Research Methods: A Process of Inquiry [Hardcover]

Anthony M. Graziano (Author), Michael L. Raulin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0065010906 | ISBN-13: 978-0065010909 | Publication Date: January 1993 | Edition: 2nd

Takes students beyond cookbook-like strategies to learn the concepts of research and helps them to develop an awareness of research as a thinking process. The book offers a programmatic organization and exposes students to all the approaches in research from naturalistic to experimental.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Research Methods: A Process of Inquiry explores the entire range of research methodologies in psychology, using a programmatic approach to introduce topics and build on earlier presentations to increase student understanding. The authors emphasize research concepts, rather than simply presenting cookbook-like strategies, to help students develop an understanding of scientific research.

Highlights of the Fifth Edition

• Review exercises at the end of each chapter (with answers to select exercises in an appendix) provide students with examples for self-review.
• Expanded treatment of research ethics gives students an early introduction to considerations vital in research design, and involves them in later discussions of the ethics of human and animal research.
• A unique decision-tree flowchart takes students step-by-step through the characteristics of any basic research design to the choice of appropriate statistical procedures and allows instructors to pick statistical procedures based on already-learned course material.
• Every copy of the text comes packaged with a free student tutorial CD-ROM. This free CD is an integrated package of pedagogical features in a cross-platform format. It includes an Interactive Study Guide, a Lab Manual, and tutorials on statistical analysis, library research, and APA writing style. Coverage of advanced topics render this a resource for future use.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins College Div; 2nd edition (January 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0065010906
• ISBN-13: 978-0065010909
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,556,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good baseline book for those preparing for a dissertation, October 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Research Methods: A Process of Inquiry (Hardcover)

As a Ph.D. student that is about to start my dissertation I found this book extremely helpful in wading through the various research and analysis methods. Filled with examples (although principally focused on Psychology), the book has helped me plan my dissertation. A great reference book and in my opinion a must have for those who are about to start their dissertation.

5.0 out of 5 stars Research Methods book, June 3, 2011

By 

Ter - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Research Methods: A Process of Inquiry (6th Edition) (Hardcover)

I needed this book for a course and it was a great price. We were able to use it for the course which entailed reading every page... Timely delivery for my class, great price. Very happy with this purchase.

18 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A dissenting opinion, August 10, 2000

By 

Joseph A. Maxwell (Fairfax, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Research Methods: A Process of Inquiry (Hardcover)

First, I want to say that I have NOT read this book; I have some comments based on its table of contents. I teach research methods in education, and have served on over a hundred dissertation committees in education and other fields (including several dissertations in psychology), and I would not use or recommend this book primarily because of its extremely limited treatment of qualitative research. Despite the book cover's claim that the book deals with "the entire range of research methodologies in psychology", the coverage of qualitative methods appears to be limited to one chapter on naturalistic and case-study methods. (A second chapter which deals with field research in fact seems to focus on quasi-experimental and single-subject designs, which are not qualitative.) The rest of the book is heavily quantitative/experimental in its approach (there are three chapters on experimental design alone). It seems revealing that although there are sections on the limitations of naturalistic and case study research and correlational and differential research, there is no explicit section on the limitations of experimental research. There is also no discussion of one of the most common qualitative approaches used in psychology--the qualitative interview study, which is different from a "case study". (For more on this approach, I recommend "Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies", by the psychologist Robert Weiss.)

If you are a student in a very quantitatively-oriented psychology department, this may be a useful book for you. However, at a time when many research methods books are devoting much more space to qualitative methods, Graziano and Raulin's book seems a bit anachronistic. Several highly regarded research methods textbooks that are more even-handed in their coverage are David Krathwohl, Methods of Educational and Social Science Research: An Integrated Approach (second edition, 1998), and Colin Robson, Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-Researchers (1993; second edition forthcoming). There is also an enormous literature on qualitative methods specifically; simply search this site under "qualitative research".