Chris Barker, Nancy Pistrang, and Robert Elliott

NOTES FOR INSTRUCTORS

version date: 20 August, 2002

What we have tried to do in this textbook is to provide students with an introductory survey of research methods in clinical psychology. The text was principally written for graduate students in clinical psychology (whom we teach at our respective institutions and on whom we have tried out various earlier versions of the text), but we also tried to make it suitable for advanced undergraduates and fellow professional clinical psychologists (and we have received encouraging feedback from these audiences). Counselling, community, and health psychologists, and all mental health disciplines, are all very much part of our intended readership too.

This second edition, like the first, has two central features. The first feature is that it is organized chronologically around the research process. Thus, if you work through the chapters sequentially, as we recommend, you will follow the chronological progress of a typical research project. The exception to this are our excursions into philosophy, notably in chapter two, which you may wish to regard as optional background material.

The second feature is that the text takes a methodological pluralist stance. This means, for example, that we try to provide a balanced coverage of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. However, we have purposefully not wanted to ghettoize each of these approaches by having a quantitative half and then an entirely separate qualitative half; instead, each approach is integrated within each of the measurement methods (so, for example, the self-report chapter covers both qualitative and quantitative approaches). However, if this stance is not to your taste, it should be relatively easy to disentangle the two approaches and teach them separately (in the order of fundamental philosophy, self-report, observation, design, and analysis). Other areas where we have tried to strike a balance in the interests of pluralism are between discovery-oriented and hypothesis-testing research, and between effectiveness and efficacy research.

Additional aids to instructors that are available on this website include a set of overhead slides in PowerPoint format, and some end-of-chapter exercises (at present only for selected chapters). You are free to use these for teaching at your own institution, understanding that the copyright for the book remains with Wiley, and for any other material that is not in the book, with us. For any other usage, please contact the publishers in the first instance.

Please do get in touch with us if you have any comments or suggestions. It is always good to hear from readers and fellow instructors. It is even conceivable that we will attempt a third edition one day.

Chris Barker
Nancy Pistrang
Robert Elliott