Gerald, You might suggest a text I coauthored - Vadum & Rankin, Psychological Research: Methods for Discovery and Validation, McGraw-Hill, 1998 - to your colleague. The text was student tested for many years at Assumption College where our psychology research methods course is also taken by social rehab majors, biology majors interested in animal behavior, and others. The text includes the following chapters: Scientific method, classifying research (which contains a section on qualitative designs - participant observation, case study, phenomenological research), measurement, correlation, randomized experimental designs, ethics of research, factorial designs, single-case experimental designs, field work, as well as three chapters addressing practical concerns - finding a research problem, planning the study, communicating research. The chapter on field research has a lengthy section on survey methods, including discussion of sampling, modes of administering surveys, as well as question wording. Examples of research used in the text are drawn from medicine, sociology, as well as psychology. As a social psychologist, I have taught many interdisciplinary courses with sociologists and used my colleagues in sociology as a source of material on participant observation. You can get more information about the text at our website (http://www.assumption.edu/html/academic/users/avadum/index.html). The site also includes programs, written in Java that can be used online for randomly assigning subjects to groups, random sampling, and doing basic statistical calculations. If interested, your colleague could supplement the text with a paperback on qualitative research methods. There are some good ones available. Originally we had planned to include a chapter on qualitative methods but in the end didn't because of space limitations. Best wishes, Arlene Vadum
