Practical Research Methods for Nonprofit and Public Administrators

Practical Research Methods for Nonprofit and Public Administrators, Second Edition, covers basic principles of research design, data collection, data analysis, reporting and ethical principles of research. The discussion describes the skills as they would be used in practice in a not-for-profit or public administration environment.

The book gives pragmatic instructions for designing research to ensure that results will be accurate and administrators can have confidence in them. It covers techniques to assure that researchers are measuring what they intend to measure and in a way that will be useful and manageable. Sampling methods to find out about larger populations are discussed as are survey, interview, and focus group data collection procedures. The book describes how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used to obtain information on the locations of service needs and providers and to draw maps showing these. Participatory research methods including community