Practicing Research: Discovering Evidence That Matters provides students, practitioners, and researchers with guidance on best practices. The book s eight chapters correspond to the skills that research consumers need to discover evidence that matters. Author Arlene Fink pays special attention to facilitating student learning by offeringing over a hundred examples, exercises, tables, figures, and checklists, as well as an extensive glossary. All the examples are taken from existing research and programs and grounded in the practitioner s reality.Key FeaturesProvides methods for determining the validity of evidence and how to justify an acceptable level of proof based on science, experience, and values Offers practical frameworks to guide the research process and take the student from needs assessment to program implementation and evaluation through to implementation of resultsShows how to engage diverse stakeholders (communities, teachers) in the research processAccompanied by a companion Web site at www.sagepub.com/finkstudythat consists of Web exercises for students for each chapter

Intended Audience

This text is intended to be the core text or one of the primary texts for applied research courses at the graduate level in Education, Social Work, Public Administration and Policy, Evaluation, Health, Nursing, and Criminal Justice. Readers should have a passing familiarity with the idea of research, but no special research expertise is necessary.

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The Third Edition of Arlene Fink's Evaluation Fundamentals teaches the basic concepts and vocabulary necessary to do program evaluations and review the quality of evaluation research to make informed decisions about methods and outcomes to meet scientific and community needs. Dr. Fink thoroughly examines such issues as how to justify evaluation questions and set standards of effectiveness, design studies, identify best practices, and conduct ethical research. The book contains numerous examples of evaluation methods, as well as evaluation reports. It also includes practice exercises and suggested readings in print and online. Individuals can use the New Edition successfully on their own or in small or large groups.

Providing readers with an accessible, in-depth look at how to synthesize research literature, Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper is perfect for students, researchers, marketers, planners, and policymakers who design and manage public and private agencies, conduct research studies, and prepare strategic plans and grant proposals. Bestselling author Arlene Fink shows readers how to explain the need for and significance of research, as well as how to explain a study's findings. Offering a step-by-step approach to conducting literature reviews, the Fifth Edition features new research, examples, and references from the social, behavioral, and health sciences, expanded coverage of qualitative research, updated and revised meta-analysis procedures, a brand new glossary of key terms, double the number of exercises, and additional examples of how to write reviews.

"I am truly amazed at how complete this booklet is. What a wealth of material to help in developing questions!"

Packed with new topics that reflect today's challenges, the Sixth Edition of the bestselling How to Conduct Surveys guides readers through the process of developing their own rigorous surveys and evaluating the credibility and transparency of surveys created by others. Offering practical, step-by-step advice and written in the same clear and accessible style as author Arlene Fink's other works, the book focuses on choosing the appropriate type of survey, writing survey questions and responses, formatting the survey, deciding on the characteristics and numbers of respondents to include, choosing how often to survey respondents, and analyzing and reporting the results.

Practicing Research: Discovering Evidence That Matters provides students, practitioners, and researchers with guidance on best practices. The book s eight chapters correspond to the skills that research consumers need to discover evidence that matters. Author Arlene Fink pays special attention to facilitating student learning by offeringing over a hundred examples, exercises, tables, figures, and checklists, as well as an extensive glossary. All the examples are taken from existing research and programs and grounded in the practitioner s reality.Key FeaturesProvides methods for determining the validity of evidence and how to justify an acceptable level of proof based on science, experience, and values Offers practical frameworks to guide the research process and take the student from needs assessment to program implementation and evaluation through to implementation of resultsShows how to engage diverse stakeholders (communities, teachers) in the research processAccompanied by a companion Web site at www.sagepub.com/finkstudythat consists of Web exercises for students for each chapter

Intended Audience

This text is intended to be the core text or one of the primary texts for applied research courses at the graduate level in Education, Social Work, Public Administration and Policy, Evaluation, Health, Nursing, and Criminal Justice. Readers should have a passing familiarity with the idea of research, but no special research expertise is necessary.

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"This is a very basic overview of statistical terms and tests with which any persons conducting a survey should be familiar if a survey is to be appropriately designed and analyzed. The presentation is straightforward and uses numerous appropriate examples and exercises to illustrate ideas. These materials could be used with a wide range of audiences. I would be inclined to include this in my graduate methods class because many students take the methods course before thy have completed the series of statistics courses. For those students who have completed a statistic course, this book can serve as a very nice primer for guiding their decisions in survey design and analysis."

--Rhonda J. V. Montgomery, Department of Gerontology, University of Kansas

Clear and concise, How to Analyze Survey Data shows you how to do just that: analyze survey data. Beginning with a basic overview, this volume shows what statistics can do for surveys, describes measurement scales in detail, and demonstrates how to choose a method to analyze your results. It includes checklists and guidelines, and practice exercises to check your progress. The volume also discusses regression, hypothesis testing, and offers a cogent discussion on screening and transforming data.

Unlike their predecessors, present-day evaluators must negotiate with public and private agencies, organize and administer projects, speak to groups, write reports and budgets, as well as play the role of politician and philosopher. Additionally, they must think as ethicists when asking personal survey questions (so as not to violate the privacy of the individual) or contemplate random assignment (thereby potentially denying services to some). Evaluation Basics offers proven techniques in a "how to" format, with step-by-step directions and illustrations. This book will be of use to those conducting evaluations, working with someone else who does, or planning to conduct evaluations in the future.