Research Assistance Services - College of Education

The College of Education’s Research Assistance Services (RAS) provides faculty and graduate students with advice, assistance and instruction in qualitative research, quantitative research and academic writing.

The RAS is staffed by three advanced doctoral students: (1) a qualitative methodologist, (2) a quantitative methodologist and (3) a writing specialist. These graduate research assistants (GRAs) provide a range of assistance to individual faculty and graduate students, including evaluating research purposes and questions, discussing data collection and analytic approaches, recommending applicable resources and readings, reviewing academic manuscripts to offer suggestions on content and providing formatting/copy editing recommendations and guidance.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE

*RAS GRAs may NOT offer any form of assistance that violates the University’s or any other professional organization’s codes of ethics and/or honor codes. These prohibited services include but are not limited to: offering any assistance related to UA students’ comprehensive exams, conducting data collection or analysis for RAS visitors, and authoring portions of visitors’ manuscripts, including reference, methods, and findings/results sections. The RAS is a support service, and as such, the GAs are happy to provide aid that includes helping visitors understand course content material as well as how to conduct a form of data analysis, offering feedback on visitors’ findings/results, evaluating visitors’ academic writing for clarity and content, and demonstrating proper applications of formatting and copy editing.

The RAS also maintains a library of qualitative and quantitative data analysis reference texts, which students may access when the RAS is open. Additionally, the College of Education’s Julie C. Laible Qualitative Research Lab, located within the RAS, provides faculty and graduate students with access to qualitative data analysis equipment and software, including digital audio recorders, microphones, transcription equipment, and video recorders that may be checked out for use by faculty and staff when the RAS is open.

Location

Carmichael 306/307

Software

If you would like to explore what research-related software is available to you through UA’s Office of Information Technology, including NVivo and Qualtrics, please visit oit.ua.edu/software.