Essentials of Research Methods: A Guide to Social Science Research

Essentials of Research Methods is a concise and accessible introduction to research methods in the social sciences. Written by an expert of research methods teaching, this book takes extraordinary care to focus the reader on experiences in his or her everyday life as a way of understanding and performing research methods. The logic and techniques of research methods can be daunting and not of obvious use to students of social science, and yet this book clearly and coherently defines the terms and requirements of research methods studies for the inexperienced student.
Covering ethics, data gathering and analysis, and statistics, Essentials of Research Methods makes the “essentials” relevant to our information–dominated society, while exploring the complexities and values of each. With an engaging, reader–friendly style, discussions that appeal across disciplines, and timely examples that are informative and interesting to read, this book is ideal for any student of research methods. Features include further reading lists, graphs, exercises, study questions, and an annotated list of web resources.

Spis treści:
List of Figures and Tables.
Preface.
Acknowledgements.
1. When Should We Trust What We Know? Why Research Methods?.
2. Ethics: It’s the Right Thing To Do.
3. Some Perfectly Valid Points: Measurement, Internal, and External Validity.
4. Measure By Measure—Making the Abstract Concrete.
5. If It Glitters Is It Gold? Assessing Measures.
6. One Thing Leads to Another: Causal Analysis.
7. Designing Ideas: Research Strategies.
8. An Informative Few:Sampling.
9. Our Inquisitive Nature: The Questionnaire.
10. Talking Heads: The Interview.
11. Watch and Learn: Field Research.
12. Getting Organized: Descriptive Statistics.
13. Beyond Description: Inferential Statistics.
References.
Web Resources.
Index

Nota biograficzna:
Jane t M. Ruane is Associate Professor of Sociology at Montclair State University. She is co–author of Second Thoughts: Seeing Conventional Wisdom Through the Sociological Eye (with Karen Cerulo, third edition, 2004). She has taught research methods to undergraduates for more than fifteen years.

Okładka tylna:
Essentials of Research Methods is a concise and accessible introduction to research methods in the social sciences. Written by an expert of research methods teaching, this book takes extraordinary care to focus the reader on experiences in his or her everyday life as a way of understanding and performing research methods. The logic and techniques of research methods can be daunting and not of obvious use to students of social science, and yet this book clearly and coherently defines the terms and requirements of research methods studies for the inexperienced student.
Covering ethics, data gathering and analysis, and statistics, Essentials of Research Methods makes the “essentials” relevant to our information–dominated society, while exploring the complexities and values of each. With an engaging, reader–friendly style, discussions that appeal across disciplines, and timely examples that are informative and interesting to read, this book is ideal for any student of research methods. Features include further reading lists, graphs, exercises, study questions, and an annotated list of web resources.