Construction 
Economics and 
Building

Vol. 18, No. 1  
March 2018

© 2018 by the author(s). This 
is an Open Access article 
distributed under the terms 
of the Creative Commons 
Attribution 4.0 International 
(CC BY 4.0) License (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), allowing third parties 
to copy and redistribute the 
material in any medium 
or format and to remix, 
transform, and build upon the 
material for any purpose, even 
commercially, provided the 
original work is properly cited 
and states its license. 

Citation: Runeson, G. 2018. 
Research Methods: A Practical 
Guide for Students and 
Researchers. Construction 
Economics and Building, 
18:1, 83-84. http://dx.doi.
org/10.5130/AJCEB.v18i1.5979

ISSN 2204-9029 | Published by 
UTS ePRESS | ajceb.epress.
lib.uts.edu.au

BOOK REVIEW

Research Methods: A Practical Guide for 
Students and Researchers

Willie Tan
Research Methods: A Practical Guide for Students and Researchers
World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2017
ISBN: 978-981-3229-58-7 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-981-3229-61-7 (softcover). 228 pages

Göran Runeson
 School of Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Corresponding author: Göran Runeson, Adjunct Professor, School of Architecture and 
Building, University of Technology Sydney, PO Box 123 Broadway NSW Australia;  
Karl.Runeson@uts.edu.au

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/AJCEB.v18i1.5979
Article History: Received 11/01/2018; Revised 30/01/2018; Accepted 05/02/2018; Published 
28/03/2018

In the preface, Professor Tan sets himself an enormous challenge when he declares that 
the aim of the book is to “provide a concise, practical, and reasonably comprehensive guide on 
research methods. … [for] … readers who are just starting out on their research journey.” Any 
respectable university library would have several shelf metres of books that specialise in one 
or a few aspects of research methods and the thought of condensing all that into a single, 
practical volume is strictly for masochists. 

Yet, in some respects, Professor Tan actually achieves the impossible. The section on 
quantitative analysis is both accessible and comprehensive and should be a “must” for any 
researcher that ever contemplates opening a statistical package. In a very practical way it 
explains the assumptions behind the techniques and all the tests required before getting to the 
analysis itself. This section is worth the price of the book on its own.

However, success comes at a price – in this case the quantitative analysis section of the book 
occupies almost a third of the space available which means that other concepts and methods 
suffer from an imposed brevity and there is very little about fundamental philosophy behind 
the different approaches. Important subjects like constructing surveys or qualitative analysis, 
which many people have written books about, gets a few pages while others like ethics are 
barely mentioned.

DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING INTEREST The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect 
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. FUNDING The author(s) received no financial support 
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

83

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/AJCEB.v18i1.5979
http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/AJCEB.v18i1.5979
http://ajceb.epress.lib.uts.edu.au 
http://ajceb.epress.lib.uts.edu.au 
mailto:Karl.Runeson@uts.edu.au
http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/AJCEB.v%25vi%25i.5979


As a text for a course in research methods for undergraduate and coursework postgraduate 
students, which are the primary target for the book, the book would have few competitors. 
Among all the topics mentioned lecturers would be able to choose what to emphasise, 
given the research topics and prior knowledge. Similarly, it would serve as text for a good 
introductory course for postgraduate research students and professionals.  

For undergraduate and coursework postgraduate students, using it for self-study, the text 
should be adequate for most aspects of their research projects. They may have to go outside the 
book for some specific aspects of their projects, but there is enough information in the book 
to identify these areas and the need will become obvious as they read. For the postgraduate 
researcher and the professional, the “guide” in the title should be taken literally to mean a 
guide to areas they have to master, and they can profitably start with the short list of references 
at the end of each chapter. 

For obvious reasons, a book of 200 pages can’t cover the total body of knowledge in the field 
– even experienced researchers often encounter new problems. What it does well is preparing 
new researchers for most issues and doing so, promises to save time – the ultimate resource 
limiting our work.

Runeson

Construction Economics and Building, Vol. 18, No. 1, March 201884