Understanding and Evaluating Research: A Critical Guide shows students how to be critical consumers of research and to appreciate the power of methodology as it shapes the research question, the use of theory in the study, the methods used, and how the outcomes are reported. The book starts with what it means to be a critical and uncritical reader of research, followed by a detailed chapter on methodology, and then proceeds to a discussion of each component of a research article as it is informed by the methodology. The book encourages readers to select an article from their discipline, learning along the way how to assess each component of the article and come to a judgment of its rigor or quality as a scholarly report.
Clinically oriented professionals and students need to understand and evaluate the research and statistics in professional articles, especially given today's emphasis on evidence-based practice. This book demonstrates how the research approach and design help determine the appropriate statistical analysis. Understanding and Evaluating Research in Applied and Clinical Settings features: *short, independent, chapters that do not have to be read in order; *a guide to understanding why a particular statistic was selected; *an emphasis on effects sizes including measures of risk potency; *numerous cross-disciplinary examples to illustrate the material; and *methods to help determine practical and clinical significance and their relation to meta-analysis and evidence-based practice. This book is intended for practitioners and students in psychology, education, counseling, mental and allied health, nursing, and medicine, and as a text for courses on understanding research methods and statistics.
When learning how to read, analyze, and design one's own research, it is useful to review examples of similar research. Understanding and Evaluating Qualitative Educational Research uses published research articles to teach students how to understand and evaluate qualitative research in education. Each example within a category of qualitative research - ethnography, grounded theory, phenomenology, case study, action research, narrative, and mixed methods - is accompanied by commentary from the editor regarding why the particular approach was used and how and why the various aspects of the example relate back to the approach taken. This commentary guides students in learning how to read, analyze, and create their own qualitative research studies. Included in the text is a series of "Issues and Concepts" that are at the forefront of the changing field. This text gives students in qualitative educational research a well-rounded and practical look at what qualitative research is, along with how to read, analyze, and design studies themselves.
Understanding, Evaluating, and Conducting Second Language Writing Research speaks to the rapidly growing area of second language writing by providing a uniquely balanced approach to L2 writing research. While other books favor either a qualitative or quantitative approach to second language acquisition (SLA) research, this text is comprehensive in scope and does not privilege one approach over the other, illuminating the strengths of each and the ways in which they might complement each other. It also provides equal weight to the cognitive and socio-cultural approaches to SLA. Containing an array of focal studies and suggestions for further reading, this text is the ideal resource for students beginning to conduct L2 writing research as well as for more experienced researchers who wish to expand their approach to conducting research.
The book is intended to help students understand and interpret research articles and how to evaluate what was done in the research. It is not intended to show them how to do research but rather how to understand research articles and evaluate that research.
"Critical Thinking: A Methodology for Interpreting Information 'deconstructs' common errors in thinking and teaches students to become smarter consumers of research results. Written to complement a textbook or a collection of readings, this brief methods book strengthens students' ability to interpret information whenever and wherever data are used. It includes a wide range of examples along with end of chapter exercises for further discussion. This book will be a coursebook for the undergraduate social science courses where critical thinking, numeracy, and data literacy are common learning objectives"--Provided by publisher.
For courses in Research Methods in Education. Understanding and Evaluating Research, fourth edition, is a market leading textbook appropriate for all courses in educational research. A reader, this text contains quantitative and qualitative educational research articles from a variety of professional journals. With each article is a sample article analysis and exercises that help students become better consumers of research. The fourth edition is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of new articles, advance organizers, annotations to explain different sections, revised discussion of research typology, and an appendix with answer to evaluation criteria questions. Those features together with the two mixed-method studies, revised and expanded discussion of qualitative methods, more emphasis given to randomized designs, revision of research typology, and updated articles make this a must have book for understanding and evaluating research. NEW! Revision of research typology discussed in the first chapter Readers gain useful insight on how to classify research studies, and present criteria by which all educational research should be judged. NEW! Addition of a chapter on Mixed-Method Designs (Chapter 5), and two mixed-method studies. NEW! Revised and expanded discussion of qualitative methods and designs. Includes characteristics of mixed-method designs and the criteria for how this type of research should be evaluated. NEW! Eight new articles on descriptive quantitative non-experimental designs. NEW! The most current, relevant articles included from a wide variety of journals and of varied reading levels. Selected articles have been published within the past five years, representing a diverse range of topics found in education (e.g., educational administration, counseling, special education, curriculum, adult education, early childhood education).
Using examples of good as well as flawed research studies, this text explains how to decide whether the conclusions reported in an article are justified on the basis of the design and analysis of the experiment.
Managers and administrators in the public-policy and nonprofit sectors rely heavily on analytical skills to quickly pore through a massive amount of research. They dissect it and apply specific, useful data that can inform critical policy changes and help them improve their organization’s overall performance and financial position. To master this vital role, it is imperative that they and their staff learn to be more efficient at collecting, analyzing and evaluating research material, by discovering how to ask the right questions and quickly discern valuable information from useless data. A Blueprint to Streamline Every Aspect of the Research Process Focusing on the entire research process from start to finish, the compact but comprehensive Understanding Research Methods: A Guide for the Public and Nonprofit Manager explores the research designs and analytical tools that are the foundation for decision-making. Relying more on concepts and analysis than on mathematics, this text provides insight into the definition, process, importance, and capabilities of research – addressing the topic from the perspectives of both the producer of data and the consumer who evaluates its usefulness. Broken down into three sections, the book: Gives an overview of the research process, the construction of measures, and research ethics Elaborates on planning a research method, presenting common research designs used by practitioners and the most useful, popular ways to collect data Focuses on tools available to analyze and then communicate data – specifically univariate and bivariate analyses This versatile text is intended for dual uses – as a textbook for graduate and undergraduate students in public and nonprofit administration and public policy, and as a practical guide for the average administrator. Both groups will learn how to develop proper research questions, define specific research purposes, and form hypotheses that avoid confusion in measurement and analysis. Imparting basic practical knowledge, it outlines effective approaches to gather accurate, relevant information and then effectively interpret and communicate it.
Understanding Qualitative Research and Ethnomethodology provides a discussion of qualitative research methods from an ethnomethodological perspective. Detailed yet concise, Paul ten Have′s text explores the complex relation between the more traditional methods of qualitative social research and the discipline of ethnomethodology. It draws on examples from both ethnomethodological studies and the wider field of qualitative research to discuss critically an array of methods for qualitative data collection and analysis. With a student-friendly structure, this engaging book will be an invaluable resource for both students and researchers across the social sciences.
