Ideal for students in research methods courses and for readers seeking a clear guide to conducting behavioral studies, the fourth edition of A Practical Guide to Behavioral Research provides an accessible introduction to the techniques and tools of behavioral research used in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, as well as in business, education, design, and program evaluation. It offers a multi-method, hands-on, interdisciplinary approach including observation, interviewing, questionnaire construction, experimentation, content analyses, case studies, and the use of personal documents and archival measures. Students are encouraged to learn by using statistical techniques rather than just reading about them. This revision includes a new chapter describing the research opportunities provided by using the Internet in behavioral research, and new material on the use of computers in running research studies and in data analysis. It also expands coverage of case studies and qualitative research, and introduces the role of the camera in behavioral research. Details on conference presentations and on writing technical reports and journal articles are included. This edition also features more information on work being done outside of North America. Lively and straightforward, the fourth edition of A Practical Guide to Behavioral Research is an indispensable tool for teachers in need of an excellent textbook, and an invaluable reference for anyone interested in behavioral studies

A practical, concrete road map to running research studies with human subjects. Covering both conceptual and practical issues critical to implementing a study with human participants, this book is organized to follow the standard process in experiment-based research, covering such issues as potential ethical problems, risks to validity, experimental setup, running a study, and concluding a study. The detailed guidance on each step of a study is ideal for anyone who has had little or no previous practical training in research methodology. The book's examples and sample forms are drawn from areas such as cognitive psychology, human factors, human-computer interaction, and human-robotic interaction. Key Features A coherent view of how to implement the experimental process, including detailed discussions of the setup and running of behavioral studies, gives you a practical guide for implementing your own experiments. Concrete examples speak to the diverse needs of the HCl, human factors, cognitive science, and related communities. Practical coverage of risks and problems that can be anticipated and avoided helps you recognize the ethical challenges you might encounter during the course of designing, running, or concluding a study. Three running example scenarios drawn from industrial and academic settings help you understand the major themes of each chapter. Example forms provide you with models you can use as you create your own experimental documents (such as IRB applications, experimental scripts, consent forms, and room layouts) to meet your particular research needs. Practical advice and examples of challenges associated with experimental setup and execution (such as how to set up experimental rooms, manage late or missing participants, and devise an effective experimental script) humanize key points in a memorable way, helping you recall the major points of the book. Built-in learning aids include further readings, an appendix on running studies online, questions at the end of each chapter, and publication paths and types that encourage you to take ownership of the research process and engage in research in a directed and methodical way. Book jacket.

This textbook emphasises a hands-on, multimethod, interdisciplinary approach to behavioural research. This edition uses particularly strong observational approaches.

This book has been replaced by Becoming a Behavioral Science Researcher, Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-3879-9.

Providing both a theoretical understanding of research issues and a nuts-and-bolts guide, this book presents the critical issues in psychological research in a clear and easy-to-read manner. Presented within the critical context of validity and reliability the author addresses all the steps of the research process: from formulating a hypothesis, to specifying variables, to creating a research design, to collecting and analyzing data, to drawing conclusions, to reporting the results. A companion website (www.sagepub.com//cherulnik) for professors and students contains additional supporting materials.

This book offers beginning researchers in psychology and education with limited statistics backgrounds a practical, hands-on guide to the preparation, assessment, and development of quantitative research instruments. With the explicit goal in mind of making the text accessible to readers with only a beginning level of statistical expertise, the authors include numerous examples and figures to illustrate necessary concepts and procedures, while minimizing jargon. The book includes an appendix with directions for the required statistical analyses for readers with access to SPSS. The organization of the book into two sections, theoretical and practical, with complementary chapters in each section, results in a practical and versatile resource to have in a variety of contexts. Because of its versatility, the book may be used either as a textbook for courses on test construction and instrument design or quantitative research methods in psychology and education, as a reference for researchers using and constructing quantitative instruments, or as background reading for professionals in related fields.

This book is the most practical clinical guide on Acceptance and Commit ment Therapy (ACT said as one word, not as initials) yet available. It is designed to show how the ACT model and techniques apply to various disorders, settings, and delivery options. The authors of these chapters are experts in applying ACT in these various areas, and it is intriguing how the same core principles of ACT are given a nip here and a tuck there to fit it to so many issues. The purpose of this book, in part, is to emboldened researchers and clinicians to begin to apply ACT wherever it seems to fit. The chapters in the book demonstrate that ACT may be a useful treat ment approach for a very wide range of clinical problems. Already there are controlled data in many of these areas, and soon that database will be much larger. The theory underlying ACT (Relational Frame Theory or "RFT"-and yes, here you say the initials) makes a powerful claim: psy chopathology is, to a significant degree, built into human language. Fur ther, it suggests ways to diminish destructive language-based functions and ways of augmenting helpful ones. To the extent that this model is cor rect, ACT should apply to a very wide variety of behavioral issues because of the centrality of language and cognition in human functioning.