Designing and Conducting Research in Health and Human Performance

Designing and Conducting Research in Health and Human Performance is an easy-to-read, user-friendly text is ideal for students in health, physical education, exercise science, athletic training, and recreation. It explores the full range of basic topics typically covered in research courses in health, human performance, exercise science, kinesiology, and physical education. The book provides the information and skills needed to be effective producers and consumers of research. Designed for the first course in research methods, this text shows students how to conduct and read research, design research tools, and evaluate results in health, kinesiology, exercise science, recreation, dance, and all other areas of human performance--providing comprehensive coverage of both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Readers of this book will be able to write effective research proposals and theses; read, assess, interpret, and apply published research; and understand how to conduct basic studies in health, physical education, exercise science, athletic training, and recreation. Part I: Understanding Important Concepts Chapter 1: Introduction to Research in Health and Human Performance; What you will find out!; Defining Research; Being a Consumer of Research; Scientific method; Basic vs. Applied Research; Internal Validity; External Validity; Independent and Dependent Variables; Overview of Types of Research; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 2: Ethical Issues in Health and Human Performance; What you will find out!; Historical Context of Human Subjects Research; Institutional Review Board; Informed Consent Elements; Plagiarism; Data collection; Copyright; Data Storage; Data Fabrication/Falsification; Check it out review your understanding Part II: Reviewing the Literature Chapter 3: Developing your topic; What you will find out!; Identifying the problem; Primary vs. Secondary Research ; Library; Organizing your research; Reading and Interpreting Research Reports; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 4: Writing the Review of Literature; What you will find out!; Developing an Outline; Identifying Sections; Funneling your ideas; Check it out review your understanding Part III: Understanding and Developing Research Designs Chapter 5: Quantitative Research Designs; What you will find out!; Descriptive Research; Survey; Case study; Observational; Experimental Research; True experimental vs. Quasi experimental; Correlation Research; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 6: Qualitative Research Designs; What you will find out!; Characteristics of Qualitative Research; Theoretical Frameworks; Procedures in Qualitative Research; Interviews; Focus Groups; Incidence Reports; Stimulated Recall; Types of Qualitative Research; Grounded Theory; Ethnographic Research; Phenomenological Research; Life Histories; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 7: Mixed Method and Action Research Designs; What you will find out!; Sequential Designs; Concurrent Designs; Action Research; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 8: Developing your Research Design and Method; What you will find out!; Statement of the problem Why?; Delimitations; Limitations; Defining Terms; Developing your Methods; Who, How, When; Check it out review your understanding Part IV: Exploring Measurement and Analysis Chapter 9: Validity, Reliability and Objectivity; What you will find out!; Validity Concepts; Reliability Concepts; Objectivity Concepts; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 10: Quantitative Analysis: Hypothesis Testing; What you will find out!; Sampling Procedures; Steps in Hypothesis testing ; Example of Hypothesis testing using correlation; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 11: Statistical Procedures: Using Excel and SPSS; What you will find out!; Levels of Data; Descriptives Statistics; Inferential Statistics; Nonparametric vs. Parametric; IG t-test Repeated Measures t-test and Wilcoxen Signed Ranks; One-way ANOVA and Kruskal Wallis; PPMCC and Spearman; Chi-square; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 12: Qualitative Analysis: Interpreting the Data; What you will find out!; Sorting, Analyzing, and Categorizing Data; Data Triangulation; Interpreting the Data; Trustworthiness ; Check it out review your understanding Part V: Putting it all together Chapter 13: Results and Discussion: Writing what you Found; What you will find out!; Writing the Results; Using Tables and Figures; Writing your Discussion; So what factor linking your findings back to the literature, how is it helpful; Check it out review your understanding Chapter 14: Presenting your Research; What you will find out!; Poster; Oral Presentation; Journal vs. Chapter formats; Check it out review your understanding Appendices; Common Writing Tips; SPSS Commands for Analysis; Excel Commands for Analysis; Statistical Tables t, r, F, c2