Assessment is the gathering of information to improve decision-making. There are many approaches to psychological assessment that can be used to assess people’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, including self-report questionnaires, questionnaires reported by others, interviews, observations, biopsychological assessments, performance-based assessments, archival approaches, and combinations of these. However, the field has paid insufficient attention to measurement. There has been a proliferation of pseudoscience in assessment, including inaccurate assessments that can potentially cause harm. It is crucial to use assessments that are supported by science—with strong psychometric properties, including reliability and validity, and to develop better assessments.

This book discusses the principles of psychological assessment to help researchers and clinicians better develop, evaluate, administer, score, integrate, and interpret psychological assessments. It is intended for use by graduate students, faculty, researchers, and practicing psychologists. The book discusses psychometrics (reliability and validity), the assessment of various psychological domains (behavior, personality, intellectual functioning), various measurement methods (e.g., questionnaires, observations, interviews, biopsychological assessments, performance-based assessments), and emerging analytical frameworks to evaluate and improve assessment, including generalizability theory, structural equation modeling, item response theory, and signal detection theory. The book also discusses considerations of ethics, test bias, and cultural and individual diversity.

The book provides analysis examples using the free software, R, to help readers apply the principles to research and practice. The text, analysis code/syntax, R output, figures, and interpretation are all integrated to help guide readers. The book uses the freely available petersenlab package for R, which includes many functions relevant for assessment. The dissemination of these principles and tools will promote the development of more efficient and accurate assessment strategies that will lead to important scientific advancements and improved intervention.

Provides standard introduction to psychology course content with a specific emphasis on social aspects of psychology. This includes expanded content related to social cognition, aggression, attraction and similar topics.

4th edition

Short Description:
A comprehensive textbook for research methods classes. A peer-reviewed inter-institutional project.

Long Description:
This adaptation constitutes the fourth edition of this textbook, and builds upon the second Canadian edition by Rajiv S. Jhangiani (Kwantlen Polytechnic University) and I-Chant A. Chiang (Quest University Canada), the second American edition by Dana C. Leighton (Texas A&M University-Texarkana), and the third American edition by Carrie Cuttler (Washington State University) and feedback from several peer reviewers coordinated by the Rebus Community. This edition is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.

Word Count: 131367

ISBN: 978-1-9991981-0-7

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

The purpose of this project was to create a set of ancillary materials for the open textbook Research Methods in Psychology, a textbook intended to be used for psychology research methods courses. At the start of this grant, the textbook was available through the University of Minnesota’s Open Textbook Library (open.lib.umn.edu/psychologyresearchmethods/) and could be found in most open material repositories. Since this grant was proposed, however, a more recent version of the text has been released by Price, Jhangiani, Chiang, Leighton, and Cuttler (https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/). The resources developed for this grant can be used for the new edition of the text, although they were written for the earlier version.

This is the website for “R for Data Science”. This book will teach you how to do data science with R: You’ll learn how to get your data into R, get it into the most useful structure, transform it, visualise it and model it. In this book, you will find a practicum of skills for data science. Just as a chemist learns how to clean test tubes and stock a lab, you’ll learn how to clean data and draw plots—and many other things besides. These are the skills that allow data science to happen, and here you will find the best practices for doing each of these things with R. You’ll learn how to use the grammar of graphics, literate programming, and reproducible research to save time. You’ll also learn how to manage cognitive resources to facilitate discoveries when wrangling, visualising, and exploring data.

Rules and Laws for Civil Actions is an open-access resource for law students containing the U.S. Constitution, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Evidence, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, and selected federal and state statutes. The book was created by a team of faculty members at the University of Iowa College of Law to supplement the study of Civil Procedure, Evidence, Constitutional Law, and other law school courses. In addition to containing the official text, each legal source found in Rules and Laws for Civil Actions is accompanied by an introductory section written by an Iowa Law professor explaining its significance and background.

Short Description:
As an introductory textbook for social work students studying research methods, this book guides students through the process of creating a research project. Students will learn how to discover a researchable topic that is interesting to them, examine scholarly literature, formulate a proper research question, design a quantitative or qualitative study to answer their question, carry out the design, interpret quantitative or qualitative results, and disseminate their findings to a variety of audiences. Examples are drawn from the author's practice and research experience, as well as topical articles from the literature. The textbook is aligned with the Council on Social Work Education's 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards. Students and faculty can download copies of this textbook using the links provided in the front matter. As an open textbook, users are free to retain copies, redistribute copies (non-commercially), revise the contents, remix it with other works, and reuse for any purpose.

Long Description:
Based on my years teaching research methods, this is the book I’ve wanted to write and use. It builds on the work of educators in other disciplines by including greater detail on multi-paradigmatic research methods and new content specific to the social work discipline. It is the first textbook produced by Open Social Work Education (http://www.opensocialworkeducation.com)

Word Count: 135856

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Social Problems: Continuity and Change by Steve Barkan is a realistic but motivating look at the many issues that are facing our society today. As this book’s subtitle, Continuity and Change, implies, social problems are persistent, but they have also improved in the past and can be improved in the present and future, provided that our nation has the wisdom and will to address them.

It is easy for students to read a social problems textbook and come away feeling frustrated by the enormity of the many social problems facing us today. Social Problems: Continuity and Change certainly does not minimize the persistence of social problems, but neither does it overlook the possibilities for change offered by social research and by the activities of everyday citizens working to make a difference. Readers of Steve Barkan’s book will find many examples of how social problems have been improved and of strategies that hold great potential for solving them today and in the future.

You will find several pedagogical features help to convey the “continuity and change” theme of this text and the service sociology vision in which it is grounded: Each chapter begins with a “Social Problems in the News” story related to the social problem discussed in that chapter. These stories provide an interesting starting point for the chapter’s discussion and show its relevance for real-life issues. Three types of boxes in each chapter provide examples of how social problems have been changed and can be changed.

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. This book is based on my lecture materials developed over a decade of teaching the doctoral-level class on Research Methods at the University of South Florida. The target audience for this book includes Ph.D. and graduate students, junior researchers, and professors teaching courses on research methods, although senior researchers can also use this book as a handy and compact reference.

This OER provides a substantial set of readings on transportation law and policy, suitable for use in a variety of disciplines and educational settings, including law, economics, urban planning, history, engineering, sociology, and more.