Practical Research - 8th edition

Summary: For a wide variety of graduate or advanced undergraduate research courses.

Written in uncommonly engaging, lucid, and elegant prose, this text is an "understand-it-yourself, do-it-yourself" manual designed to help research students in any discipline understand the fundamental structure of quality research and the methodical process that leads to genuinely significant results. It guides the reader, step-by-step, from the selection of a problem to ...show morestudy, through the process of conducting authentic research, to the preparation of a completed report, with practical suggestions based on a solid theoretical framework and sound pedagogy. Suited for the core text in any introductory research course or even for self-instruction, this text will show students two things: 1) that quality research demands planning and design; and, 2) how their own research projects can be executed effectively and professionally.

Features

• Appropriate for introductory research courses across all disciplines from the social sciences to the physical sciences and the arts.
  • Contains examples and models from a variety of disciplines, including child development, education, history, nursing, psychology, and sociology.
• Practical Applications sections in each chapter--Ranging from Guidelines for executing some aspect of research, to checklists for applying evaluative criteria, to exercises that ask readers to use chapter content to solve a problem.
  • Encourage students to "learn by doing"--creating a framework within which they can plan and design their own research project.

• Increased material on how to use computer technology in the research process--Including effectively using online databases, referencing sources on Internet information, and more.
  • Introduces students to the power and limitations of the Internet and the World Wide Web--helps them learn to use contemporary technology wisely.
• Significantly expanded and updated material--Especially in the areas of collaboration, qualitative sampling, oral histories, meta-analysis, standard scores, and within-subject, single-subject, single-group, and multiple baseline designs.
  • Ensures students leave the course understanding the latest techniques and trends in the field--gives them the benefit of the most current thinking in the field.
• An appendix on using SPSS--Covering the creation of a data set, computing basic descriptive statistics, and computing inferential statistics.
  • Familiarizes students with this powerful software package--ensures they learn what SPSS can and cannot do and how to make the most of it.
• Three new sample dissertations--Included toward the end of Chapters 8, 9, and 11.
  • Illustrate "how to do it" through examples written by actual students--provide insight into how each dissertation made use of text concepts and strategies to create an effective research paper.

Edition/Copyright: 8TH 05
Cover: Paperback
Publisher: Merrill Education/Prentice Hall
Published: 02/26/2004

View Table of Contents

I. THE FUNDAMENTALS.

1. What Is Research?
2. Tools of Research.

II. FOCUSING YOUR RESEARCH EFFORTS.

3. The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process.
4. Review of the Related Literature.
5. Planning Your Research Project.
6. Writing the Research Proposal.

III. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES.

7. Qualitative Research.
8. Historical Research.

IV. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES.

9. Descriptive Research.
10. Experimental and Ex Post Facto Designs.
11. Statistical Techniques for Analyzing Quantitative Data.

V. PREPARING THE RESEARCH REPORT.

12. Technical Details: Style, Format, and Organization of the Research Report.

Appendix A: Using SPSS.
References.
Index.

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