The book is designed to enable students to become intelligent consumers of educational research in a non-technical, non-intimidating manner. Students are shown how to analyze and evaluate the research, and judge the usefulness of the findings for educational practice.

Extensive use of aides to facilitate student learning include; chapter roadmaps and concept maps, study questions, a book website, consumer tips, examples and excerpts from published articles (including seven full length articles), and author reflections. The fourth edition includes a more extensive, balanced presentation of both quantitative and qualitative methods, new discussion of mixed-mode studies, new discussion of effect size, greater treatment of survey research.