Behavioral Research Design and Analysis

The author's insight that students who studied statistics first had not mastered that subject led to his writing this research methods text that reviews and integrates statistical discussions with those of research design.

Using an informal style with interesting everyday examples, Pittenger emphasizes that good psychological research lets us answer many practical questions related to improving the quality of life. - The book uses intriguing contemporary research examples to engage the student's interest in topics like sexism, the spread of HIV virus and the effectiveness of psychotherapy. - The combination of basic statistical concepts with the discussion of research methods shows how researchers collect and interpret data; i.e. sampling theory introduced with descriptive statistics helps students understand how researchers make inferences from samples. - The emphasis is on conceptual, as opposed to computational, treatment of statistics, focusing on the concept of power within research designs.