This gi-normous tome is a beauty. It's wonderful to have design, measurement, and analysis cross-referenced within the same book. Yes, as the one low rating reviewer argues, Pedhazur and Schmelkin are rather cranky and critical, but I find their remarks go along way toward anchoring social science research in the broader landscape of formal research generally, and in the history of educational/psychological research specifically. The authors spend a good bit of text locating practices in tradition and context, and identifying changes in the practice of social science research. I find my own doctoral students benefit from as much sense of research as a professional endeavor as I can provide them. Thus, I don't have a problem with passages such as this: "The notion that the royal road to Truth, to discovery of the Laws of Nature, is through The Scientific method has until recently been part of the vision of scientific inquiry, as is exemplified by Pearson's (1911) assertion: 'There is no short cut to truth, no way to gain a knowledge of the universe except through the gateway of scientific method.' ... Nothing is, of course, further from the truth."
On the other hand, I really think it's important for the instructor to be an active mediator between student and text in the case.