Practical Research: Design and Process, 13th edition
Published by Pearson (January 5, 2023) © 2024
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod

Title overview

For introductory research methods courses in any area of study.

An engaging, cross-disciplinary guide to research methodology

Practical Research is a do-it-yourself, how-to manual for planning and conducting research. Suitable for a variety of courses in basic research methodology, the book uses a conversational tone, step-by-step instructions and practical suggestions to guide the reader from the selection of a problem to the preparation of a completed report.

The 13th Edition includes the latest technology-based strategies and tools for research, a greater focus on the ethics of research, new examples, and expanded discussions of action research and participatory designs.

Hallmark features of this title

  • Practical Applications, Guidelines and Checklists help students enhance their research skills by translating abstract concepts and ideas into specific strategies and explicit criteria.
  • Conceptual Analysis exercises allow readers to practice applying chapter content to short scenarios.
  • Analysis of a Student Research Report features provide examples of annotated, student-written dissertations or other research reports written by actual students. Readers have the opportunity to see their peers' rationales as they perform research and successfully complete their papers.
  • In-depth illustrative examples of particular research designs and various data collection and data-analysis strategies are drawn from diverse academic disciplines.

New and updated features of this title

  • UPDATED: Focus on the ethics of research and biases that might adversely affect the quality of a research project. Ethics and bias topics are introduced in Chapter 1 and related issues are further discussed in Chapters 4 and 6 through 13.
  • NEW: Discussions of open science practices in Chapters 5 and 13.
  • UPDATED: Discussion of action research and participatory designs in Chapter 10.
  • UPDATED: Technology-based strategies include new software options and current technological tools for planning a research project, collecting and analyzing data, and reporting and disseminating the findings.
  • NEW/UPDATED: Pedagogy guides readers through the material, including new Learning Objectives, end-of-chapter Summaries, illustrative examples of particular research methodologies, and 5 additional Conceptual Analysis features.

The LMS-Compatible Assessment Bank streamlines assignments and grading

  • NEW: Quizzes, application exercises and chapter tests are included in an LMS-compatible packaged file. Learning Objective Quizzes, written by the author, are assignable for each chapter learning objective. Questions include feedback for the correct answer and for each distractor. Application Exercises give students more opportunities to apply what they have learned. Each exercise includes a model response written by the author.

Key features

Features of Pearson+ eTextbook for the 13th Edition

  • The Interactive Glossary lets students quickly build their professional vocabulary as they read.
  • StatPak is an easy-to-use statistical tool that enables students to enter data sets and automatically perform common statistical analyses. A link to StatPak is provided in the eTextbook.

Table of contents

PART I: The Fundamentals

  1. The Nature, Tools, and Ethics of Research

PART II: Focusing Your Research Efforts

  1. The Problem: The Heart of the Research Process
  2. Review of the Related Literature
  3. Planning a Research Project
  4. Writing a Research Proposal

PART III: Research Designs

  1. Descriptive Research
  2. Experimental, Quasi-Experimental, and Ex Post Facto Designs
  3. Qualitative Research Methods
  4. Mixed-Methods Designs
  5. Action Research and Participatory Designs

PART IV: Data Analyses

  1. Analyzing Quantitative Data
  2. Analyzing Qualitative and Mixed-Methods Data

PART V: Research Reports

  1. Planning and Preparing a Final Research Report

Appendices

  1. Using a Spreadsheet: Microsoft Excel
  2. Using SPSS
  3. Two Examples of a Dissertation Outline

Author bios

About our author

Jeanne Ellis Ormrod received her A.B. in psychology from Brown University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in educational psychology from The Pennsylvania State University. She was Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Northern Colorado for 22 years, where she taught courses in research methods and assessment as well as in her academic discipline; she is currently Professor Emerita of Psychological Sciences there. Subsequently, she has also taught research methods at the University of New Hampshire. She has published and presented extensively on cognition and memory, cognitive development, instruction, and related topics but is probably best known for this book and several others: How We Think and Learn, Human Learning, Child Development and Education (co-authored with Teresa McDevitt), Educational Psychology (9th and 10th editions co-authored with Eric Anderman and Lynley Anderman), and Essentials of Educational Psychology (5th and 6th editions co-authored with Brett Jones). She now lives in New Hampshire with her husband Richard, with one of her three children and her three grandchildren living nearby.

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