Abstract
The aim of this study was to identify possible trends in research methodology in the dissertations of the “Pedagogy and Creative Learning” Master’s degree (“Pedagogy and Creative Learning” is a branch of the “Exercise and Quality of Life” Master’s programme) in order to evaluate research directions on the field of pedagogy and creative learning. Dissertations completed and submitted from the beginning of the programme on 2002 till 2013 were used. Dissertations were categorized according to the research method, type of research, data collection approach and instruments, and choice of sample. Results showed that most dissertations adopted the positivist method, a practice that contradicts modern trends rendering thus the necessity to follow the latest research methods, such as the realistic and the pragmatic, in the future. Additionally, the high percentage of descriptive studies, adopting only quantitative methods and dominance of the questionnaire as a data collection tool that were observed do not help the development of knowledge in the field. Finally, as regards sex, age, and number of participants in the dissertations, the choice of both sexes in almost all dissertations was observed with participants from all age groups and in more than four out of ten dissertations the number of participants ranges from 51 to 200 people, while high variability in the number of participants was observed.
Research methodology trends in master dissertations of the Pedagogy and Creative Learning field