Research Methods: Planning, Conducting, and Presenting Research

This brief, student-friendly text addresses the practical aspects of a one-semester research project, from generating ideas to handing in the paper at the end of the term. Author Ann Sloan Devlin carefully combines practical advice with justification from the literature, helping students learn that even practical aspects of the research process have a scientific justification based on research. By combining these practical aspects of the research process with a hands-on learning package, Devlin's text shows students how relevant research can be to their careers and lives.

Devlin (psychology, Connecticut College) concentrates on what bogs social science students down the most in their one-semester research projects, namely the practical. In each chapter she shows why conducting research in certain ways works, how to get through the paperwork and other considerations, and how to be more efficient while following all the necessary steps, addressing generating and shaping ideas, conducting research design and making statistical considerations, choosing sources of measures, obtaining subjects, working within ethical considerations and the review process, managing data, writing reports and making presentations. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Ann S. Devlin has been on faculty at Connecticut College since 1973, where she teaches courses on cognitive processes, industrial and organizational psychology, and environmental psychology. Her expertise lies in environmental psychology, particularly in the creation of more humanistic environments in housing for the elderly and psychiatric hospitals. She also specializes in way-finding, the study of the manner in which environments (through their design and layout) and people (through their creation of maps and other tools) provide cues to help people navigate from an origin to a destination. Recently she has been using a touch-screen computer to conduct research on the types of cues (maps, photographs, written directions) that users find most helpful. Devlin, a former Woodrow Wilson Fellow, is the recipient of several Mellon Foundation grants. She received the Mellon Initiative on Multiculturalism (MIMIC) grant as well as a grant to develop the Freshman Focus Cluster, an integrative, writing-intensive program for incoming first-year students at Connecticut College. She has been published in various journals, including Environment and Behavior, The Journal of Environmental Psychology, and the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. She is on the editorial review board of Environment and Behavior. In 2000, she was elected to the Board of Directors of the Environmental Design Research Association. She is a recipient of the Student Government Association Teaching award for excellence in teaching and demonstrated caring for students. Devlin was named College Marshal in 2002.