Using Educational Research: A School Administrator's Guide

This book was chosen by my professor for the department's introductory course in the Ed.D. program in educational administration. While the book is a little on the expensive side, it is a good value for the price. It covers many aspects of research in educational administration, including an introduction into differences between "pure research" as one might expect in a typical Ph.D. program and "applied research" as one might hope for in an Ed.D. program designed for school administrators, a discussion of what "counts" as good research, and examples and analyses of research articles. The discussion of statistical analyses in quantitative research methods was a little unclear for someone like me who has not taken a quantitative research methods or a statistics course. Luckily, that was not the objective of my course. But it also was not the objective of this work, which was to provide an introduction into what comprises educational research and how it can be used effectively by the practicing school administrator. I do recommend this book, and would give it 4 1/2 stars if I could.