Download or read book Encyclopedia of Research Design written by Neil J. Salkind and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2010-06-22 with total page 1779 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Comprising more than 500 entries, the Encyclopedia of Research Design explains how to make decisions about research design, undertake research projects in an ethical manner, interpret and draw valid inferences from data, and evaluate experiment design strategies and results. Two additional features carry this encyclopedia far above other works in the field: bibliographic entries devoted to significant articles in the history of research design and reviews of contemporary tools, such as software and statistical procedures, used to analyze results. It covers the spectrum of research design strategies, from material presented in introductory classes to topics necessary in graduate research; it addresses cross- and multidisciplinary research needs, with many examples drawn from the social and behavioral sciences, neurosciences, and biomedical and life sciences; it provides summaries of advantages and disadvantages of often-used strategies; and it uses hundreds of sample tables, figures, and equations based on real-life cases."--Publisher's description.

Download or read book Best Practices in Quantitative Methods written by Jason W. Osborne and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2008 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to Best Practices in Quantitative Methods envision quantitative methods in the 21st century, identify the best practices, and, where possible, demonstrate the superiority of their recommendations empirically. Editor Jason W. Osborne designed this book with the goal of providing readers with the most effective, evidence-based, modern quantitative methods and quantitative data analysis across the social and behavioral sciences. The text is divided into five main sections covering select best practices in Measurement, Research Design, Basics of Data Analysis, Quantitative Methods, and Advanced Quantitative Methods. Each chapter contains a current and expansive review of the literature, a case for best practices in terms of method, outcomes, inferences, etc., and broad-ranging examples along with any empirical evidence to show why certain techniques are better. Key Features: Describes important implicit knowledge to readers: The chapters in this volume explain the important details of seemingly mundane aspects of quantitative research, making them accessible to readers and demonstrating why it is important to pay attention to these details. Compares and contrasts analytic techniques: The book examines instances where there are multiple options for doing things, and make recommendations as to what is the "best" choice—or choices, as what is best often depends on the circumstances. Offers new procedures to update and explicate traditional techniques: The featured scholars present and explain new options for data analysis, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the new procedures in depth, describing how to perform them, and demonstrating their use. Intended Audience: Representing the vanguard of research methods for the 21st century, this book is an invaluable resource for graduate students and researchers who want a comprehensive, authoritative resource for practical and sound advice from leading experts in quantitative methods.

Download or read book The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Randomized clinical trials are the primary tool for evaluating new medical interventions. Randomization provides for a fair comparison between treatment and control groups, balancing out, on average, distributions of known and unknown factors among the participants. Unfortunately, these studies often lack a substantial percentage of data. This missing data reduces the benefit provided by the randomization and introduces potential biases in the comparison of the treatment groups. Missing data can arise for a variety of reasons, including the inability or unwillingness of participants to meet appointments for evaluation. And in some studies, some or all of data collection ceases when participants discontinue study treatment. Existing guidelines for the design and conduct of clinical trials, and the analysis of the resulting data, provide only limited advice on how to handle missing data. Thus, approaches to the analysis of data with an appreciable amount of missing values tend to be ad hoc and variable. The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials concludes that a more principled approach to design and analysis in the presence of missing data is both needed and possible. Such an approach needs to focus on two critical elements: (1) careful design and conduct to limit the amount and impact of missing data and (2) analysis that makes full use of information on all randomized participants and is based on careful attention to the assumptions about the nature of the missing data underlying estimates of treatment effects. In addition to the highest priority recommendations, the book offers more detailed recommendations on the conduct of clinical trials and techniques for analysis of trial data.

Download or read book Missing Data written by Patrick E. McKnight and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2007-03-28 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most books on missing data focus on applying sophisticated statistical techniques to deal with the problem after it has occurred, this volume provides a methodology for the control and prevention of missing data. In clear, nontechnical language, the authors help the reader understand the different types of missing data and their implications for the reliability, validity, and generalizability of a study’s conclusions. They provide practical recommendations for designing studies that decrease the likelihood of missing data, and for addressing this important issue when reporting study results. When statistical remedies are needed--such as deletion procedures, augmentation methods, and single imputation and multiple imputation procedures--the book also explains how to make sound decisions about their use. Patrick E. McKnight's website offers a periodically updated annotated bibliography on missing data and links to other Web resources that address missing data.

Download or read book Applied Missing Data Analysis written by Craig K. Enders and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2010-04-23 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walking readers step by step through complex concepts, this book translates missing data techniques into something that applied researchers and graduate students can understand and utilize in their own research. Enders explains the rationale and procedural details for maximum likelihood estimation, Bayesian estimation, multiple imputation, and models for handling missing not at random (MNAR) data. Easy-to-follow examples and small simulated data sets illustrate the techniques and clarify the underlying principles. The companion website includes data files and syntax for the examples in the book as well as up-to-date information on software. The book is accessible to substantive researchers while providing a level of detail that will satisfy quantitative specialists. This book will appeal to researchers and graduate students in psychology, education, management, family studies, public health, sociology, and political science. It will also serve as a supplemental text for doctoral-level courses or seminars in advanced quantitative methods, survey analysis, longitudinal data analysis, and multilevel modeling, and as a primary text for doctoral-level courses or seminars in missing data.

Download or read book Flexible Imputation of Missing Data Second Edition written by Stef van Buuren and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Missing data pose challenges to real-life data analysis. Simple ad-hoc fixes, like deletion or mean imputation, only work under highly restrictive conditions, which are often not met in practice. Multiple imputation replaces each missing value by multiple plausible values. The variability between these replacements reflects our ignorance of the true (but missing) value. Each of the completed data set is then analyzed by standard methods, and the results are pooled to obtain unbiased estimates with correct confidence intervals. Multiple imputation is a general approach that also inspires novel solutions to old problems by reformulating the task at hand as a missing-data problem. This is the second edition of a popular book on multiple imputation, focused on explaining the application of methods through detailed worked examples using the MICE package as developed by the author. This new edition incorporates the recent developments in this fast-moving field. This class-tested book avoids mathematical and technical details as much as possible: formulas are accompanied by verbal statements that explain the formula in accessible terms. The book sharpens the reader’s intuition on how to think about missing data, and provides all the tools needed to execute a well-grounded quantitative analysis in the presence of missing data.

Download or read book Longitudinal Structural Equation Modeling written by Todd D. Little and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book has been replaced by Longitudinal Structural Equation Modeling, Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-5314-3.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Quantitative Methods Vol 2 Statistical Analysis written by Todd D. Little and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research today demands the application of sophisticated and powerful research tools. Fulfilling this need, The Oxford Handbook of Quantitative Methods is the complete tool box to deliver the most valid and generalizable answers to todays complex research questions. It is a one-stop source for learning and reviewing current best-practices in quantitative methods as practiced in the social, behavioral, and educational sciences. Comprising two volumes, this handbook covers a wealth of topics related to quantitative research methods. It begins with essential philosophical and ethical issues related to science and quantitative research. It then addresses core measurement topics before delving into the design of studies. Principal issues related to modern estimation and mathematical modeling are also detailed. Topics in the handbook then segway into the realm of statistical inference and modeling with chapters dedicated to classical approaches as well as modern latent variable approaches. Numerous chapters associated with longitudinal data and more specialized techniques round out this broad selection of topics. Comprehensive, authoritative, and user-friendly, this two-volume set will be an indispensable resource for serious researchers across the social, behavioral, and educational sciences.

Download or read book The Temporal Structure of Multimodal Communication written by Laszlo Hunyadi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-24 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The general focus of this book is on multimodal communication, which captures the temporal patterns of behavior in various dialogue settings. After an overview of current theoretical models of verbal and nonverbal communication cues, it presents studies on a range of related topics: paraverbal behavior patterns in the classroom setting; a proposed optimal methodology for conversational analysis; a study of time and mood at work; an experiment on the dynamics of multimodal interaction from the observer’s perspective; formal cues of uncertainty in conversation; how machines can know we understand them; and detecting topic changes using neural network techniques. A joint work bringing together psychologists, communication scientists, information scientists and linguists, the book will be of interest to those working on a wide range of applications from industry to home, and from health to security, with the main goals of revealing, embedding and implementing a rich spectrum of information on human behavior.

Download or read book Handbook of Life Course Health Development written by Neal Halfon and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-20 with total page 667 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.

Download or read book Developmental Psychopathology Theory and Method written by Dante Cicchetti and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-02-29 with total page 1176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seminal reference for the latest research in developmental psychopathology Developmental Psychopathology is a four-volume compendium of the most complete and current research on every aspect of the field. Volume One: Theory and Method focuses on the theoretical and empirical work that has contributed to dramatic advancements in understanding of child and adult development, including findings in the areas of genetics and neurobiology, as well as social and contextual factors. Now in its third edition, this comprehensive reference has been fully updated to reflect the current state of the field and its increasingly multilevel and interdisciplinary nature and the increasing importance of translational research. Contributions from expert researchers and clinicians provide insight into how multiple levels of analysis may influence individual differences, the continuity or discontinuity of patterns, and the pathways by which the same developmental outcomes may be achieved. Advances in developmental psychopathology have burgeoned since the 2006 publication of the second edition ten years ago, and keeping up on the latest findings in multiple avenues of investigation can be burdensome to the busy professional and researcher from psychology and related fields. This reference solves the problem by collecting the best of the best, as edited by Dante Cicchetti, a recognized leader in the field, into one place, with a logical organization designed for easy reference. Get up to date on the latest research from the field Explore new models, emerging theory, and innovative approaches Learn new technical analysis and research design methods Understand the impact of life stage on mental health The complexity of a field as diverse as developmental psychopathology deepens with each emerging theory and new area of study, as made obvious by the exciting findings coming out of institutions and clinics around the world. Developmental Psychopathology Volume One: Theory and Method brings these findings together into a cohesive, broad-reaching reference.

Download or read book Statistical Power Analysis with Missing Data written by Adam Davey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-08-20 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Statistical power analysis has revolutionized the ways in which we conduct and evaluate research. Similar developments in the statistical analysis of incomplete (missing) data are gaining more widespread applications. This volume brings statistical power and incomplete data together under a common framework, in a way that is readily accessible to those with only an introductory familiarity with structural equation modeling. It answers many practical questions such as: How missing data affects the statistical power in a study How much power is likely with different amounts and types of missing data How to increase the power of a design in the presence of missing data, and How to identify the most powerful design in the presence of missing data. Points of Reflection encourage readers to stop and test their understanding of the material. Try Me sections test one’s ability to apply the material. Troubleshooting Tips help to prevent commonly encountered problems. Exercises reinforce content and Additional Readings provide sources for delving more deeply into selected topics. Numerous examples demonstrate the book’s application to a variety of disciplines. Each issue is accompanied by its potential strengths and shortcomings and examples using a variety of software packages (SAS, SPSS, Stata, LISREL, AMOS, and MPlus). Syntax is provided using a single software program to promote continuity but in each case, parallel syntax using the other packages is presented in appendixes. Routines, data sets, syntax files, and links to student versions of software packages are found at www.psypress.com/davey. The worked examples in Part 2 also provide results from a wider set of estimated models. These tables, and accompanying syntax, can be used to estimate statistical power or required sample size for similar problems under a wide range of conditions. Class-tested at Temple, Virginia Tech, and Miami University of Ohio, this brief text is an ideal supplement for graduate courses in applied statistics, statistics II, intermediate or advanced statistics, experimental design, structural equation modeling, power analysis, and research methods taught in departments of psychology, human development, education, sociology, nursing, social work, gerontology and other social and health sciences. The book’s applied approach will also appeal to researchers in these areas. Sections covering Fundamentals, Applications, and Extensions are designed to take readers from first steps to mastery.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods written by Paul J. Lavrakas and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2008-09-12 with total page 1073 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To the uninformed, surveys appear to be an easy type of research to design and conduct, but when students and professionals delve deeper, they encounter the vast complexities that the range and practice of survey methods present. To complicate matters, technology has rapidly affected the way surveys can be conducted; today, surveys are conducted via cell phone, the Internet, email, interactive voice response, and other technology-based modes. Thus, students, researchers, and professionals need both a comprehensive understanding of these complexities and a revised set of tools to meet the challenges. In conjunction with top survey researchers around the world and with Nielsen Media Research serving as the corporate sponsor, the Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods presents state-of-the-art information and methodological examples from the field of survey research. Although there are other "how-to" guides and references texts on survey research, none is as comprehensive as this Encyclopedia, and none presents the material in such a focused and approachable manner. With more than 600 entries, this resource uses a Total Survey Error perspective that considers all aspects of possible survey error from a cost-benefit standpoint. Key Features Covers all major facets of survey research methodology, from selecting the sample design and the sampling frame, designing and pretesting the questionnaire, data collection, and data coding, to the thorny issues surrounding diminishing response rates, confidentiality, privacy, informed consent and other ethical issues, data weighting, and data analyses Presents a Reader′s Guide to organize entries around themes or specific topics and easily guide users to areas of interest Offers cross-referenced terms, a brief listing of Further Readings, and stable Web site URLs following most entries The Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods is specifically written to appeal to beginning, intermediate, and advanced students, practitioners, researchers, consultants, and consumers of survey-based information.

Download or read book Statistical Strategies for Small Sample Research written by Rick H. Hoyle and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 1999-03-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newer statistical models, such as structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling, require large sample sizes inappropriate for many research questions or unrealistic for many research arenas. How can researchers get the sophistication and flexibility of large sample studies without the requirement of prohibitively large samples? This book describes and illustrates statistical strategies that meet the sophistication/flexibility criteria for analyzing data from small samples of fewer than 150 cases. Contributions from some of the leading researchers in the field cover the use of multiple imputation software and how it can be used profitably with small data sets and missing data; ways to increase statistical power when sample size cannot be increased; and strategies for computing effect sizes and combining effect sizes across studies. Other contributions describe how to hypothesis test using the bootstrap; methods for pooling effect size indicators from single-case studies; frameworks for drawing inferences from cross-tabulated data; how to determine whether a correlation or covariance matrix warrants structure analysis; and what conditions indicate latent variable modeling is a viable approach to correct for unreliability in the mediator. Other topics include the use of dynamic factor analysis to model temporal processes by analyzing multivariate; time-series data from small numbers of individuals; techniques for coping with estimation problems in confirmatory factor analysis in small samples; how the state space model can be used with surprising accuracy with small data samples; and the use of partial least squares as a viable alternative to covariance-based SEM when the N is small and/or the number of variables in a model is large.

Download or read book Small Sample Size Solutions written by Rens van de Schoot and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-13 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Researchers often have difficulties collecting enough data to test their hypotheses, either because target groups are small or hard to access, or because data collection entails prohibitive costs. Such obstacles may result in data sets that are too small for the complexity of the statistical model needed to answer the research question. This unique book provides guidelines and tools for implementing solutions to issues that arise in small sample research. Each chapter illustrates statistical methods that allow researchers to apply the optimal statistical model for their research question when the sample is too small. This essential book will enable social and behavioral science researchers to test their hypotheses even when the statistical model required for answering their research question is too complex for the sample sizes they can collect. The statistical models in the book range from the estimation of a population mean to models with latent variables and nested observations, and solutions include both classical and Bayesian methods. All proposed solutions are described in steps researchers can implement with their own data and are accompanied with annotated syntax in R. The methods described in this book will be useful for researchers across the social and behavioral sciences, ranging from medical sciences and epidemiology to psychology, marketing, and economics.

Download or read book The National Children s Study Research Plan written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2008-08-16 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Children's Study (NCS) is planned to be the largest long-term study of environmental and genetic effects on children's health ever conducted in the United States. It proposes to examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of approximately 100,000 children across the United States, following them from before birth until age 21. By archiving all of the data collected, the NCS is intended to provide a valuable resource for analyses conducted many years into the future. This book evaluates the research plan for the NCS, by assessing the scientific rigor of the study and the extent to which it is being carried out with methods, measures, and collection of data and specimens to maximize the scientific yield of the study. The book concludes that if the NCS is conducted as proposed, the database derived from the study should be valuable for investigating hypotheses described in the research plan as well as additional hypotheses that will evolve. Nevertheless, there are important weaknesses and shortcomings in the research plan that diminish the study's expected value below what it might be.

Download or read book Unified Methods for Censored Longitudinal Data and Causality written by Mark J. van der Laan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fundamental statistical framework for the analysis of complex longitudinal data is provided in this book. It provides the first comprehensive description of optimal estimation techniques based on time-dependent data structures. The techniques go beyond standard statistical approaches and can be used to teach masters and Ph.D. students. The text is ideally suitable for researchers in statistics with a strong interest in the analysis of complex longitudinal data.