Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences

This book is for students who are embarking on a qualitative research project in psychology or a related discipline. While focusing mainly on undergraduate dissertations, this book will also be useful for postgraduate students. It takes you through planning a qualitative project, stage by stage, addressing key issues and concerns along the way. The focus throughout is on how to make your project excellent! Packed full of examples from student projects to help you to put theory into practice, the book guides you through: * designing your research * ethical considerations * collecting your data * analysing your data * writing your report or dissertation. In addition, the book will help you with time management and working with your supervisor, as well as providing guidance on how you can use your project as the basis for publication or further study.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1. Research Strategies and the Control of Nuisance Variables Chapter 2. Experimental Designs: an Overview Chapter 3. Fundamental Assumptions in Analysis of Variance Chapter 4. Completely Randomized Design Chapter 5. Multiple Comparison Tests Chapter 6. Trend Analysis Chapter 7. General Linear Model Approach to ANOVA Chapter 8. Randomized Block Designs Chapter 9. Completely Randomized Factorial Design with Two Treatments Chapter 10. Completely Randomized Factorial Design with Three or More Treatments and Randomized Block Factorial Design Chapter 11. Hierarchical Designs Chapter 12. Split-Plot Factorial Design: Design with Group-Treatment Confounding Chapter 13. Analysis of Covariance Chapter 14. Latin Square and Related Designs Chapter 15. Confounded Factorial Designs: Designs with Group-Interaction Confounding Chapter 16. Fractional Factorial Designs: Designs with Treatment-Interaction Confounding

About the Author :
Roger E. Kirk received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the Ohio State University and did post doctoral study in mathematical psychology at the University of Michigan. He was a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Statistics at Baylor University. He founded, and for 25 years, directed Baylor’s Behavioral Statistics Ph.D. program and the Institute of Statistics, now the Department of Statistical Science. He published extensively in the areas of statistics, psychoacoustics, and human engineering, and authored five statistics books. Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences, his first book, was identified by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the most frequently cited books in its field. In recognition of his teaching effectiveness, he was named the Outstanding Tenured Teacher in the College of Arts and Sciences and designated a Master Teacher, Baylor University’s highest teaching honor. He was the 2005 recipient of the Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished Contributions to Teaching and Mentoring from the Division of Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics of the American Psychological Association.

Review :
“Kirk is an extraordinarily logical and precise writer. His prose is excellent. I really like the balance between the logic and issues of design and the assumptions and implications of violations in the analysis. The consistent explanation of the parameters of the model equation and the sample estimators of the parameters is so clear. The advantages and disadvantages sections are wonderful and the diagrams comparing partitioning of variances are elegant.” “This is the standard for texts in experimental design. It is truly an outstanding resource. The expansive coverage of the full range of designs and all their complexities make it extremely valuable. The extensive updating throughout this edition will be a great asset for instructors. The general conceptual approach taken in the building block approach to designs is very helpful to graduate students studying the concepts for the first or second time. I have always thought the examples in this book are clear and well developed, truly ideal. I appreciate the many new exercises for students in this new edition, as well.” “The book is thorough in integrating important topical areas dealing with statistical power and effect size estimation within the chapters covering a particular design and analysis issue.” “This is still the best available textbook on experimental research.” “The combination of topic coverage and organization, depth of coverage, and clarity of writing are what keeps me using this text year after year." “I like the examples given to solidify important points, and how in some spots the author clearly spells out concepts for the reader. I like how it would be easy to quickly grab this text and look up issues of determining effect size and acceptable levels without doing much digging, and how the advantages and disadvantages of certain designs are clearly identified. I also like that he includes references from the updated APA manual. It is nice to see that kind of consistency.” “Professor Kirk continues, with this Fourth Edition, to maintain his high standards of clarity and scholarship. Many important designs and analyses for behavioral researchers are succinctly and lucidly presented. It is written at such a level as to be beneficial for the graduate student and yet does not sacrifice conceptual/technical issues (esp. by explicating and utilizing the GLM approach). This makes this edition not only a very good textbook but also an exceptional reference book.” “Kirk has very useful chapters for addressing complicated designs. Addressing confounded and fractional designs can seem a bit arcane to students, but knowing how to use them can help researchers to either avoid them or recognize situations in which they are used.” “The materials are logically and well organized. The layout of these materials is from lower level to higher level; and from basic conceptual interpretation to complicated computational procedures and experimental designs.” “I would really like to see students think of this book the way I do—like an old friend that I would NEVER be without.”