As our lives become increasingly impacted by research studies, it becomes ever more important to become critical consumers of that research, with the ability to sort out and evaluate sometimes conflicting findings. Following up on his successful initial foray into helping students better understand the research results they encounter (unlike more traditional texts that focus on producing research), the author has revised and updated his popular Methods of Family Research to benefit a new generation of students and researchers. This book introduces the basic concepts of social science research methods without excessive technical details. The text covers traditional quantitative methods, qualitative methods, and the mixed-method approach and uses real-life examples to address issues family researchers deal with every day. Content: - Why do research on families? - Causal inference in family research - Searching and reading the literature - Using the Internet fo study families - How do we measure concepts? - Studying families: quantitative methods - Studying families: qualitative methods - Sampling issues - Working with scales and indices - Analyzing data on families - Using other people's data - Evaluating family programs - The ethics and politics of family research.