Awesome Conducting Album and Music Offers

One of the most gifted, celebrated, scrutinized, and criticized musicians in the second half of the twentieth century, Leonard Bernstein made his legendary conducting debut at the New York Philharmonic in 1943, at age 25. A year later, he became a sensation on Broadway with the premiere of On the Town. Throughout the 1950s, his Broadway fame only grew with Wonderful Town, Candide, and West Side Story. And in 1958, the Philharmonic appointed him the first American Music Director of a major symphony orchestra—a signal historical event. He was adored as a quintessential celebrity but one who could do it all—embracing both popular and classical music, a natural with the new medium of television, a born teacher, writer, and speaker, as well as a political and social activist. In 1976, having conducted the Philharmonic for more than one thousand concerts, he took his orchestra on tour to Europe for the last time.

All of this played out against the backdrop of post-Second World War New York City as it rose to become the cultural capital of the world—the center of wealth, entertainment, communications, and art—and continued through the chaotic and galvanizing movements of the 1960s that led to its precipitous decline by the mid 1970s.

The essays within this book do not simply retell the Bernstein story; instead, Leonard Bernstein's brother, Burton Bernstein, and current New York Philharmonic archivist and historian, Barbara B. Haws, have brought together a distinguished group of contributors to examine Leonard Bernstein's historic relationship with New York City and its celebrated orchestra. Composer John Adams, American historians Paul Boyer and Jonathan Rosenberg, music historians James Keller and Joseph Horowitz, conductor and radio commentator Bill McGlaughlin, musicologist Carol Oja, and music critics Tim Page and Alan Rich have written incisive essays, which are enhanced by personal reminiscences from Burton Bernstein. The result is a telling portrait of Leonard Bernstein, the musician and the man.

"The authors provided state-of-the-art information about mixed methods approaches to research The book significantly expands Creswell's previous editions of mixed methods approaches to research by including four complete current studies that exemplify distinctive research using mixed methods...What becomes apparent throughout the book is the authors' interest in providing researchers with sufficient information about how to match their research problem to an appropriate design...I also highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to further their understanding of mixed methods research and acquire an in-depth analysis of the methodology." 

                                                        -Patricia Montiel-Overall, The University of Arizona

"The text is well conceived, well written and timely. It provides a sound bases for establishing mixed-method research as a rigorous approach for advanced graduate students, evaluators and researchers. I predict it will become a classic."                                                

                                    -N. Dale Gentry, Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of Idaho

"The most significant challenge today in social and behavioral research is how to combine qualitative and quantitative thinking in a way that helps us provide relevant insights and solve problems. This book takes an important step toward addressing this challenge."

                                                                    -Carol A. Chapelle, Iowa State University

Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research, spearheaded by John Creswell--the author of the best-selling Research Design (now in its Second Edition), combines the latest thinking about mixed methods research designs with practical, step-by-step guidelines for the decisions that must be made in designing a mixed methods research study. "Mixed methods research" is defined as a procedure for collecting, analyzing, and mixing both quantitative and qualitative data in a single case study or series of studies and is becoming more common in studies across the social, behavioral, and health sciences as well as education.

The book offers advice tailored to negotiating the demands and issues that arise when designing a mixed methods project. The recommendations offered focus on how to keep the project manageable for the beginning researcher while still ensuring quality research.

Key Features:

• Offers a practical, how-to guide for designing a mixed methods study
• Presents examples from actual, published mixed methods studies drawn across the social, behavioral, health, and education disciplines
• Incorporates activities and exercises for classroom use or for use by the researcher in preparing designs
• Contains a full glossary of terms for quick reference or as a study tool Illustrates designs using visual diagrams and flowcharts
• Goes through the entire research process (formulating questions, designing, collecting, interpreting, etc.) using four major types of mixed methods designs

While much has been written about mixed methods from a conceptual and theoretical approach, this is the first book to deliver practical guidance about how to design a mixed method study.

In addition, click here to learn about the Journal of Mixed Methods, the journal edited by John W. Creswell and Vicki L. Plano Clark.

 The Psychologist as Detective conveys the excitement of research methodology through a lively, conversational style. To make the study of the research process interactive and accessible for readers, pedagogical features and critical thinking activities are integrated throughout the volume. Actual student research appears in each chapter to increase relevance and heighten reader interest.

This text evaluates the science of psychology, research ideas and hypotheses, ethics, nonexperimental methods and the basics of experimentation variables and control, statistics, designing-conducting-analyzing and interpreting experiments, as well as alternative research designs, external validity, critiquing experimental research and writing and assemblling an APA-format research report.