Publisher's Synopsis
This highly regarded text presents a comprehensive and balanced introduction to both qualitative and quantitative approaches to social research, emphasizing the benefits of combining various approaches. It provides dozens of new examples from actual research studies are used to provide illustrations of concepts and methods. Key terms are now called out and defined in boxes at the bottom of the pages where they appear, for easier study and review. In chapter 1, there are now separate descriptions and examples of the steps in the research process for quantitative and qualitative approaches, to underscore some of the fundamental differences. Chapter 2 has new discussions of participatory action research, instrumental and reflexive knowledge, the various audiences for social research findings, and researcher autonomy when research is commissioned. The discussion of social theories in Chapter 3 now covers levels of abstraction, and relationships among concepts. In Chapter 4, the authors now examines how Positivist, Interpretive, and Critical Social Science stand on the questions of human agency and the relevance of social scientific knowledge. The Chapter on Survey Research (Ch.;10) covers the latest technology, including computer-assisted interviewing and Web surveys. It presents a more balanced coverage of qualitative and quantitative methods than any other book on the market, and illustrates how the greatest benefit often comes from combining various approaches, and discusses the social and historical context of research, and teaches students to recognize ethnocentric perspectives and the assumptions, values, and beliefs of their own society. Chapter 3, 'Theory and Research,' helps students with no prior coursework in social theory understand the importance of theory and its connection to research. It contains many explanatory diagrams and interesting examples drawn from scholarly literature, and incorporates feminist and postmodernist theories in the 'Meaning of Methodologies' chapter (Ch. 4). It concludes with a chapter on writing a research report.
