Richard C. Rich, PhD, studies and teaches about environmental policy, public policy analysis, and research methods. He was Editor of the State University of New York Press Urban Public Policy book series that won the Aaron Wildavsky Award for Contributions to Policy Analysis. He was formerly Chair of the Department of Political Science, Director of the Center for Environmental and Energy Studies, and Director of the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech.

Part I: Introduction

Chapter 1. Research as a Process

Part II: Preparing to Do Research

Chapter 2. Building Theories and Hypotheses

Chapter 3. Developing Your Literature Review

Chapter 4. Designing Your Research and Choosing Your Methods

Chapter 5. From Abstract to Concrete: Operationalization and Measurement

Chapter 6. Research Design: Attributing Causation through Control

Chapter 7. Who, What, Where, When: The Problem of Sampling

Part III: Quantitative Methods

Chapter 8. Survey Research: Characterizing a Broader Population

Chapter 9. Creating Complex Indicators: Using Scaling Techniques

Chapter 10. Content Analysis: Researching Textual Material

Chapter 11. Aggregate Data: Studying Groups

Chapter 12. Comparative Methods: Research Across Populations

Part IV: Analyzing Quantitative Data

Chapter 13. Coding Data: Preparing Observations for Analysis

Chapter 14. Tables and Charts: Visually Describing the Data

Chapter 15. Statistics I: Summarizing Distributions on One Variable

Chapter 16. Statistics II: Examining Relationships between Two Variables

Chapter 17. Statistics III: Relationships among Several Variables

Part V: Qualitative Methods

Chapter 18. Direct Observation: Systematically Watching Behavior

Chapter 19. Focus Group Research

Chapter 20. Elite and Specialized Interviewing

Part VI: Conclusion

Chapter 21. The Research Report: Diagramming a Sample Article

Chapter 22. Summary: Overview of the Research Process

Appendix A Statistical Tables

Appendix B Ethical Standards in Empirical Research