Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research, 6th edition

For courses in Educational Research and Research Methods.

A practical, step-by-step core research text

Balancing coverage of qualitative, quantitative and combined methods, Educational Research offers a truly inclusive and integrated overview of the processes involved. It first examines the general steps in the research process and then details the procedures for conducting specific types of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies.

In the 6th Edition, examples are now drawn from a broad range of fields including program evaluation, multicultural research, counseling, school psychology, and learning and cognition.

Hallmark features of this title

• Annotated research articles help students understand the structure of articles and the key issues to take into account when evaluating the quality and the applicable scope of each particular piece of research.
• Useful Information for Consumers of Research features offer tips on interpreting and evaluating research.
• Checklists summarize key points such as evaluation criteria used to assess the quality of a study.
• Useful Information for Producers of Research features present tips on planning and conducting research.

New and updated features of this title

• Quantitative research methods are updated to cover mediating variables, use of online surveys, and additional statistical methods such as intraclass correlation coefficients. A new example of performance assessment and step-by-step examples to calculate t-test and chi-square statistics are provided.
• Coverage of quantitative designs is expanded to include causal inferences in experimental designs and more detail about causal comparative research and single-subject designs. The authors provide examples of threats to validity in experimental research. The chapter on survey research is substantially updated to reflect the use of online surveys, methodological considerations and sources for more information.
• The chapters on qualitative research are updated, including coverage of qualitative data analysis software and recent developments in qualitative methods. This edition includes a table comparing different approaches to grounded theory, new ethnographic study examples, and developments in narrative research.
• The mixed methods chapter is substantially updated to reflect methodological developments, in particular the discussion of integration of qualitative and quantitative data. The authors added recent examples of mixed methods research using convergent, explanatory sequential, exploratory sequential and experimental mixed methods designs.
• Broadened examples beyond teacher education reflect the increasingly diverse disciplines and subdisciplines in educational research. The authors include examples of educational research in fields such as program evaluation, multicultural research, counseling, school psychology, learning and cognition, nutrition, sports psychology, education in the professions and other fields.
• An expanded emphasis on technology (such as the use of online programs for a table of random numbers, use of online surveys, various databases available, reference tools, and cell-phone random digit dialing). Coverage of reviewing the literature is expanded with an emphasis on current literature database searches, reference management software, and how to synthesize findings from a literature review.