Fundamentally, this book is a resource to help teachers become researchers. The idea is for teachers to learn to use the methods of scientific research to do research on their own classrooms and thereby improve learning outcomes for their students. Teachers can use the methods outlined in this book to understand what is happening in their classroom in the same way researchers in medicine, for example, use scientific research as they seek to understand whether a particular drug or procedure is effective at helping patients improve their health.

Although this book is mainly for teachers, researchers other than teachers can use the methods in this book as a guide to their research. The methods described in this book are general-purpose strategies and can be applied in non-academic settings. For example, the material on reliability and validity can be used in connection with achievement tests developed by teachers themselves as well as general-purpose surveys in marketing, psychology, political science, and sociology, among other fields.