Primer on Learning and Conditioning: A Quantitative Approach is a succinct, practical, and exercise-based learning and conditioning textbook designed to help students easily grasp key concepts in the field. The book emphasizes a conceptual perspective on associative learning and conditioning, and features a distinct focus on experimental design and quantitative analysis. The book begins with a brief history of the field and introduces students to the concept of learning. Later chapters provide students with the tools and information they need to successfully design conditioning experiments and represent functional relations. Concepts such as modal action patterns, generalization gradients, habituation, and sensitization are explored. The text discusses Pavlovian and operant conditioning, elaborating on foundational concepts such as contingency, reinforcement and punishment, and simple schedules of reinforcement. Students also explore the topics of self-control, behavioral economics, and their implications on mechanisms of reinforcement. Featuring exercises designed to strengthen key ideas at the end of each chapter, Primer on Learning and Conditioning is an interactive text that helps students bridge the gap between the foundational concepts of learning and conditioning and empirical research. It is well-suited for courses in experimental psychology or neuroscience that are focused on learning, conditioning, motivation, or behavior.

Qualitative diary research is a unique tool with strengths that set it apart from other research methods. The diary prioritizes events embedded in context and time, a perspective that serves to destabilize constants, revealing the complex intersectionality of experience. Over the last several centuries, the mechanics of diary-keeping have evolved from simple records of ephemera into a primary research method. Today both archival and solicited diaries are used by social scientists who employ a range of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method data collection technologies. Researchers may consider the very possibility of conducting a qualitative diary study with some hesitation-in addition to sounding like a good deal of work, the method seems somewhat off the beaten path, a bit mysterious, and even kitschy. With a better understanding of what is involved, those who are considering the method may come to find that a diary study is well worth their while. In Diary Methods, Laurie L. Hyers provides her readers with a wealth of guidance and expert insight to ensure the success of their qualitative diary studies. The history of the diary from cultural phenomenon to social scientific method are explored, followed by a discussion of the use of archival and solicited diaries in qualitative designs, diary data collection and management, qualitative analysis and coding, composition and diary report writing, evaluating diary research, and special ethical considerations when using diaries in research.