Preface -- Acknowledgments -- When a practitioner becomes a researcher -- Research alignment -- Identifying the focus of the research : research objective and research question -- Research design -- Sample selection -- Data collection -- Quantitative data preparation and descriptive statistics -- Hypothesis testing and statistical significance : logic of inferential statistics -- Comparing means between two groups -- Comparing means of more than two groups : analysis of variance (ANOVA) -- Bivariate correlation -- Chi-square analysis -- Regression analysis -- Qualitative data analysis -- Writing reports -- Using research methods for continuous improvement : program evaluation and performance measurement -- Appendix A : Additional SPSS and Excel instructions -- Appendix B : Emily's survey form -- Glossary -- Index -- About the authors.