The Practical Researcher: A Student Guide to Conducting Psychological Research

In this book, Dana S. Dunn provides students with a concise, engaging, and practical introduction to research methods and the process of conducting research.

• New Doing Research decision trees open each chapter and guide students through the active learning exercises that inform the research process
• Research Foundations boxes explore common issues encountered by researchers and use examples to bring research to life
• Practical tools and tips for doing research appear throughout such as writing an experimental script, operationalizing independent and dependent variables, and creating manipulation checks, among many others
• Over 40 Active Learning Exercises help students build practical skills such as creating a project time line, developing a peer research contract, using a random numbers table, and reporting results in poster or paper form, among many others
• Generating Research Ideas section provides easy to follow guidelines for developing ideas by using freewriting, keeping a research notebook, or brainstorming research ideas alone or as a research team
• Critical thinking is emphasized when searching, reading, and writing about psychological literature
• Updated chapter on Ethical Considerations in the Practice of Research includes a solid foundation and practical exercises (e.g., completing a form for an ethics review (IRB), helping students to write an informed consent form, crafting a scientifically and ethically sound debriefing script)
• Updated references and research practices includes the latest APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct
• Expanded advice on presenting research at student conferences and submitting project results to student journals
• New annotated student paper in Appendix A