The authors describe a method for the measurement of secondary electron emission coefficients and demonstrate the use of this approach for the measurement of secondary electron yields for titanium, copper, and carbon ions incident upon an aluminum target. The method is time-resolved in that a series of measurements can be obtained within a single ion beam pulse of several hundred microseconds duration. The metal ion beams were produced with a vacuum arc ion source, and the ratio of secondary electron current to incident ion current was determined using a Faraday cup with fast control of the electron suppressor voltage. The method is relatively simple and readily applied and is suitable for measurements over a wide parameter range. The secondary yields obtained in the present work are of relevance to the measurement of ion current and implantation dose in plasma immersion ion implantation.