Complete description

Do students who work longer and harder learn more in college? Does joining a fraternity with a more academic flavor enhance a student's academic performance? When are the results from an innovation that is tried on one campus applicable to other campuses? How many students and faculty members must participate in a research project before findings are valid? Do students learn best when they study alone or in small groups?

These are just some more than fifty examples that Richard Light Judith Singer and John Willett explore in "By Design," a lively nontechnical sourcebook for learning about colleges and universities. These authors believe that careful design of research on college effectiveness is the single most important step toward producing useful and valid findings. In that spirit, "By Design" is a pathbreaking textbook of modern research methods that both practitioners and students will find useful. Top page

General info

Publisher & Imprint: Harvard University Press

Pages: 296

Top page

Age recommended: General/trade

Subject Indexing & Classification Dewey:(DC20) 378.0072073 Library of Congress Subject: LB2326.3.L Education, Higher - Research - United States.

Record updated at: 24 August, 2012 time: 03:54

Summary By Design 1. Why Do Research On Higher Education? Many Questions, Many Options Our Philosophy of Research Design How This Book is Organized 2. What Are Your Questions? Why Are Research Questions So Important? Getting Specific Building on the Work of Others Correlation versus Causation The Wheel of Science 3. What Groups Do You Want to Study? Specifying the Target Population Where Should you Conduct the Study Selecting Your Sample More Than One Type of Respondent Nonresponse Bias 4. What Predictors Do You Want to Study? Types of Predictors The Important Role of Variation Other Reasons for Selecting Predictors The Integrity of Your Treatment Choosing Which Predictors to Study 5. Compared to What? Why Do You Need a Comparison Group? Randomized Control Groups: The Best Comparisons Requiring Informed Consent Volunteer Bias Comparison Groups without Random Assignment Retrospective Case-control Studies Design Effects Can Swamp Treatment Effects 6. What Are Your Outcomes? Different Kinds of Outcomes Will You Measure Status or Development Short-term versus Long-term Effects Are Your Measures Valid? 7. How Can You Improve Your Measures? What is Measurement Error? Reliability and Measurement Error Six Strategies for Improving Measurement Quality Looking at Measurement Quality 8. How Many People Should You Study? Why Is Sample Size So Important? What Size Effect Do You Want to Detect? What Type of Analysis Will You Use? Instruments Precision and Sample Size What If Students Drop Out? 9. Should You Try It out on a Small Scale? The Advantages of Pilot Studies Piloting Instruments Relational Studies Informal Small-scale Experiments Generalizing From a Small Study 10. Where Should You Go From Here? Getting Started Lessons From Our Seminar Decisions You Must Make Planning a Longer-term Research Program Reference Index Top page

Add your comment

Add a review - Highlight this book to a friend

Please login or register to send your review

Top page