This book is for students who are embarking on a qualitative research project in psychology or a related discipline. While focusing mainly on undergraduate dissertations, this book will also be useful for postgraduate students. It takes you through planning a qualitative project, stage by stage, addressing key issues and concerns along the way. The focus throughout is on how to make your project excellent!
Packed full of examples from student projects to help you to put theory into practice, the book guides you through:
* designing your research
* ethical considerations
* collecting your data
* analysing your data
* writing your report or dissertation.
In addition, the book will help you with time management and working with your supervisor, as well as providing guidance on how you can use your project as the basis for publication or further study.
Industry Reviews
"Kirk is an extraordinarily logical and precise writer. His prose is excellent. I really like the balance between the logic and issues of design and the assumptions and implications of violations in the analysis. The consistent explanation of the parameters of the model equation and the sample estimators of the parameters is so clear. The advantages and disadvantages sections are wonderful and the diagrams comparing partitioning of variances are elegant." -- Jim Dykes "This is the standard for texts in experimental design. It is truly an outstanding resource. The expansive coverage of the full range of designs and all their complexities make it extremely valuable. The extensive updating throughout this edition will be a great asset for instructors. The general conceptual approach taken in the building block approach to designs is very helpful to graduate students studying the concepts for the first or second time. I have always thought the examples in this book are clear and well developed, truly ideal. I appreciate the many new exercises for students in this new edition, as well." -- Dale R. Fuqua "The book is thorough in integrating important topical areas dealing with statistical power and effect size estimation within the chapters covering a particular design and analysis issue." -- William P. Neace "This is still the best available textbook on experimental research." -- Lihshing Leigh Wang "The combination of topic coverage and organization, depth of coverage, and clarity of writing are what keeps me using this text year after year." -- James L. Wardrop "I like the examples given to solidify important points, and how in some spots the author clearly spells out concepts for the reader. I like how it would be easy to quickly grab this text and look up issues of determining effect size and acceptable levels without doing much digging, and how the advantages and disadvantages of certain designs are clearly identified. I also like that he includes references from the updated APA manual. It is nice to see that kind of consistency." -- Jessica M. Nicklin "Professor Kirk continues, with this Fourth Edition, to maintain his high standards of clarity and scholarship. Many important designs and analyses for behavioral researchers are succinctly and lucidly presented. It is written at such a level as to be beneficial for the graduate student and yet does not sacrifice conceptual/technical issues (esp. by explicating and utilizing the GLM approach). This makes this edition not only a very good textbook but also an exceptional reference book." -- Charles A. Dill "Kirk has very useful chapters for addressing complicated designs. Addressing confounded and fractional designs can seem a bit arcane to students, but knowing how to use them can help researchers to either avoid them or recognize situations in which they are used." -- Amy Lynne Shelton "The materials are logically and well organized. The layout of these materials is from lower level to higher level; and from basic conceptual interpretation to complicated computational procedures and experimental designs." -- Dabae Lee "I would really like to see students think of this book the way I do-like an old friend that I would NEVER be without." -- Valerie L. Shalin
