagogical experiences, action research, systematization of pedagogical practice, among other aspects, are spoken very frequently today. Each of these constructs, regardless of their particularities, alludes to a problem: the need for the teacher to become a researcher of their own practice, which is an inherent part of their uninterrupted process of professionalization in order to provide quality education.

This has conditioned the need for a “… reconceptualization of research on and in education, in which the theory / practice separation tries to overcome a historical milestone, overcoming it, seeing teachers with the capacity to build their own pedagogical thought, with the ability to generate pedagogical knowledge in practice and, therefore, to be an active protagonist of the research… ”(Imbernon, 2002: p.9)

The elements pointed out previously allow then to try to issue a group of considerations regarding the delimitation of the population and the sample in the research processes that teachers carry out in their own practice. These imply the incorporation of good practices into their daily work, interaction with their colleagues around the most effective strategies to direct the teaching-learning process, the introduction of improvements to contribute to the improvement of their work, among other aspects. But where do you carry out this work? With whom do you implement your proposals? The answer to these questions, which are not the only ones we could ask ourselves,It leads us to circumscribe the radius of action of the investigative work of teachers, fundamentally to the environment of the school where they work and that of the group or groups they attend.

For the record, I am not talking about those who dedicate the total time of their work to research, I am talking about a teacher who, within his multiple functions, also performs that of investigating his own practice. In this regard, it has been pointed out: «… We must continually question our practice: what are the intellectual mechanisms through which students learn? From what methods is teaching more suitable? How to create better communicative and empathic atmospheres for work pedagogical? What is the frame of reference and starting level of the students with whom we work? How do students value our teaching performance? Through what actions can teaching work be improved? In short, that every teacher must investigate their own practice, since professionals are not only distributors of knowledge,on the contrary, adopting an investigative stance will provoke reflection in action and highly independent subjects to face the changes in the society in which they live. " (Alfonso, sf)

Once the previous ideas have been noted, it is then possible to speak of population and sample and this to resolve positions on how to pose these categories in the methodological design of the research. We are going to perform our analysis from the following example:

Guadalupe works at the Revolution Elementary SchoolFrom Mexico City. This school has 25 groups in which 700 students are enrolled. In 4th grade, where Lupita works, there are four groups, but she teaches classes in 4th D, which has an enrollment of 35 schoolchildren. In the diagnosis that she has been making to her students in a systematic and continuous way on reading comprehension, she has determined that the majority of the group presents problems at the interpretive level. These results are consistent with those of the rest of the teachers who work at the school, but also with those of those who work at the level. Guadalupe will have to apply new strategies to improve the interpretive level of reading comprehension to the 35 schoolchildren in the group and will work to ensure that the activities she designs take into account the different levels of assimilation,attention to diversity, among other aspects.

If we take into consideration that the selection of the sample refers to a portion that is chosen and that is representative of the population and that, in the case that is being analyzed, it will work with 100% of the schoolchildren that make up the 4th group D, then, rather than talking about sample selection, it would be necessary to describe the essential characteristics of the group and the specific elements that will be taken into consideration.

And this is so because the research teacher's work will focus on the use of a method, that of systematization, in which two dimensions intervene: reality or practical experience and the interpretation that educators develop of their own action strategies. Perhaps it would be in the presence of a case study, “… a method of situations to be solved from the definition and execution of intervention options”, which places as “… object of systematization to reflective practice from which the innovative action or experience of change comes to be operationalized as a project ». (Martinic, 2005)

And almost unintentionally, but willingly, we have entered the field of methods. I have spoken to you about the systematization method that, although it is used, is seldom declared in the research designs. Perhaps it is worth digging a little deeper into this.

It has been pointed out that systematization is “… an investigative modality that in Didactics focuses on: ordering, reconstructing and explaining the teaching-learning processes, their dynamics, contradictions, the logic of the process, in relation to the results obtained in practice, for its transformation in interactions with the educational context ”(Páez, 1998)

Y de esto se trata cuando se acude a la sistematización como método, de ordenar las prácticas pedagógicas innovadoras que contienen elementos de búsqueda creadora, de novedad, de originalidad, en las que el maestro crea métodos, procedimientos, medios y se descubren nuevas vías para mejorar el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje.

And although we have handled the method of systematization in a very particular way, we do not want to stop referring to "… a method is the" way to reach an end. Research methods are the way to reach scientific knowledge; They are a procedure or set of procedures that serve as an instrument to achieve the purposes of the investigation. The different research methods are approaches for the collection and analysis of data that will lead to conclusions, from which decisions or implications for practice may be derived. " (Bisquerra, 1989)

In a traditional way, educational research methods have been divided into three large groups: theoretical, empirical and statistical.

Theoretical methods allow to reveal the essential relationships of the object of investigation and are essential for the understanding of the facts and for the formulation of the hypothetical assumptions of the investigation.

Among the theoretical research methods are:

• Historical - logical Hypothetical - deductive Analytical - synthetic Modeling Inductive - deductive Systemic or Systematization Genetic Abstract - concrete

Each method is made up of procedures that allow, more specifically, to materialize its execution.

On the other hand, the empirical methods allow to carry out the preliminary analysis of the information, as well as to verify and verify the theoretical conceptions.

From what has been said, the close link that exists between empirical and theoretical methods is evident.

Among the empirical methods we have:

• Observation Measurement Experiment

In turn, there are various techniques that favor the collection of information. Among them, we can mention:

• Surveys Interviews Questionnaires

For their part, statistical methods intervene in the determination of the sample to be studied, as well as in the processing of the information collected, thus facilitating the generalizations and interpretations that must be made from the data (percentage analysis, determination of the mean, mode, median, among others). I am referring in this case to the most elementary ones, especially taking into account that it is the teachers themselves who will carry out these analyzes. But there are some computerized programs that facilitate the treatment of both quantitative and qualitative information; among the former, SPSS is one of the most used, and among the latter NVIVO, AQUAD, QUALITA, etc.

Now, what is the most important thing when selecting the methods that we will use in our methodological design. Very frequently we find that when the budding researcher is going to propose the methods that he will use, he tends to name a group of them at the same time that he offers us the definition offered by the specialized bibliography. And nothing is being designed there, it is simply being copied what already exists, but it is not being put in function of the object of investigation, nor of the field of action that has previously been determined. We are going to determine the methods that will be used, taking into consideration the following elements of the theoretical design that have been working to exemplify:

PROBLEM SCIENTIFIC	How to improve the skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the 4th grade of primary education?
PURPOSE OF RESEARCH	THE PROCESS OF TEACHING LEARNING OF THE SUBJECT LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION IN BASIC EDUCATION
FIELD OF ACTION	The skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the 4th grade of primary education
OBJECTIVE	Develop a system of learning activities to improve the development of skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in 4th grade of primary education

Theoretical methods:

Historical-logical:

It will be used to study the trajectory of studies on reading comprehension in Mexican primary education within the framework of the Education and Basic Reform and establish the fundamental milestones that characterize its treatment in the particular case of the interpretive level.

Analytical-Synthetic:

It will be used in order to study reading comprehension starting from the decomposition of the object of study in the specificity of the different levels of comprehension and then these parts will be integrated to study the interpretive level of comprehension in an integral way.

Systemic approach: It will be used to study reading comprehension in primary education as part of the teaching-learning process of literacy. At the same time, it will make it possible to analyze the interpretive level in its relationship with the other levels of reading comprehension, in such a way that the interactions between them can be established. The development of a system of learning activities to improve the interpretive level will be established not as a sum of elements, but as an integral set that can produce new qualities.

Methods and / or empirical techniques:

Knowledge test: It will be used to find out the current status of the interpretive level of reading comprehension in students who are in grade 4 A of the «Revolución» elementary school in Mexico City.

Diagnostic form of the level of reading competence: It will be used by the teacher to make an assessment of how the curricular standards related to the processes of reading and interpreting texts are fulfilled by each of the students who are in grade 4 A of primary school "Revolution" of Mexico City.

Survey: It will be applied to teachers who work in primary education at the «Revolución» elementary school in Mexico City to find out their state of opinion about the problems presented by students in the interpretive level of reading comprehension.

Statistical methods:

Percentage analysis and measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode) will be used to carry out the study and systematization of the data obtained with the application of empirical methods and techniques.

It is good to reaffirm that the empirical methods and instruments must be closely related to the object of study so that their results can be compared with each other and arrive at valid generalizations about what is being investigated. Many times the starting researcher forgets this aspect when he goes to elaborate his instruments, which results in that sometimes the knowledge test that he elaborates has nothing to do with what he asks in the survey, in the interview, in the technique of sentence completion or any other that you use. That must not happen. If the field of action that we are working on in our example is: Skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension in the 4th grade of primary educationWe can't get away from there and start asking if you like to read or what books you read, or how many books you've read lately. Preferences for reading are not being investigated, but skills at the interpretive level of reading comprehension.

The first thing to be clear about is what the subject standards are in relation to the research object. The Spanish Program 4th grade of primary education establishes the following standards related to the processes of reading and interpreting texts:

1.1. Identify and use specific information from a text to solve specific problems.

1.2. Ask precise questions to guide your search for information.

1.3. Understand the central aspects of a text (theme, events, plot, characters involved).

1.4. Identify the order and establish cause and effect relationships in the plot of a variety of text types.

1.5. Infer information in a text to retrieve that which is not explicit.

1.6. Read and understand a variety of medium-difficulty texts and may notice contradictions, similarities, and differences between texts that address the same topic.

1.7. Identify the main ideas of a text and select information to meet specific needs and support your arguments.

1.8. He understands figurative language and is able to identify it in various genres: short story, novel, theater, and poetry.

1.9. Identify the characteristics of descriptive, narrative, informative and explanatory texts, based on their graphic distribution and their communicative function, and adapt their reading to the characteristics of the writings.

1.10. Use the quotation text to explain and argue your own ideas.

1.11. Interpret the information contained in tables and tables.

1.12. It selects data presented in two different sources and integrates it into a text.

1.13. Difference between facts and opinions when reading different types of texts.

1.14. Synthesize information without losing the central meaning of the text.

1.15. Identify and use the function of punctuation marks when reading: period, comma, colon, semicolon, exclamation point, question mark, and accentuation.

And why do I raise the need to go to curricular standards? Because they are descriptors of the achievement that each student will demonstrate at the end of a school period and synthesize the expected learning of the subject in the aspect related to the processes of reading and interpreting texts. Next, I will give you an example of how to elaborate the instruments taking into account the indications that I have offered here.

1. DIAGNOSTIC SHEET OF THE LEVEL OF READING COMPETENCE

School: Student: Grade:

Course:

I. ATTITUDES	one (NOT ACQUIRED)	2 (INITIATED)	3 (IN PROCESS)	4 (CONSOLIDATED)
1.1 Shows interest in reading
1.2 Take advantage of reading time in the classroom
1.3 Read more books than required
1.4 Read carefully and extract relevant data from the reading
II. CONTENTS AND PROCEDURES
1.1 Identify and use specific information from a text to solve specific problems
1.2. Ask precise questions to

guide your search for information.
1.3. Understand the central aspects of a text (theme, events, plot, characters involved).
1.4. Identify the order and establish cause and effect relationships in the plot of a variety of text types.
1.5. Infer information in a text to retrieve that which is not explicit.
1.6. Read and understand a variety of medium-difficulty texts and may notice contradictions, similarities, and differences between texts that address the same topic.
1.7. Identify the main ideas of a text and select information to meet specific needs and support your arguments.
1.8. He understands figurative language and is able to identify it in various genres: short story, novel, theater, and poetry.
1.9. Identify the characteristics of descriptive, narrative, informative and explanatory texts, based on their graphic distribution and their communicative function, and adapt their reading to the characteristics of the writings.
1.10. Use the quotation text to explain and argue your own ideas.
1.11. Interpret the information contained in tables and tables.
1.12. It selects data presented in two different sources and integrates them into a
text.
1.13. Difference between facts and opinions when reading different types of texts.
1.14. Synthesize information without losing the central meaning of the text.
1.15. Identify and use the function of punctuation marks when reading: period, comma, colon, semicolon, exclamation point, question mark, and accentuation.

1. KNOWLEDGE TEST

Read very carefully the text that we present below. You can do it more than once to achieve full understanding of it.

The teacher By: Eduardo Galeano

The phone rang. I heard the order:

-I'm calling you to tell you that you are going to be a jury.

-Jury?

-Yes Yes. Jury of a contest.

"Thanks for letting me know," I managed to stammer.

She was twelve years old and a student at the Monte Caseros street school:

-It's a novel contest. We wrote them, the sixth graders.

Glup, I said.

"We wait for you tomorrow," he commanded.

And I went.

The novelists were a swarm of chiquilines who all spoke at once.

Master Oscar, frayed fists, fakir salary, let them do it. They had organized that contest of novels, illustrated by their authors, and had managed to get a local jeweler to donate medals with the name engraved on each of the participants.

At the awards ceremony, the entry of parents and other adults was prohibited. The three jurors, Master Oscar, one of the authors and I, read the minutes, which highlighted the merits of each of the works. All were awarded, and each award received a standing ovation and a shower of streamers.

Later, the teacher told me that the good thing about teaching is in how much you learn:

-We feel so close that it makes me want to leave all of them repeaters.

And one of the students, who had come to Montevideo from a town lost in the fields, stayed chatting with me. She told me that she didn't speak a word before, and laughing, she told me that the problem was that now she couldn't shut up. And she told me that she loved the teacher, she loved her sooooo much, because she was the one who had taught her the most important thing: she had taught her to lose the fear of being wrong.

Now answer the following questions:

1. Tell me if you consider the title of the reading appropriate and why? What other title would you give it? What type of text are you reading? Give me two reasons that allow you to affirm why it is that type of text. Why do you think that at the award ceremony of the contest "the entry of parents and other adults was prohibited"? What do you think about the attitude of Master Oscar? Select the phrase or expression that you liked the most in the story and comment on why you chose it

III. SURVEY OF TEACHERS

Dear teacher: We are conducting an investigation to find out the difficulties that students present in the interpretive level of reading comprehension in primary education. Your opinions will be a valuable help to us to draw up strategies that allow us to improve your situation in the development of that skill. That is why we ask you to answer the following questions with the greatest possible sincerity. You don't need to write your name, just the degree to which you work and your years of experience. We thank you in advance for your valuable cooperation.

Degree in which you work: Years of experience in elementary school:

Next, we offer you the curricular standards of the primary level in those aspects related to the processes of reading and interpreting texts. You must offer a global assessment of the approximate number of students that each of them meets according to the parameters offered to you:

STANDARD	NUMBER OF STUDENTS WITH THE DEVELOPED STANDARD
EVERYONE	ALMOST EVERY	SOME	FEW	NONE
1.1. Identify and use specific information from a text to solve specific problems.
1.2. Ask precise questions to guide your search for information.
1.3. Understand the central aspects of a text (theme, events, plot, characters involved).
1.4. Identify the order and establish cause and effect relationships in the plot of a variety of text types.
1.5. Infer information in a text to retrieve that which is not explicit.

STANDARD	NUMBER OF STUDENTS WITH THE DEVELOPED STANDARD
EVERYONE	ALMOST EVERY	SOME	FEW	NONE
1.6. Read and understand a variety of medium-difficulty texts and can notice contradictions, similarities and differences between texts that address the same topic.
1.7. Identify the main ideas of a text and select information for solve needs specific and support your arguments.
1.8. He understands figurative language and is able to identify it in various genres: short story, novel, theater, and poetry.
1.9. Identify the characteristics of the texts descriptive, narratives, informative and explanatory, based on its graphic distribution and its communicative function, and adapts its reading to the characteristics of the writings.
1.10. Use the quotation text to explain and argue your own ideas.
1.11. Interpret the information contained in tables and tables.
1.12. It selects data presented in two different sources and integrates it into a text.
1.13. Difference between facts and opinions when reading different types of texts.
1.14. Synthesize information without losing the central meaning of the text.
1.15. Identify and use the function of the signs of
STANDARD	NUMBER OF STUDENTS WITH THE DEVELOPED STANDARD
EVERYONE	ALMOST EVERY	SOME	FEW	NONE
punctuation when reading: period, comma, colon, semicolon, exclamation marks, question marks, and accentuation.

Another thing I want to leave delimited. I have presented here three instruments that I have developed taking into account the object of research and the field of action that have served to exemplify my points of view. Does this mean that all educational research must carry the same instruments? The answer is a definit no. Different empirical methods and techniques can be used, only, in my case, I have chosen these three. But interview, observation, sentence completion technique, or ten wishes can be used, just to name a few. The point is that those that are selected are in close correspondence with the nature of the investigated topic.

And we got to piloting. In the simplest way, piloting is nothing more than the validation process of the instruments that we have developed. It is very important to "put them to the test." A small number of people (students, teachers, etc.) are always chosen who are not going to be the same people who will later be worked with. This action is what allows us to assess whether the design of the instruments is adequate, what questions or items should be changed, what is not understood, among other elements, which will lead us to a readjustment of them for their final application. The piloting reveals errors, inconsistencies, omissions and gives us the possibility to estimate how effective the instruments will be in collecting data, when applying them. When we ignore piloting in our planning,Nothing can be fixed anymore and it is very likely that some of our results will not be what we really expected or that there will be difficulties in the application of the instruments that cannot be solved.

I have tried to explain in the simplest way the importance of methodological design. Their consistent development is crucial to the success of our research process. It is the method that gives us the way to find the truth, a truth that is not absolute but that helps to clear the way that shows us that Investigating is seeing what everyone has seen, and thinking what no one else has seen. has thought.

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