What are the essentials for undergraduates and postgraduates engaged in quantitative and qualitative research? How can the gap between formulating a research question and carrying out research be bridged? This accessible, well-judged text provides students with a matchless introduction to generic research skills. It is uncluttered, direct and unpatronizing. Key features of the book are:

- Accessibility

- Clarification of key issues and problem solving guidance

- Demonstration of the importance of interplay between theory and research

- Realism in defining...

What are the essentials for undergraduates and postgraduates engaged in quantitative and qualitative research? How can the gap between formulating a research question and carrying out research be bridged? This accessible, well-judged text provides students with a matchless introduction to generic research skills. It is uncluttered, direct and unpatronizing. Key features of the book are:

- Accessibility

- Clarification of key issues and problem solving guidance

- Demonstration of the importance of interplay between theory and research

- Realism in defining...

Evaluation is a set of research methods and associated methodologies with a distinctive purpose. They provide a means to judge actions and activities in terms of values, criteria and standards. At the same time evaluation is also a practice that seeks to enhance effectiveness in the public sphere and policy making. In order to improve as well as judge, there is a need to explain what happens and would have to be done differently for different outcomes to be achieved. It is in this explanatory mode that evaluation overlaps most directly with mainstream social science.

This...

This four-volume collection presents the key publications which exemplify the participant observation tradition in sociology and social research, an increasingly important method used in qualitative research and ethnography. Such research usually involves a range of methods: informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, collective discussions, analyses of the personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, and life-histories.

Fundamentals of Action Research brings together, material, much of it hard to obtain, into one collection. It is a foundation resource for individuals and institutions on which to build their action research knowledge bank and will be the first point of reference for action research practitioners and academics.

The content includes entries on action research and other methodologies which have developed out of action research. The editors recognize the eclecticism of the field, but have kept a tight focus on the topic, rather than trying to incorporate all forms of...

'What is data analysis' is a key question in social research, defined by the foundations of various research models. This four-volume set presents the leading directions in data analysis and published in the 'classic' articles in the field. It brings together the most outstanding 'vintage' and contemporary work that have helped define and demarcate data analysis. It covers both quantitative and qualitative aspects, as centred around realism, positivism and empiricism on the one hand, and relativism and interpretivism on the other.

Volume One: covers qualitative data analysis:...

Caroline Roberts and Roger Jowell, acknowledged specialists in this area of research, have combed the literature to bring together the most comprehensive collection available. The four volumes cover key advances since serious study of the subject began, where the selection of articles and papers present the key figures, major steps forward in theory or practice and some of the most creative and ingenious methodological work in the social sciences. This set will provide a rich reference source that should appeal to academics and practitioners alike.

Despite questionnaires being one of the principal research tools in social research, there remains a glaring lack of material on this method. Following on the success of his first set, Martin Bulmer once again tackles this lack by bringing together a wealth of material - both the classics and difficult-to-find key material - to create a second invaluble resource on questionnaires. Volume 1 reviews the place of questionnaires in the social world. It examines pre-testing questions, types of question, question order, mode effects and further questions the implications of attitudes and behaviour...

Interviewing has a strong claim to be the most widely-practiced social science research methods. The ubiquity of this basic activity means that this field has one of the most developed bodies of methodological literature having ramifications throughout the social sciences. Nigel Fielding, the acknowledged expert in the field, has again collected a set of contemporary classic readings. Interviewing has been established as the authoritative and balanced research resource in this subject. It is comprehensive and generic; however, its coverage does not entirely reflect the apportionment of...

Ethnomethodology (meaning, very crudely, 'small group' methods) is an approach to sociological research that is associated with the work of Harold Garfinkel and Harvey Sacks. It was very influential in the 1970s and 80s for challenging the more abstract types of social theory. Against these, it offered a way of exploring the rules of practice (generally the hidden rules of practice) in small groups. This four-volume set includes selections that discuss and exemplify how conversations, experiments, and observations are used to gain insight into larger questions of social order and social...