Research Methods for Public Administrators

by Gary Rassel

This practical, up-to-date text introduces students to the methodological tools public administrators and policy analysts use to conduct research. This lucid text offers an abundance of examples to illustrate methods and step-by-step instructions focusing on common research techniques, providing a sound foundation in model building, research design, measurement, and sampling. The statistical section of the book focuses on correct use and interpretation of commonly used statistics, including linear regression. The book's overall aim is to develop effective, efficient research skills among future public administrators so that they will be better policy makers and good administrators. It accomplishes this not only by providing a solid foundation in technique, but by developing an awareness of the ethical issues associated with conducting research and reporting findings.

Genres: Research

544 pages, Paperback

Published October 6, 2016

Reviews

[Chade66 · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worse textbook I have ever had the misfortune to be assigned. It didn't help matters any that the book assumes that you have had a class in statistics, but our class didn't require one. YOU NEED A CLASS IN STATISTICS FIRST!!!!!

The book is oblique in its wording and it would start a math problem, skip a bunch of steps give you an answer that made no sense because of the skipped steps (not telling you that it skipped a bunch of steps) and additionally didn't refer you to the full problem worked out in the appendix. The editing on this edition was poor, we had to make several corrections in the book due to errors in editing book over the course of the semester.

[Susan Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a textbook...on statistical analysis geared towards those in the public administration field.

Don't use it unless you're forced.

[Kirsten O · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely dense overview on research methods. It does presume you’ve had prior experience with statistics and some of the content in the chapters did jump around.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years back, the instructor assigned to teach the research methods course in our Master of Public Administration program had some health problems. I stepped in for a couple weeks until we found a replacement. This was the textbook assigned for that class.

In terms of coverage of subjects, this is a mainstream choice. The sequence of chapters: Preliminary steps in a research project; Designs for description (such as case studies, meta-analysis, qualitative research); Designs for explanation (issues covered include validity, experimental, quasi-experimental, and nonexperimental designs); Measuring variables; Sampling; Contacting and talking to subjects; Data collection; Protection of human subjects; Secondary data analysis; Index construction; Univariate statistical analysis; Tests of statistical significance (a subject that I always had a hard time getting through to students with); Measures of association and analysis of variance; Regression and correlation; Communicating findings. Not all textbooks integrate statistics and research methods. This one does. It provides problems for students to work on, to provide experience with the issues discussed in the text.

Overall, an adequate text. I am not sure that it covers subjects in the depth that I would like. Any methods text terrifies a certain proportion of students in the class. This is scarcely the worst in that respect.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a serviceable research methods text for public administration courses. It covers the relevasnt waterfront of issues in research methods. One almost necessary consequence: Many issues get rather brief coverage. A tradeoff. But as an introduction to research methods, this will suffice. For a more detailed, more complete consideration, one would want to look elsewhere.

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

With this book it is no wonder people say public administration is lacking an analytical rigor. Personally this book was a nice refresher on what I already knew but if I had to start from scratch I would have been super lost.
In good consciousness I would not recommend this book to an enemy let alone a friend without a statistical background