Research Methods in Psychology - 2nd Canadian Edition

Reviewed by Bettina Spencer, Professor of Psychology, Saint Mary's College on 12/4/23

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

This book covers all of the main topics in research methods for psychology students. I appreciate that it also includes sections on qualitative methods as well as how to present results.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

All of the information on methods is accurate, but the book references 6th edition APA style rather than 7th edition. As such, instructors will have to modify this particular portion although the general information about writing in APA style is good.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Aside from the 6th edition APA style, this book is generally relevant and up to date. It does, however, often reference classic social psychology studies without addressing the limitations in the sampling.

Clarity rating: 5

This book is very clearly written and easily accessible. The sections on statistics are especially clear and organized, which is useful because this is an area students often need extra support in. All of the technical terminology throughout the book is thoroughly explained.

Consistency rating: 5

There is consistent writing and clarity throughout this book. The technical terms are consistent throughout the book which is good because we, psychologists, do sometimes use different jargon for the same thing depending on our subfield. The sections all build off of one another and reference back to each other in a way that makes the book easy to use.

Modularity rating: 5

An instructor could easily assign certain sections of the book. For example, you could just assign the chapter on experimental design, or research ethics, etc. without assigning the whole. There are times where a later section will reference a study that was used an example earlier, but it always restates the results so the reader does not have to actually go back and read the previous section,

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

This book is very well organized, beginning with theories and ethics, moving into the range of designs and approaches, and ending with how to present research and write statistics. The statistics sections almost feel like a bonus because students will most likely have taken a statistics course before taking a research methods course, so these parts serve as a good refresher.

Interface rating: 5

In the PDF version, sections are linked from the table of contents, and you can search and find specific sections quite easily.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The writing is very clear with no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

This book references many classic social psychology studies for it's examples, but many of those studies were conducted with white, middle-class Americans. These old studies can't be changed, but instructors should address the problems and limitations with these findings, and the book does not do that. It generally takes a "color blind" approach and does not really mention cultural differences, which is a problem for teaching. For example, topics such as how to collect and report demographics is much more complicated than reported in the book.

Reviewed by Lisa Elliott, Assistant Teaching Professor, Pennsylvania State University- The Behrend College on 2/1/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The book covers all of the standard research methods topics that I cover in class. I believe that it is more comprehensive than most commercial texts as it includes how to write survey questions, a chapter on the significance/replicability discussion, and qualitative methodologies with grounded theory. In the past, I have added a separate lecture to discuss qualitative methodologies. I am glad to see it covered with comprehensiveness in this book. I also liked the indepth discussion of measurement in relation to statistical analysis, operationalizing, and developing new measures. This is a finer point that I cover in class but rarely see covered indepth in the text.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

My measure of accuracy, comprehensiveness, and clarity in a research methods textbook is how well the authors describe type I and type II errors. In this book, they use the metaphor of pregnancy: a type I error is a false positive such as when a man is diagnosed as pregnant; a type II error is a false negative such as when a clearly pregnant woman is diagnosed as not pregnant. This was illustrated very clearly with wonderful, tasteful photos. This difficult concept is the keystone for discussions on power and p value which are the topics that the authors tackle next. This example defines how carefully and well this book is written. If I were to place it next to publishers volumes of the same material. This book is better. It does a better job of describing important points in a coherent and clear manner. If there are mistakes, they must be very minor. All that I could find was a misspelled website url.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The only concern about longevity is over the permanence of the urls referred to in the book. However, the book functions without the urls and they are easily updated by the instructor during the lecture. With the exception of the significance/replicability discussion, the material covered in a current methods course has remained consistent over the past decade. I don't foresee the significance/replicability discussion resolved in the near future. This is a challenge that students should be prepared to face as they begin as junior researchers. I appreciate the authors including this chapter in the book as I will use this book if only for these chapters. No commercial textbook that I know about has this information presented in such a clear and objective manner.

Clarity rating: 5

I enjoyed the writing. It was very clear and concise. It was much better than the usual textbooks that students are forced to muddle through. The authors used good examples which should be accessible to an undergraduate audience. I particularly like that the authors gave good examples and bad examples of important concepts. Then, they went into detail as to why particular items were good and what was good about them. They detailed why particular items were bad and what made them poor choices. Finally, they describe the outcome of bad choices in the larger scheme. There is much jargon in every methods textbook. These authors define things well in concrete terms. I particularly liked the clarity of writing in this book.

Consistency rating: 5

The chapters in this book all have the same format. The authors begin with a brief paragraph which focuses on a modern experiment or study. Then, they use that as a basis to describe the topic in detail. This approach introduces students to a variety of research in a very accessible way. Each chapter is formatted in this way. All of the chapters have sections which focus in detail on a particular topic. Then these topics are cross listed across the different chapters through hyperlinks. Each topic is short with a summary and a suggestion for exercises at the end.

Modularity rating: 5

Often, authors in Methods textbooks are unclear where to put important topics such as reliability, validity, operationalizing, what a p-value really means, and sampling. In the textbook that I currently use, the authors have put all of these items into one omnibus chapter. I find that I must go back to this chapter again throughout the semester and then search for the particular item within the chapter. I like how this book separates these items and concentrates on explaining them in depth.
I also like how the authors chose to create hyperlinks to the other places in the book that used these items. This allows me, as the instructor, to reorder the chapters in a way that fits with the class.
In some courses, not all chapters will be needed. I could use some chapters for a graduate course in methods along with another book. Then, I could use the same book in its entirety for the undergraduate course. Sometimes, I have students in a more advanced course who took Methods at a different university or not at all. I like that this book is free and modular. I can refer these students to this book for review before a qualifying exam or before an important lesson that relies on pre-existing methods knowledge.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

I liked the order of the chapters. This is how i prefer to teach methods with the experiment chapters before the qualitative chapters. However, other instructors may like the opposite. The modularity of this book allows either approach. I also like that the book has hyperlinks between the chapters. Often, students will need to review reliability and validity when they get to quasi experimental designs (several chapters ahead). They will have forgotten this information. The hyperlinks make it easy to go back and review. The short sections also create an easiness that encourages exploration. Within the chapters, I like how the authors begin with a description of a study and then use that description to illustrate the points throughout the entire chapter. The descriptions are brief and interesting. Then, there is the APA citation at the bottom of the page. It is easy to look up the article this way. Other textbooks put all of the references at the back of the book. It is much more effortful to find an interesting article when the references are at the back. By the time that you have found it, you forget what you just read.

Interface rating: 5

I liked that the book was available in a variety of formats. I downloaded the pdf on my smart phone and found it fairly easy to read. Although I could not set bookmarks and that was frustrating. I also like to make comments and notes in my books. I think with a different app, I would be able to do these things just fine. Maybe there could be a few recommendations for apps on the website and which format works best with which app. I like that students can download the book on their phone. Most of them do this anyway from the publishers website. For the important classes (in their mind), they also have the printed copy or they rent the printed copy too. With the pdf, they have the option to print it out.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I found no grammar or spelling errors. There was a link that seemed to be misspelled on page 71 the link to Hanover's Rescorla Wagner page.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

As an instructor who is a woman at a male dominated engineering school, sometimes the examples in psychology textbooks make me uncomfortable to discuss in class. This book's examples would not make me uncomfortable. There seems to be an equal number of men and women portrayed in the book as researchers and I don't sense a bias against any particular group. The writing is objective and sticks to the point without an agenda.

Comments

I wish that you had added a bit more about noisey data and maybe used some examples that had outliers. I also wish that you had discussed the issue of cherry picking.

Many commercial textbooks focus on research as a student's exploration or journey in science. Students misunderstand this perspective. I was very glad that you urge students to look for research ideas in the discussion section of peer reviewed articles, to base their methods on those that are previously published, and to use validated measures in their work. This approach trains students to rely on previous research and build on sound scientific foundations using theory. Thank you.