Practical Research and Evaluation
A Start-to-Finish Guide for Practitioners
- Lena Dahlberg - Dalarna University and Dalarna Research Institute
- Colin McCaig - Centre for Education and Inclusion Research (CEIR), Sheffield Hallam University
The growing emphasis on evidence-based practice means that there is an increasing need for practitioners to have at least a basic understanding of research, be aware of methodological pitfalls and to be updated on new methods. This book provides a practical, user-friendly guide to social science research methods for professionals who have benefited from little, if any, formal research methods training but find themselves in a role that requires them to read and understand complex research findings and carry out their own research as part of their professional practice.
Practical Research and Evaluation is aimed at practitioners working in education, health, social care and community work. Many in this market are non-graduates or are those whose study did not contain a research element, but are required to know how research works. This book will:
- enable readers to carry out small-scale research projects of their own
- provide them with the basic understanding necessary to commission research
- enable them to better understand and evaluate critically research reports
Some will be able to use this book - a useful resource.
This is a really good resource for our students, many of whom have used it in their assignment work already. We have access to it as an e-book so it is strongly recommended for students to read (we don't usually have essential reading at this level, so strongly recommended reflects the good standard of the book in content and the way it is presented.) We are keeping it in the reading list for future runs of the module (annual) and have also recommended it in other similar modules.
I find the practitioners' guide approach as an effective way to communicate research methods to my students who come from government and civil society. They are usually intimidated by the usual Research Method textbooks. The language of this text is very friendly to non-academics. Hopefully, my students no longer "fear" research after reading this book.
I found this a really user friendly manual suitable for all abilities and research experience.
Clear, comprehensive & well written. I intend to recommend this text to the incoming Masters in Development Practice cohort as a valuable guide to research design and practice.
Very useful text for students studying organisational evaluation as part of their MA in S0cial Work research module
A very useful book - practical as its title suggests and more accessible than many - which I now recommend to candidates on my course at Metanoia. It is especially good to see a book that deals with both some general issues in research and develops a focus particularly on evaluation while representing both qualitative and quantitative methods.
This is a good text suitable for introducing practitioners to research.
An excellent guidebook- to be used as recommended /supplemental reading for our course.
Some chapters were better than others. I would use chapters of the book rather than to recommend the book itself
Sage College Publishing
