Introduction to Research in Education

This book is designed for use in introductory courses in education research, which is a standard offering in nearly every graduate program in Schools and Colleges of Education. Courses are designed to provide students with an overview of quantitative and qualitative research methods, addressing such topics as research designs, sample selection, data collection, experimental research, and data analysis.

In addition to being a co-author of the first eight editions of INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH IN EDUCATION, Donald Ary co-authored two books in statistics, INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS: PURPOSES AND PROCEDURES (With L. C. Jacobs), and ANALYZING QUANTITATIVE BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATION DATA (with H. K. Suen). He is also co-author of the educational psychology text, READINGS IN CLASSROOM LEARNING AND PERCEPTION (with R. J. Mueller and E. C. McCormick). He wrote chapters for three books and published 35 journal articles, six of them in Behavioral Assessment. He presented 30 papers at professional conferences, including 12 at the American Educational Research Association, and six at the Association for Behavioral Analysis. He taught research design, statistics, measurement, and educational psychology, first at Indiana University, then at Northern Illinois University. There, he was director of the Educational Psychology and Special Education Research Office and served as interim chair of the Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education. He served as consultant to various educational offices in Illinois and to the Bureau of Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Office of Education. He also served on the editorial board of Research in Developmental Disabilities. Dr. Ary had a B.S. in education from Wilmington College of Ohio, an M.S. in education from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. He was an elementary teacher for three years in Ohio and seven years with the U.S. Department of Defense Dependents' Schools in England.

Lucy Cheser Jacobs has a B.S. in chemistry from Catharine Spalding College in Kentucky, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in educational psychology from Indiana University-Bloomington. She received a John H. Edwards fellowship during graduate study. Dr, Jacobs taught research methodology, statistics, measurement, and educational psychology courses at Indiana University. She served as Director of the Bureau of Evaluative Studies for several years, where she conducted institutional research studies. Before beginning graduate studies, she taught high school chemistry for three years in Kentucky. She has co-authored INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH IN EDUCATION (nine editions) and INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS (both with D. Ary), and DEVELOPING AND USING TESTS EFFECTIVELY (with C. Chase). She held membership in AERA and NCME and presented papers at their annual conferences.

Christine K. Sorensen is the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She holds a bachelor's degree in speech from the University of Houston and masters and doctoral degrees from Iowa State University in professional studies in education. Prior to coming to the University of Hawaii, she served from 2001 to 2007 as Dean of the College of Education at Northern Illinois University, where she began her professorial career in 1996. Earlier in her career Dr. Sorensen was a research and evaluation specialist at the Research Institute for Studies in Education at Iowa State. While in that position, she was involved in conducting research in schools across the state as well as leading and participating in regional and national studies. She was the lead evaluation specialist on projects funded by such agencies as the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Kellogg Foundation, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE). Dr. Sorensen has an extensive record in grants (more than a dozen funded) including multimillion-dollar federal grants related to teacher education and to technology. Her research areas have focused on technology integration in education. Dr. Sorensen has taught courses in research, evaluation, and higher education, and has expertise in both quantitative and qualitative methods of research.