First Steps In Research and Statistics

First Steps in Research and Statistics is a new, very accessible approach to learning about quantitative methods. No previous knowledge or experience is assumed and every stage of the research process is covered. Key topics include: * Formulating your research questions * How to choose the right statistical test for your research design * Important research issues, such as questionnaire design, ethics, sampling, reliability and validity * Conducting simple statistics to explore relationships and differences in your data * Using statistics to explore relationships and differences in your data * Writing up your research report and presenting statistics Simple and helpful worksheets and flow diagrams guide you through the research stages. Each chapter contains exercises with answers to check whether you've understood.

Dennis Howitt and Duncan Cramer both teach at Loughborough University and have written several books on research and statistics.

Part I: The Basics of Research. Asking Research Questions. Common Research Methods. Ethics in the Conduct of Research. Measuring Variables. Part II: The Statistical Analysis of Single Variables and Simple Surveys. Two Types of Data Analysis. Describing and Summarising Category Data. Describing and Summarising Score Data. Surveys and Sampling. Part III: Exploring Correlational Relationships in Survey/Non-experimental Studies. Examining Relationships Between Two Variables. Numerical Ways of Describing Relationships: Correlation Coefficients. Statistical Significance of the Correlation Coefficient. Differences and Association Among Two Sets of Categories: Chi-square. Conducting Survey/Non-experimental Studies. Part IV: Exploring Differences Between Group Means. Testing for Differences in Means; More on Significance Testing. Comparing the Scores of Two Groups of People: Mann-Whitney U-test. Comparing Scores from the Same Group of People on Two Occasions: Wilcoxon Matched-pairs Test. Part V: The Essentials of Designing Experiments. Designing and Running Experiments. Comparing the Scores of a Randomly Assigned Experimental and Control Group: Unrelated t-test. Comparing the Scores of a Counterbalanced Related Subjects Experiment: Related t-test. Comparing Three or More Groups on a Numerical Score. Part VI: The Report. Writing a Research Report. References. Index.

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