CONTENTS -- 1. Why Do Research on Higher Education? -- Many Questions, Many Options -- Our Philosophy of Research Design -- How This Book Is Organized -- 2. What Are Your Questions? -- Why Are Research Questions So Important? -- Getting Specific -- Building on the Work of Others -- Correlation versus Causation -- The Wheel of Science -- 3. What Groups Do You Want to Study? -- Specifying the Target Population -- Where Should You Conduct the Study? -- Selecting Your Sample -- More Than One Type of Respondent -- Nonresponse Bias -- 4. What Predictors Do You Want to Study? -- Types of Predictors -- The Important Role of Variation -- Other Reasons for Selecting Predictors -- The Integrity of Your Treatment -- Choosing Which Predictors to Study -- 5. Compared to What? -- Why Do You Need a Comparison Group? -- Randomized Control Groups: The Best Comparisons -- Requiring Informed Consent -- Volunteer Bias -- Comparison Groups without Random Assignment -- Retrospective Case-control Studies -- Design Effects Can Swamp Treatment Effects -- 6. What Are Your Outcomes? -- Different Kinds of Outcomes -- Will You Measure Status or Development? -- Short-term versus Long-term Effects -- Are Your Measures Valid? -- 7. How Can You Improve Your Measures? -- What Is Measurement Error? -- Reliability and Measurement Error -- Six Strategies for Improving Measurement Quality -- Looking at Measurement Quality -- 8. How Many People Should You Study? -- Why Is Sample Size So Important? -- What Size Effect Do You Want to Detect? -- What Type of Analysis Will You Use? -- Instrument Precision and Sample Size -- What If Students Drop Out? -- 9. Should You Try It out on a Small Scale? -- The Advantages of Pilot Studies -- Piloting Instruments -- Relational Studies -- Informal Small-scale Experiments -- Generalizing from a Small Study -- 10. Where Should You Go from Here?.

Getting Started -- Lessons from Our Seminar -- Decisions You Must Make -- Planning a Longer-term Research Program -- References -- Index.