Doing Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences

Thomas R Black teaches research methods and statistics in the School of Educational Studies, University of Surrey and is also author of the best-selling Doing Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences

• PART ONE: INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH DESIGNThe Nature of EnquiryBeginning the Design ProcessInitial Sources of Invalidity and ConfoundingBasic DesignsIdentifying Populations and SamplesAdditional Sources of Confounding by the Measurement Process and InteractionsRefining the DesignsPART TWO: MEASUREMENT DESIGNPrinciples of Measurement and Collecting Factual DataMeasuring Attitudes, Opinions and ViewsMeasuring AchievementEvaluating Data QualityDetermining Instrument Reliability and ValidityPART THREE: TURNING DATA INTO INFORMATION USING STATISTICSDescriptive Statistics Using a SpreadsheetProbability and Statistical SignificancePower, Errors and Choosing aPART FOUR: EX POST FACTO, EXPERIMENTAL AND QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS: PARAMETRIC TESTSComparing Two Groupst-TestOne-Way Analysis of VarianceFactorial DesignsRandomized Block Designs and Analysis of CovariancePART FIVE: NONPARAMETRIC TESTS: NOMINAL AND ORDINAL VARIABLESNonparametric TestsOne and Two SamplesNonparametric TestsMultiple and Related SamplesPART SIX: DESCRIBING NON-CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPSCorrelation and AssociationRegression

`There is much that is excellent about this book. If all educational researchers had studied it thoroughly, especially the sections on research design, representative samples and confounding variables, then there might be less publication of sweeping statements based on insufficient evidence′ - British Educational Research Journal