Book excerpt: This second edition represents the thorough revision necessary to accurately reflect the variation and wealth of research methodologies used in contemporary rehabilitation counseling research. As with the previous edition, this new second edition is divided into ten chapters. Chapter 1 establishes the theoretical underpinnings of social scientific inquiry, provides a foundation in the philosophical, epistemological, and methodological considerations related to the design and execution of rehabilitation research, and discusses the broad purposes of research. Chapter 2 addresses the issues that are preparatory to designing and evaluating this research, the sources of research ideas, and translating these ideas into research hypothesis, identifying variables, and sampling issues. Chapter 3 discusses key measurement and statistical concepts used in the quantitative research tradition, including reliability and validity of measurements instruments, the purposes of descriptive and inferential statistics in analyzing numeric data, and provides an expanded section on methods of statistical analysis. Chapters 4 and 5 reviews ethical issues and guidelines for the design, implementation, and reporting of rehabilitation research, drawing valid inferences from results, and generalizing findings from the research sample to the target population. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 review the wide range of different quantitative, qualitative, and integrative approaches to doing rehabilitation research, and provides examples from the recent rehabilitation literature. Other topics include the intervention/stimulus relationship, descriptive studies in the quantitative paradigm, and qualitative methods of rehabilitation research. Chapter 9 presents a published research article section by section, annotates the components and composition of a research report, and provides a protocol that students and practitioners can use to evaluate the technical soundness and scientific merits of published research articles. The concluding chapter addresses future trends in rehabilitation counseling research in relation to fruitful topic areas and methodologies as they apply to counselors, administrators, policymakers, educators, researchers, people with disabilities, and consumer advocates. This book provides the 'basics' that one would need to begin conducting a research investigation.