Research Methods for Education

Book excerpt: Written with the novice educational researcher in mind, Research Methods in Education is designed to help students produce good quality, valid and valuable research. The text is written in an engaging style and adopts a mixed-methods approach; guidance on analytical procedures that require more advanced tools such as SPSS and Minitab are also provided. The book is packed with exercises, examples and comparative international material from other educational contexts, all of which help to introduce this complex subject in an easy to use format for people that are new to research and are not confident with numerical information. Peter Newby's student-friendly text allows the researcher to confidently address the practical aspects of deciding on a research project, designing a questionnaire or presenting conclusions in the most convincing way. "Of the many research books available this one stands out as it is clear, logically structured, explains sophisticated concepts in an accessible manner without oversimplifying them and has a format which students (at undergraduate and postgraduate) like. In addition the powerpoint slides that accompany the book provide an excellent basis for lectures and can be edited / adopted to personalise them. I anticipate using this book for quite some time on several courses." Dr Pete Allison, Coordinator of Masters Research courses at The Moray House School of Education, The University of Edinburgh