The Second Edition of The SAGE Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods provides students and researchers with the most comprehensive resource covering core methods, research designs, and data collection, management, and analysis issues. This thoroughly revised edition continues to place critical emphasis on finding the tools that best fit the research question given the constraints of deadlines, budget, and available staff. Each chapter offers guidance on how to make intelligent and conscious tradeoffs so that one can refine and hone the research question as new knowledge is gained, unanticipated obstacles are encountered, or contextual shifts take place.

Each chapter has been enhanced pedagogically to include more step-by-step procedures, more practical examples from various settings to illustrate the method, parameters to define when the method is most appropriate and when it is not appropriate. The editors also include numerous graphs, models, tip boxes to provide teaching and learning tools.

Key Features of the Second EditionEmphasizes applying research techniques, particularly in real-world settings in which there are various data, money, time, and political constraintsContains new chapters on mixed methods, qualitative comparative analysis, concept mapping, and internet data collectionOffers a newly developed section that serves as a guide for students who are attempting to translate the content in the chapters into action

Intended Audience

This Handbook is appropriate for introductory and intermediate research methods courses that focus intently on practical applications and a survey of the many methods available to budding researchers."

Debra Rog and John Buckner report that since the mid-1990s, there has been continued research and policy interest in understanding the characteristics and needs of families and children who become homeless, especially in understanding the heterogeneity within the population and whether a "typology" of families can be created (i.e., distinguishing families with greater needs for services and housing from those with lesser needs.) The authors review the findings from recent studies on homeless families and children and summarize the descriptive and outcome findings from evaluations of housing and service interventions and prevention efforts. With respect to children, research has focused on understanding and documenting the impact of homelessness on children. Rog and Buckner emphasize that that many of the challenges homeless families and children confront are also experienced by families that are very poor but not homeless, pointing to the need for further research on how to target assistance most efficiently to minimize the incidence and duration of homelessness for low-income families and children in general.

Although 14% to 26% of children under the age of 18 suffer from some type of behavioral, emotional, or developmental problem, only about one quarter of these children actually receive any care. How can we reach more of these children (and their families) and give them more effective mental health care? Aimed at finding an answer to this question, Children's Mental Health Services explores the major developments in the policy, services, and evaluations arenas that have implications for the development and refinement of service systems for children and adolescents with mental health needs. The book begins with an overview of state-level policies as well as the research development in children's mental health services. Next, the authors thoughtfully examine the components of the multiagency system--from the juvenile justice system to primary care and school-based mental health services--to see what contributions each can make in serving children with mental health needs and their families. This valuable resource also evaluates three recent examples of children's mental health service systems. Children's Mental Health Services is an important volume for students in evaluation, family studies, development psychology, public policy and social work. Researchers, evaluators, and practitioners in the teen or child mental health area will also find this book a welcome synthesis of the issues and research in this field. "I would like to congratulate the editors on the publication of this volume and on the initiation of the Sage Children's Mental Health Services series. I applaud their work in bringing together so many leaders in children's mental health to produce a very thoughtful and strategic analyses of progress that has been made and issues that remain to be addressed. I anticipate that this volume and entire series will make an important contribution to an understanding of where we have come from in developing effective service systems, where we still need to go to better support children and families, who our partners in this effort should be, and perhaps, most important strategically, how we should strive to move ahead." --from the Foreword by Robert M. Friedman, University of South Florida

"The Terry E. Hedrick, Leonard Bickman, and Debra J. Rog text provides a framework for designing research that is adaptable to almost any applied setting and constantly reiterates the need for establishing and maintaining credibility with the client at each level of the research process. Although the applied research book is a practical guide, suitable to accompany any thorough applied design textbook, it does a comprehensive job of presenting the distinction between basic and applied research. It introduces many topics found in the general methodology textbooks. This overlap will help students to feel comfortable in using the general skills in a more specific and complex manner."

--Contemporary Psychology

"For researchers needing to know how to plan and design applied research projects, Applied Research Design will be a most welcome publication. . . . The writing is clear and concise, graphics are utilized helpfully, and this book will be much appreciated by beginning social scientists who are serious but uncertain about the methodologies possible for doing applied research."

--Academic Library Book Review

Aimed at helping researchers and students make the transition from the classroom and the laboratory to the "real" world, the authors reveal pitfalls to avoid and strategies to undertake in order to overcome obstacles in the design and planning of applied research. Applied Research Design focuses on refining research questions when actual events force deviations from the original analysis. To accomplish this, the authors discuss how to study and monitor program implementation, statistical power analysis, and how to assess the human and material resources needed to conduct an applied research design to facilitate the management of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Appropriate for professionals and researchers who have had some previous exposure to research methods, this book will enable the development of research strategies that are credible, useful, and--more important--feasible.