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研究性学习的程序 Research Process
发布时间:2006-10-19   点击:   来源:本站原创   作者:未知

 


Writing the essential question is the first part of the research process. The essential question will be the focus of your research.

Essential questions are questions that require you to make a decision or plan a course of action. They are sometimes difficult to develop and your teacher might have to help you. After you get experience writing essential questions, you will become a more competent researcher.

When writing essential questions, avoid "What is" questions such as "What is AIDS," or "What is acid rain." While these are important questions, they do not require that you make a decision or plan a course of action. Instead ask, "How can I reduce the likelihood of contracting AIDS?" (this requires a plan of action) or "What is the best strategy for reducing the impact of acid rain in the United States?" (this requires a decision among the various strategies).

Writing essential questions takes patience and practice. As you begin to develop research skills, keep in mind that as an adult (as well as a teenager!) you are constantly required to make decisions and plan courses of action. Learning an effective set of tools to help you do both will make you more successful.


A foundation question is one whose answer provides the facts used to answer the essential question.

Foundation questions are typically the "What is" questions. They will be the questions you will try and get answers for. The facts obtained by finding the answers to your foundation questions will be used to build the answer to your essential question. It is your job to craft an answer from these facts.

You should try and write between 6 and 8 foundation questions. The number can vary; ask your teacher for help. As you proceed through your research, it is also OK to add (or subtract) foundation questions as needed. Here are the characteristics of foundation questions.

Lets try an example. Here is our essential question: "Should wetlands in the United States be preserved? (remember: essential questions require that you ask a decision-making or action plan question, this is an example of a decision-making question).

Here are some foundation questions relating to the wetlands essential question:

  • What is a wetland?
  • What are the reasons for saving wetlands?
  • Why are wetlands being destroyed?
  • Who is destroying wetlands?
  • How many of acres of wetlands exist in the United States?
  • At what rate are wetlands being destroyed?
  • What are the best methods for saving wetlands?

Again, the answers to these questions will provide the factual information required to build an answer to the essential question. As a result, these questions are extremely important! Make sure to ask the questions which will give you the information you need. In the next step, you will use foundation questions to help you build a search strategy.


Developing a search strategy is the third part of the research model.

You will use your foundation questions to help generate a list of keywords that can be used with a Web search tool. A search tool is either a directory, like Yahoo!, or a search engine like AltaVista. Both are useful in finding relevant information.

Begin by examining each foundation question for keywords, or words that are very important to the meaning of the question. Since you want to answer the foundation questions, it makes sense to use words from the foundation questions to locate information that will help you answer them.

An example. Here is a foundation question relating to the wetlands example: What are the best methods for saving wetlands? From this foundation question, several keywords could be selected:

What are the best methods for saving wetlands?

From this foundation question, methods, saving, and wetlands are the keywords which will be combined in a search tool to locate information about methods for saving wetlands.

Another example. Here is another foundation question relating to the wetlands example: At what rate are wetlands being destroyed? From this foundation question, several keywords could be selected:

At what rate are wetlands being destroyed?

From this foundation question, rate, wetlands and destroyed are the keywords which will be combined in a search tool to locate information about the rate at which wetlands are being destroyed.

You should analyze every foundation question in this manner. After this has been completed, you are ready to develop the search strategy.


At this point, you should have your search strategy document completed. You are now ready to begin to locate Web resources with Web search tools.

Before you begin, realize that there are over 1.3 billion Web pages that are found at over 3 million Web sites. Locating just the right information can be a formidable task. Realize also that the top 11 Web search tools only sample 48% of the Web-that's right-you do not have access to over 52% of the World Wide Web!

Before we begin locating information, an explanation of the various search tools is appropriate. There are two basic types of search tools available-seach directories and search engines. Search directories are collections of Web sites that humans have compiled into a database. As such, these directories are small because it takes an enormous amount of human effort to find Web sites so that a large directory can be built. When you search a directory, you typically search the directory, or database, first. This means that you are not searching the Web directly. Typical directories are Yahoo!, Looksmart, Encyclopedia Brittanica and {域名已经过期}.

Search engines, such as Altavista, Hotbot, Excite, and Lycos are mechanical; they compare the keywords you enter in their search box to the keywords found in the Web page for a match. Because they mechanically search the Web, search engines are much larger than search directories.

The practical result of using the two types of search tools is that search engines will return many more results, often into the millions for a particular general topic. A search directory may return as few as twenty. Additionally, search directories, because of their human influence, may return Web sites that are slightly higher in quality (although not always). The advantage to search engines is that they have a much greater range of coverage. In any event, you must be familiar with the two types of tools available to you.

So what is a likely strategy for finding information on the Web?

Step 1: Yahoo! Begin your search with Yahoo! Yahoo! will return a manageable number of sites and they will generally be of fairly good quality.

Step 2: Metacrawler. If you do not find what you need, go to Metacrawler. Metacrawler is a metasearch tool; it combines the power of 16 individual search engines and directories together. Metacrawler still returns a manageable number of sites (typically between 40-60) for any given topic. Metacrawler is our second step because it combines the power of many search tools while still yielding a manageable number of sites relative to our topic.

Step 3: Altavista. If you still have not located appropriate sites, go to Altavista. Altavista is one of the largest search tools and gives the greatest flexibility relative to the types of searches you can perform. We choose Altavista as the third part of our strategy because it searches the greatest portion of the Web and gives us the greatest capability for creating specific search strategies.

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