A Road Map

Researchers in the organizational sciences and in the social and behavioral sciences in general encounter a host of problems as they seek to describe, predict, and understand behavior. The procedures we use to measure and analyze behavior are constantly improving as a result of the efforts of psychometricians and applied statisticians, among others. Many of the techniques discussed in this book were not available to researchers even a decade or two ago. Moreover, the sheer number of methods has grown tremendously in the past few decades. Maintaining currency in these areas is a constant challenge for substantive researchers in all areas. Our goal in assembling the chapters in this book was to provide readable and up-to-date discussions of some of the most important advances in measurement, applied statistics, research methods, and data analysis. Each chapter describes a particular research method or data analysis technique, sets out an illustration of its use, and summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of the method. Many of the methods are quite complex, and the authors have made concerted efforts to present key ideas in ways that are as accessible as possible. In this chapter, we discuss the various types of problems applied researchers face in describing and understanding the data