Research Methods and Applications for Student Affairs

Chapter TwoReading Research

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Differentiate the main sources of research in student affairs.
• Locate and obtain various sources of research in student affairs.
• Identify the basic format of a published study.
• Articulate the role and importance of the problem statement.

The ability to read research is a foundational student affairs skill. Reading research is a literacy-based expertise that incorporates the capacity to locate, acquire, and comprehend empirical results. Understanding how a research topic becomes a research problem significant to practice is important to learn, since these components inform the purpose and ultimately the research questions researchers use ...