This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.
This book has both positives and negatives. The positives are it is affordable and does a relatively good job of explaining generalized concepts to the readers. The price is also unmatched, the book was only $10. I appreciate all reasonably priced books. That being said, this book is riddled with grammatical and formatting errors. This book would be appropriate for an advanced high schooler or first year college student, not a graduate student as they should already be familiar with this these principles; however this more an issue with the professor who assigned this book than the author. That being said, it is in the authors missions statement that this book is meant for Ph.D students. This book also does not go in-depth in explanation. This can cause information to be left out. I noticed this to be the most prevalent in the discussion on validity.
This book covers a breadth of topics, not necessarily anything in-depth. It is a good enough compendium of research principles and empirical methods to be taken note of while designing or running social science experiments. The explanations could be better and the examples could be more comprehensive. It is okay to supplement your readings with this book if you are also reading other, more extensive texts in conjunction.
Perhaps a useful, basic resource, but the book is in desperate need of a proofreader. At worst, the errors preclude understanding; at best, they are a frequent distraction, and material this dry needs as few distractions as possible.