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Exploratory Factor Analysis Paper

Decent Essays

Descriptive studies are used for the purpose of breaking down information that might give clarity on the operation of a school. There are some aspects of a descriptive study that set it apart for other types of research. This paper will evaluate three descriptive articles based on parameters identified in Lauer’s (2006), An Education Research Primer. All three of the articles focus on an aspect of parental involvement and will be broken down and summarized to determine how each study aligns to descriptive research and its level of validity.
The first research study, which was done by Cheryl McCoy (2010), is described as an exploratory study and was designed to get more parents who have a low income or are of color to participate in activities …show more content…

It describes how parents were offered and opportunity to win a twenty-five dollar gift card for their participation and how students were pulled out of class in groups to complete the survey once they explained the purpose (Loera, Rueda, & Nakamoto, 2011). There is a specific section on data analysis. Discussion of their use of the exploratory factor analysis, comprehensive exploratory factor analysis, AMOS, and latent variable modeling because the technique controls for measurement error was discussed under this topic (Loera, Rueda, & Nakamoto, 2011). This article was very efficient in detailing the process it used to analyze the surveys. This makes this research easier to repeat and likely means the chances of it being valid and reliable or …show more content…

This study also included a rival explanation for the results. In a discussion subtopic of the article it says that the parents’ commitment may not necessarily translate to the students reading motivation (Loera, Rueda, & Nakamoto, 2011). This article, nor the one following it connects to any other prior research that was mentioned in the article unlike the next article which will be discussed later. These articles were peer reviewed per the search parameters. The final article specifically states that it is a descriptive, comparative, and correlational survey model (Sad, & Gurbuzturk, 2013). The intent of this study was simply to look at parental involvement. As with the first study it does not ask a question, but make a statement. The statement also sets as a goal to, “comparatively analyze their level of parental involvement with regard to some variables including parents’ gender (mother vs. father), parent’s educational background, child’s class, type of school (private vs. state) and family’s average monthly income (Sad, & Gurbuzturk,

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