An important skill for students, whether they remain in academia or move on to careers elsewhere, is to become critical consumers of research, with the ability to sort out and evaluate sometimes conflicting findings that are reported in the popular media.  
While traditional sociological methods texts focus on teaching how to produce research, Greenstein teaches students how to understand the research results they'll encounter. He equips students with the essentials they'll need to become intelligent and critical readers of research on families, whether in their work or in everyday life.
 
In focusing on techniques that enable students to better interpret and comprehend scientific findings, Greenstein addresses such essential questions as:

• Why do research on families?
• What are the stages of social research? @! What are the benefits of well-conducted research?
• How is research analyzed?
• How are literature searches and reviews conducted?
• How is the internet best used in research?

 Students at all levels will come away from this brief, affordable book equipped to critically read, understand, and evaluate research on the family.
 Generally, the text as a whole focuses on conceptual understanding aimed at helping students become intelligent and critical consumers of research on families, equipping them to more critically analyze what they read. More specifically, 'Study Questions' at the end of each chapter help students test their command of the material. In addition, when new terms are first introduced, they are highlighted in boldface and defined in context. A combined glossary/index further helps students review and navigate the terminology of social science research methodology and guides them to where the term was introduced in the text.