The Research Experience. Ann Sloan Devlin

      For Information:

      SAGE Publications, Inc.

      2455 Teller Road

      Thousand Oaks, California 91320

      E-mail: [email protected]

      SAGE Publications Ltd.

      1 Oliver’s Yard

      55 City Road

      London, EC1Y 1SP

      United Kingdom

      SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

      B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area

      Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044

      India

      SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd.

      18 Cross Street #10-10/11/12

      China Square Central

      Singapore 048423

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Devlin, Ann Sloan, 1948- author.

      Title: The research experience : planning, conducting, and reporting research / Ann Sloan Devlin, Connecticut College.

      Description: Second edition. | Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc., [2021] | Includes bibliographical references.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2020021896 | ISBN 9781544377957 (paperback) | ISBN 9781544377940 (epub) | ISBN 9781544377933 (epub) | ISBN 9781544377926 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: Social sciences—Research—Methodology. | Psychology—Research—Methodology.

      Classification: LCC H62 .D49549 2021 | DDC 001.4/2—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021896

      Printed in Canada

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Acquisitions Editor: Leah Fargotstein

      Editorial Assistant: Kelsey Barkis

      Production Editor: Natasha Tiwari

      Copy Editor: Terri Lee Paulsen

      Typesetter: Hurix Digital

      Indexer: Integra

      Cover Designer: Candice Harman

      Marketing Manager: Shari Countryman

      Preface

      Instructors of research methods courses face a major challenge: how to cover the necessary theoretical foundations adequately and provide enough practical help to guide students through a research project. This book is designed to accomplish both goals. The foundations of research design and methods are covered (e.g., how the nature of the research question determines the research design that is used; correlational, experimental, and qualitative designs), but there is a good deal of attention to the practical issues involved in research: finding measures, writing questionnaire items, and using online survey software such as Qualtrics^®; obtaining participants and ethical review; statistical analysis; and ultimately writing a report of the research based on the format of the American Psychological Association (i.e., in APA style). Research is increasingly influenced by the availability of the Internet to conduct studies, and this book covers not only online survey software but also crowdsourcing platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk as a source of participants. Many research methods books overlook the practical aspects of doing research. The information in this book will enable students to conduct a research methods project in a single semester.

      This book can be used in a variety of social and behavioral science departments, from Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience to Human Development, Education, and Social Work; Sociology, Criminology, and Political Science; Environmental Studies; and Communication. In addition, because research is increasingly a part of the practice of architecture, the book could be used in architecture studio courses where research is discussed. The book could be used in research methods courses taught in one or two semesters. Although statistics are covered in the book, the text is better suited for courses taught after an introductory statistics course.

      The practical emphasis in the book is a major feature, and several appendices provide easily understandable summaries of fundamental issues: (a) research approaches, scale types, and associated statistical analyses; (b) a decision tree for statistical analyses (i.e., which test for which research situation); (c) commonly used “analyze” functions in IBM^® SPSS^® Statistics; and (d) sample informed consent and debriefing documents.

      Each chapter contains several pedagogical aids to promote understanding and retention of information. For example, three kinds of questions are included in each chapter: Revisit and Respond; Try This Now; and Build Your Skills. The Revisit and Respond questions are considered review questions; the Try This Now questions push you to expand your understanding of the information just presented in the chapter or to challenge yourself to anticipate upcoming content; and the Build Your Skills questions at the end of the chapter are typically more activity-based and invite you to practice some skill introduced in the chapter (e.g., write your own survey questions). The book also contains glossary definitions in the chapter margins when a term is introduced in the text.

      Updates to the New Edition

      The second edition of the book preserves the qualities of the first edition but is updated in a number of significant ways. First, to recognize its importance, there is a separate chapter devoted to qualitative research. Next, recognizing that the federal policies governing research with human subjects have been significantly revised, the chapter on Ethics (Chapter 4) has been thoroughly updated to incorporate this material (i.e., the revised Common Rule went into effect in January 2019). In addition, the seventh edition of the APA Publication Manual appeared in 2020, and the text incorporates coverage of the distinctive features of that manual, including