Open Educational Research Assets (OPERA)

Welcome to Open Educational Research Assets (OPERA)

OPERA provides open educational resources in the field of educational research methods, bringing together resources that have been designed to support educational research at masters level. These resources are free for you to use and we hope you will find them useful in developing your own research.

How to use OPERA

OPERA houses a lot of material and so it is worth reflecting on the nature of the information that you require before you access the material. This will be also useful if you are using OPERA to support an application to The Open University’s Doctorate in Education programme.

Educational research methods

As you can see from the diagram, the resources are located in different areas. Each area houses materials that relate to different aspects of educational research methods. You can click on the relevant areas of the diagram to access the collections of resources, or use the menu bar on the left-hand side of the screen.

Active content not displayed. This content requires JavaScript to be enabled.
Show description|Hide description

An interactive figure of a pie chart showing the five different categories of resources that are available on this unit. Each segment of the pie chart is a link to a page in the unit. Going clockwise from the top right, the first segment, titled ‘Paradigms’, reads as follows: ‘In this area you'll find resources that look at the nature of educational research and the assumptions which underpin the types of knowledge that it seeks. There is also a discussion of ethical issues.’ The second segment, titled ‘Methodologies’, reads as follows: ‘The material here looks at methodologies and the way that choice of methodology shapes research design.’ The third segment, titled ‘Methods and approaches’, reads as follows: ‘This area houses material which looks at specific research methods and practices.’ The fourth segment, titled ‘Research in specific contexts’, reads as follows: ‘Research methods are framed and constructed by the context of the research and this is seen in a diversity of methods and the issues that they foreground.’ The fifth and final segment, titled ‘Analysis’, reads as follows: ‘This material will help the reader to develop a critical understanding of educational analysis and its evaluation.’

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

In addition OPERA provides links to open access publications and information on developing research proposals.

Paradigms