Description
The tenth edition of Research in Education has the same goals as the previous editions. The book is meant to be used as a research reference or as a text in an introductory course in research methods. It is appropriate for graduate students enrolled in a research course or seminar, for those writing a thesis or dissertation, or for those who carryon research as a professional activity. All professional workers should be familiar with the methods of research and the analysis of data. If only as consumers, professionals should understand some of the techniques used in identifying problems, forming hypotheses, constructing and using datagathering instruments, designing research studies, and employing statistical procedures to analyze data. They should also be able to use this information to interpret and critically analyze research reports that appear in professional journals and other publications.
No introductory course can be expected to confer research competence, nor can any book present all relevant information. Research skill and understanding are achieved only through the combination of course-work and experience. Graduate students may find it profitable to carryon a small-scale study as a way of learning about research.
This edition expands and clarifies a number of ideas presented in previous editions. Additional concepts, procedures, and examples have been added. A totally new aspect of this text is directed access to the information and technology available in Research Navigator, which contains pertinent articles available on-line. As a result, the reader is able to locate articles associated with various terms cited in the page margins throughout this book. In all cases, we used the Education Database of ContentSelect. We also used Research Navigator in the exercises for most of the chapters (all except Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 12). These exercises ask questions that can be answered by going to a specific article identified in the
exercise number.
Also completely new to this edition is the instructor option to add a CD containing a copy of SPSS for Windows, Student Version. The only limitation of the student version is the number of subjects and variables that can be used in the analyses. All of the sample analyses found in this text can be carried out using the student version.
Each of the five methodology chapters has the text of an entire published article following it that illustrates that type of research. Nothing substantive has been deleted from the ninth edition. Appendix B contains a data set for use by students