The search for causationIt is four years since the sixth edition of Research Methods in Education was published and we are indebted to Routledge for the opportunity to produce a seventh edition. The book continues to be received very favourably worldwide and is the standard text for many courses in research methods.
The seventh edition contains much new material, including entirely new chapters on:
The search for causation
Choosing a research project
Critical educational research
Evaluation and the politics of educational research
Meta-analysis, research syntheses and systematic reviews
Virtual worlds in educational research
Visual media in educational research
Organizing and presenting qualitative data
Content analysis, coding and computer analysis
Themes, narratives, conversations and discourses
Grounded theory
Analysing visual media as data
The background to statistical tests
Descriptive statistics
Inferential statistics
Multidimensional measurement and factor analysis.
Whilst retaining the best features of the former edition, the reshaping, updating and new additions undertaken for this new volume now mean that the book covers a greater spread of issues than the previous editions, and in greater depth. In addition to updating the book throughout, new material has been added as follows:
Part 1:
ontology and epistemology in educational research
complexity theory and research
cross-cultural research
mixed methods research
participatory research.
Part 2:
choosing a research project
planning educational research
modelling the planning process
research questions
conducting, searching and reporting a literature review
ethics, managing ethical dilemmas, ethics committees and pro-formas
ownership of data
quality in educational research
sampling, particularly non-probability sampling
sampling in mixed methods research
validity in mixed methods research.
Part 3:
historical and documentary research
autoethnography
internet ethnographies
generalizability in qualitative research
internet surveys
internet sources and online resources
surveys and online surveys
sampling in surveys and experiments
interview and telephone surveys
longitudinal studies
case studies and their data
databases and data sources for ex post facto research
experiments and design experiments
randomization in experiments
research syntheses, systematic reviews and meta-analysis: ‘what works’
action research and participatory action research
reporting action research
qualitative research and short-duration qualitative research
social networking
virtual worlds in educational research.
Part 4:
conducting research with children
personal constructs
planning and conducting questionnaires
internet questionnaires
software for questionnaire preparation
role-playing
telephone interviewing
interview control questions
interviewing minority and marginalized people
network analysis
timing and causality for observational data
software for test preparation
video recording in educational research
ethical issues in video research
visual media in educational research: artefacts, still and moving images.
Part 5:
computer analysis in qualitative data
thick descriptions and their interpretation
discourse analysis
analysing narratives, biographies and autobiographies
analysing and interpreting visual data: artefacts, still and moving images
coding and grounded theory
further statistics and how to calculate, use and report them in data analysis
curves of distribution, range and standardized scores
further analysis with the chi-square statistic
partial correlations and controls
structural equation modelling and multilevel modelling
signs and symbols in statistical analysis.
Additionally there are copious website references in nearly every chapter, most of which provide free online materials. A signal feature of this edition is the inclusion of very many extensively worked examples and more figures, diagrams and graphics to illustrate and summarize key points clearly. Several of the tables in Part 5 include SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software) output, so that readers can check their own SPSS analysis against the examples provided.
We have introduced a numbering system in each chapter, for ease of referencing and locating material.
To accompany this volume, a companion website provides a comprehensive range of materials to cover all aspects of research (including a full course on research methods on PowerPoint slides), exercises and examples, explanatory material and further notes, SPSS data files and SPSS manual for novice researchers, QSR (Qualitative Solutions and Research) data files and manual for qualitative data treatment, together with further statistics and statistical tables. These are indicated in the book. A wealth of supporting materials is available on the website www.routledge.com/textbooks/cohen7e.
This book stands out for its practical advice that is securely rooted in theory and up-to-date discussion from a range of sources. We hope that it will continue to constitute the first ‘port of call’ for educational researchers and continue to be the definitive text in its field.