Practical Research - Planning and Design (8th Edition) Description:

Practical Research : Planning and Design (8th Edition) review:
5 stars (Required Reading) - Practical Research actually is required reading for my Ph.D. Since it is a text book is does cost a lot. It was the same price at Amazon as it would have been to order it through my university. However, the shipping was free with Amazon, so I came out ahead. The book is well written, in plain English. The advice is practical. Some of the advice about using technology is a bit behind the times, but that is to be expected. The font size is small, but this would not be a problem for most people under 40.
5 stars (Great book for senior projects and thesis) - I have been trying to organize my thoughts for my thesis for quite sometime. One of my advisors suggested this book to help jump start things. The book outlines the literature review, abstract, etc and gives great examples as it goes. This book helped save my sanity during such a hectic time. The discussions about email and the internet are very outdated, however for those new to computers and internet research, it is a great intro.
5 stars (Easy To Read and Understand) - Research, it is safe to say, is probably not the average person's favorite course to take in school. The subject itself, for most, is bland and boring and probably not very accessible from a learning standpoint.Enter Leedy and Omrod. "Practical Research" is just an outstanding book to learn research from or to teach a research course with. First off, the book is small and it is written in simple language with "practical" examples. This makes the subject a lot more accessible to the average reader. Second, it contains lots of helpful hints and checklists to help make the learning process easier. The companion website for this book contains practice tests that the students can use to gauge their learning (as well as e-mail results to get feedback from the instructor).Though the book is short, it is still very thorough and to the point. There is no tradeoff in quality of information for brevity which is a great point in favor of this book. Overall, this book is a superior learning tool because it communicates the research process very clearly. A student at any level, be it, middle school, secondary school, undergraduate or graduate, can easily learn the research process from this text.We used this as one of the texts for a graduate level research methods course I took and it was a big hit with all enrolled in the class.Here's a quick rundown of the books topics:1.What is Research?2.Research Tools3.Identifying the research problem4.Literature Review5.Research design planning6.Research proposal writing7.Qualitative research8.Historical research9.Descriptive research10.Experimental and Causal-Comparative designs11.Statistical techniques for quantitative data analysis12.Writing and publishing the research reportOverall, "Practical Research" is a great learning solution whether you are independently trying to learn research methods or if you are an instructor looking for a great textbook for your class.Highly Recommended