Psychology Research Methods Connecting Research to Students' Lives

Comprehensive, engaging, and punctuated with humor, this undergraduate textbook provides an interesting introduction to research methodology. Psychology Research Methods allows students to become familiar with the material through examples of research relevant to their lives. The textbook covers every major research approach in psychology. Students will learn how to evaluate and conduct the different varieties of descriptive research and experimental research. They will learn all steps of the research process from developing a research idea to writing about and presenting what they did. Each chapter contains suggestions for journal article readings and activities relevant to the topics covered. The textbook also includes a chapter on how to conduct research online and an appendix with an annotated manuscript keyed to the 6th edition of the American Psychological Association Publication Manual.

1. Introduction to research methodology; 2. Developing research ideas and hypotheses; 3. Ethics; 4. Defining and measuring variables; 5. Descriptive research methods; 6. Correlations; 7. Survey research; 8. Experimentation with one independent variable; 9. Factorial designs: experiments with more than one independent variable; 10. Quasi-experimental designs; 11. Small-N designs; 12. External validity; 13. Online research; 14. Writing about and presenting your research; Appendix.

Wendy Heath earned a doctorate in Experimental Psychology in 1992 with a focus in cognitive and social psychology and was the recipient of Rider University's Iorio Faculty Research Prize in 2015. She has enjoyed teaching research methods to and conducting research with undergraduates for over twenty years. Dr Heath has also shown her support for student research by creating the American Psychology-Law Society Award for Best Undergraduate Research Paper, awarded annually since 2006. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology and the Association for Psychological Science.