Research and Research Tools

Craig Mertler's Action Research: Improving Schools and Empowering Educators introduces practicing educators to the process of conducting classroom-based action research. Practical and comprehensive, the book focuses on research methods and procedures that educators can use in their everyday profession.

Think of yourself as an educational architect By tapping into the power of action research, you can improve overall student performance, eliminate achievement gaps, and enhance your own efficacy and morale. In the third edition of this bestselling guidebook, you'll find: New insights on how to use reflective practice, qualitative and quantitative methods, and culturally responsive teaching to improve the success of all students A field-tested, four-stage action research process to lead you from brainstorming to breakthrough Illustrative examples, charts, handouts, worksheets, and sample action research reports to demystify and simplify the action research process

"The book will help you choose strategies for qualitative analysis that best suit your research. It walks you through key decisions, provides actionable game plans and highlights the advantages and challenges of the main approaches. It is packed full of real examples designed to showcase the different tools you might use to meet your own objectives." -publisher

Provides a comprehensive framework for creating, managing, and interpreting qualitative research studies that yield valid and useful information.

"Offering pragmatic guidance for planning and conducting a meta-analytic review, this book is written in an engaging, nontechnical style that makes it ideal for graduate course use or self-study. The author shows how to identify questions that can be answered using meta-analysis, retrieve both published and unpublished studies, create a coding manual, use traditional and unique effect size indices, and write a meta-analytic review." -publisher

Case Study Research: Principles and Practices aims to provide a general understanding of the case study method as well as specific tools for its successful implementation. These tools can be utilized in all fields where the case study method is prominent, including business, anthropology, communications, economics, education, medicine, political science, social work, and sociology.

"[D]emystifies the qualitative coding process with a comprehensive assessment of different coding types, examples and exercises. The ideal reference for students, teachers, and practitioners of qualitative inquiry, it is essential reading across the social sciences and neatly guides you through the multiple approaches available for coding qualitative data." -publisher

This how-to book provides a concise overview of CBPR theoretical underpinnings, methods considerations, and ethical issues in an accessible format interspersed with real life case examples that can accompany other methodologic texts in multiple disciplines.

This book provides practitioner-focused guidance on CBPR and CEnR to help public health professionals, students, and practitioners from multiple other clinical, planning, education, social work, and social science fields to successfully work towards social and health equity. With a majority of new chapters, the book provides a thorough overview of CBPR history, theories of action and participatory research, emerging trends of knowledge democracy, and promising practices.

This practical text integrates theoretical perspectives with guidelines for designing and implementing community-based qualitative research projects. Coverage of participatory research designs and approaches is complemented by chapters on specific aspects of this research process, such as developing relationships and sharing findings to strengthen programs. -publisher

Written at an introductory level, and featuring engaging case examples, this book reviews the theory and practice of personal and egocentric network research. This approach offers powerful tools for capturing the impact of overlapping, changing social relationships and contexts on individuals' attitudes and behavior. The authors provide solid guidance on the formulation of research questions; research design; data collection, including decisions about survey modes and sampling frames; the measurement of network composition and structure, including the use of name generators; and statistical modeling, from basic regression techniques to more advanced multilevel and dynamic models. -publisher

Detailed, worked-through examples drawn from psychology, management, and sociology studies illustrate the procedures, pitfalls, and extensions of CFA methodology. The text shows how to formulate, program, and interpret CFA models using popular latent variable software packages (LISREL, Mplus, EQS, SAS/CALIS); understand the similarities and differences between CFA and exploratory factor analysis (EFA); and report results from a CFA study.

Combining the latest thinking in the field with practical, step-by-step guidance, the Third Edition of John W. Creswell and Vicki L. Plano Clark's Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research now covers seven mixed methods designs with accompanying journal articles illustrating each design. The authors walk readers through the entire research process, and present updated examples from published mixed methods studies drawn from multiple disciplines. In addition, this new edition includes information about the dynamic and evolving nature of the field of mixed methods research, four additional methodological approaches, and coverage of new directions in mixed methods.

This book provides a thorough presentation of instrument construction, from conception to development and pre-testing of items, formatting the instrument, administration, and, finally, data management and presentation of the findings. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize how to create an instrument that will produce trustworthy and accurate data.

The book intertwines descriptions of the components of a research proposal (introduction, literature review, research methods, etc.) with discussions of the essential elements and steps of mixed methods research. Examples from a real-world, interdisciplinary, mixed methods research study demonstrate concepts in action throughout the book, and an entire sample proposal appears at the end of the book, giving readers insight into every step up to completion. Readers who complete the exercises in each chapter will have an individualized, detailed template for their own mixed methods research proposal.

This groundbreaking text makes an intervention on behalf of disability studies into the broad field of qualitative inquiry. Ronald Berger and Laura Lorenz introduce readers to a range of issues involved in doing qualitative research on disabilities by bringing together a collection of scholarly work that supplements their own contributions and covers a variety of qualitative methods: participant observation, interviewing and interview coding, focus groups, autoethnography, life history, narrative analysis, content analysis, and participatory visual methods. The chapters are framed in terms of the relevant methodological issues involved in the research, bringing in substantive findings to illustrate the fruits of the methods.

"Addressing practical issues rarely covered in methods texts, this user-friendly, jargon-free book helps students and beginning researchers plan infant and child development studies and get them done. The author provides step-by-step guidance for getting involved in a developmental laboratory and crafting effective research questions and proposals. Tips on recruiting study participants cover access issues--such as how to overcome language and cultural barriers--and include helpful sample scripts." -publisher

The clear and practical writing of Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research has made this book a favorite. In precise step-by-step language the book helps you learn how to conduct, read, and evaluate research studies.

This unique text provides a broad introduction to qualitative analysis together with concrete demonstrations and comparisons of five major approaches.

Examining the major approaches to hypothesis testing and model selection, this book blends statistical theory with recommendations for practice, illustrated with real-world social science examples. It systematically compares classical (frequentist) and Bayesian approaches, showing how they are applied, exploring ways to reconcile the differences between them, and evaluating key controversies and criticisms. -publisher

"...approaches research methods from a practice-first perspective that aligns research with professional experiences and identifies the tools and resources readers can use when conducting their own research. Throughout the book, the authors illuminate complex research concepts using problems of practice confronting educators to help readers make meaningful connections with key concepts and research practices. The authors present balanced coverage across research methodologies that is linked to practice, so readers clearly see research as a tool they can use to improve classrooms, schools, districts, and educational organizations." -publisher

This Third Edition of Uwe Flick's bestselling textbook has been fully revised, expanded, and updated but retains all of the student-friendly elements and carefully structured qualities of the previous edition.

This book presents the first comprehensive introduction to arts-based research (ABR) practices, which scholars in multiple disciplines are fruitfully using to reveal information and represent experiences that traditional methods cannot capture.

In Mixed Methods Design in Evaluation, the first volume of SAGE's Evaluation in Practice Series, best-selling author Donna M. Mertens explores the meaning of mixed methods evaluation, its evolution over the last few decades, and the dominant philosophical frameworks that are influencing thought and practice in the field today. -publisher

Bringing together theory and practice, this book draws on the projects and experiences of senior and new researchers implementing various forms of practitioner research. Chapter discussions are informed by international literature to provide insightful reflections on research processes and the contribution of practitioner research in changing practice. The diversity of perspectives across the chapters provides an excellent resource for those undertaking research within early childhood contexts." -publisher

This book will help readers understand the practice of qualitative research--whether they want to do it, teach it, or just learn about it. All the major research phases are encompassed (startup, design, data collection, analysis, and composing), "including newly emerging trends." -publisher

Featuring engaging examples from diverse disciplines, this book explains how to use modern approaches to quasi-experimentation to derive credible estimates of treatment effects under the demanding constraints of field settings. Foremost expert Charles S. Reichardt provides an in-depth examination of the design and statistical analysis of pretest-posttest, nonequivalent groups, regression discontinuity, and interrupted time-series designs. He details their relative strengths and weaknesses and offers practical advice about their use. -publisher

This excellent resource provides an approach to research and evaluation that helps educators better understand and address the needs of students with various disabilities.

Using an intuitive six-step model, readers learn how to craft a research question and then identify a logical process for answering it. Conversational writing and multi-disciplinary examples illuminate the model's simplicity and power, effectively connecting the "hows" and "whys" behind social science research. Students using this book will learn how to turn their research questions into results.

The primary purpose of the book is to offer a broad-based examination of the role of scientific inquiry in contemporary special education. The authors’ aim was to provide a comprehensive overview of the philosophical, ethical, methodological, and analytical fundamentals of social science and educational research, as well as to specify aspects of special education research that distinguish it from scientific inquiry in other fields of education and human services.

The Third Edition of the bestselling text Research Design by John W. Creswell enables readers to compare three approaches to research—qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods—in a single research methods text. The book presents these three approaches side by side within the context of the process of research from the beginning steps of philosophical assumptions to the writing and presenting of research.

In order to carry out high-quality educational research, every aspect of the process needs careful consideration. This all-encompassing textbook gives a considered overview of principles that underpin research, key qualitative and quantitative methods for research design, data collection, and analysis. -publisher

"In this book, the process of research synthesis is conceptualized as five stages: (1) problem formulation; (2) data collection or the literature search; (3) data evaluation; (4) analysis and interpretation; and (5) presentation of results. Cooper leads the reader through the comprehensive synthesis via a five- stage, step-by-step process." -publisher

Covers every stage of the process of doing a research project, from research design and data collection, through to analysis, dissemination, and feedback. Providing an advanced discussion of current debates and methods in childhood research, the book is essential reading for anyone undertaking consultation, research, and evaluation activities with children and young people.

education courses, School-based Research is a thorough and thoughtful guide to the research process. This Second Edition has been updated to provide further coverage on the best ways to approach, construct and carry out educational research within the classroom.

Using an integrated case study approach, the book begins with the underlying logic of single-case (and its relations to applied behaviour analysis) designs, specific design strategies and tactics, data presentation and interpretation, and the general advantages of single-subject research for those working in applied settings - particularly courses in psychology, social work, counseling and therapy, nursing, and related human services and allied health sciences.

Social Research Methods brings social research 'alive' for students, using both theory and practical examples to illustrate the relevance of research methods in their future careers. It gives students the tools they need to develop a clear understanding of the nature of research, to gain an appreciation of the wide range of methods available, and to develop a set of practical research skills.

Social Science Concepts: A Users Guide will prove an indispensable guide for graduate students and scholars in the social sciences. More broadly, it will appeal to scholars in any field who wish to think more carefully about the concepts used to create theories and research designs.

The Survey Kit is an easy-to-understand, easy-to-follow, comprehensive guide for the novice survey researcher. In addition, it provides useful information about some qualitative research techniques such as interviews, focus groups, observational analysis, and content analysis.

Synthesizing the literature from the survey and measurement fields, this book explains how to develop closed-response survey scales that will accurately capture such constructs as attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. It provides guidelines to help applied researchers or graduate students review existing scales for possible adoption or adaptation in a study; create their own conceptual framework for a scale; write checklists, true-false variations, and Likert-style items; design response scales; examine validity and reliability; conduct a factor analysis; and document the instrument development and its technical quality.

Treatment Fidelity in Studies of Educational Interventionis a detailed guide to the increasing emphasis on methodological rigor and implementation fidelity in educational research. A timely contribution to the field, this book offers practical guidance and systematic research on the nature of implementation fidelity in experimental settings, and provides strategies for combining fidelity-related data with other data types to evaluate a program's impact in schools and other educational settings

The beginner's book to learning about research methods, the author broke down a complicated subject into simple pieces. The use of examples and topic questions add to its usefulness.

"...known for its effectiveness in helping readers learn to use SPSS software for simple data management. Now reflecting SPSS Version 23.0, the Sixth Edition includes updated examples, screenshots, and tables based on current GSS (General Social Survey) data. This manual is an excellent companion to any undergraduate social statistics and research methods text and is ideal as a stand-alone guide for those learning to use SPSS software for the first time." -publisher

Providing step-by-step instruction for conducting a mixed methods research synthesis (MMRS) that integrates both qualitative and quantitative evidence, this book progresses through a systematic, comprehensive approach to conducting an MMRS literature review to analyze and summarize the empirical evidence regarding a particular review question. Readers will benefit from discussion of the potential advantages of MMRS and guidance on how to avoid its potential pitfalls. -publisher