Summary
Contents
KEY FEATURES: Focuses on the meaning of statistics and why researchers choose particular techniques, rather than computational skills. Coverage ranges from basic descriptive statistics to more advanced topics such as tests of significance, measures of association, and regression analysis. An opening chapter provides a brief overview of the research process in social, behavioral, and health sciences.
Brief Introduction to Research in the Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences
Brief Introduction to Research in the Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences
What Is the Purpose of Research?
Research is the process that informs us about scientific knowledge. How do we know things? Research is the mechanism that allows us to acquire and refine knowledge. It is undertaken in disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences, health sciences, and beyond. Existing research is then used as a starting place for future research. In other words, we proceed from what we know from existing research and then use our own research to extend that further. Another way to think of it is that scientific research is like a conversation between scientists who contribute their findings to the literature and then continue communicating by conducting follow-up research that may bolster or contradict the original research, or may take ...