by R.ChrisFraley (Author)
Requiring no prior knowledge of programming or web site design, this easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide helps professionals as well as students create interactive behavioral research instruments online. With this volume, anyone can learn to write programs in HTML and CGI/Perl that will enable them to take full advantage of all the benefits of Internet-based data collection: the ability to effortlessly manipulate visual and narrative content, randomize the presentation order of stimuli, and provide customized assessments and feedback for research participants. Including extensive examples throughout, the book explains everything from how to obtain access to a web server to mastering HTML coding, processing data with CGI/Perl, and importing data files into popular statistical packages. While the examples are from psychology, the technical skills the book provides can be adapted to other fields that make use of behavioral research.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 299
Edition: 1
Publisher: Guilford Press
Published: 25 Mar 2004
ISBN 10: 1572309970
ISBN 13: 9781572309975
Fraley provides a well-organized, easy-to-follow primer for conducting scientific research over the Internet. This step-by-step guide to HTML and CGI/Perl programming makes the daunting and often confusing task of creating Web-based surveys and experiments easy and fun, even for the most timid of beginners. It will make an excellent addition to any research methods course. In short, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in conducting social and behavioral research. --Katelyn McKenna, PhD, Department of Psychology, New York University
If only this guide had been available when I began conducting psychological research with CGI scripts in the 1990s! What I learned how to do over months of painful trial and error, this book can help you master within a couple of weeks. Assuming no prior programming experience, Fraley teaches you in clear, simple steps absolutely everything you need to know about conducting Internet-based research. I heartily recommend this book to professionals who wish to begin conducting research on the Internet as well as instructors who wish to teach their students these skills. It is a real gift to the field. --John A. Johnson, PhD, Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University
How to Conduct Behavioral Research over the Internet and its website contain the necessary detail to conduct this type of research. An impressive feature is that the book is comprehensible to those who have never written a webpage and to those who do not consider themselves programmers (almost all of us). Moreover, the book does not just show how to conduct surveys on the Internet, it provides details on how to conduct experiments. We learn how to randomize on the web and how to measure reaction times. Finally, the book has many useful hints to make the data analysis easier. --from the Foreword by David A. Kenny, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut