Understanding Social Science Research

Understanding Social Science Research PDF Author: Thomas R Black
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761973690
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The ability to read published research critically is essential and is different from the skills involved in undertaking research using statistical analysis. This New Edition of Thomas R Black's best-selling text explains in clear and straightforward terms how students can evaluate research, with particular emphasis on research involving some aspect of measurement. The coverage of fundamental concepts is comprehensive and supports topics including research design, data collection and data analysis by addressing the following major issues: Are the questions and hypotheses advanced appropriate and testable? Is the research design sufficient for the hypothesis? Is the data gathered valid, reliable and objective? Are the statistical techniques used to analyze the data appropriate and do they support the conclusions reached? Each of the chapters from the New Edition has been thoroughly updated, with particular emphasis on improving and increasing the range of activities for students. As well, coverage has been broadened to include: a wider range of research designs; a section on research ethics; item analysis; the definition of standard deviation with a guide for calculation; the concept of `power' in statistical inference; calculating correlations; and a description of the difference between parametric and non-parametric tests in terms of research questions. Evaluating Social Science Research An Introduction 2nd Edition will be key reading for undergraduate and postgrduate students in research methodology and evaluation across the social sciences.

Understanding Social Science Research

Understanding Social Science Research PDF Author: Thomas R Black
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761973690
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book

Book Description
The ability to read published research critically is essential and is different from the skills involved in undertaking research using statistical analysis. This New Edition of Thomas R Black's best-selling text explains in clear and straightforward terms how students can evaluate research, with particular emphasis on research involving some aspect of measurement. The coverage of fundamental concepts is comprehensive and supports topics including research design, data collection and data analysis by addressing the following major issues: Are the questions and hypotheses advanced appropriate and testable? Is the research design sufficient for the hypothesis? Is the data gathered valid, reliable and objective? Are the statistical techniques used to analyze the data appropriate and do they support the conclusions reached? Each of the chapters from the New Edition has been thoroughly updated, with particular emphasis on improving and increasing the range of activities for students. As well, coverage has been broadened to include: a wider range of research designs; a section on research ethics; item analysis; the definition of standard deviation with a guide for calculation; the concept of `power' in statistical inference; calculating correlations; and a description of the difference between parametric and non-parametric tests in terms of research questions. Evaluating Social Science Research An Introduction 2nd Edition will be key reading for undergraduate and postgrduate students in research methodology and evaluation across the social sciences.

Social Science Research

Social Science Research PDF Author: Anol Bhattacherjee
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781475146127
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.

Transparent and Reproducible Social Science Research

Transparent and Reproducible Social Science Research PDF Author: Garret Christensen
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520296931
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Recently, social science has had numerous episodes of influential research that was found invalid when placed under rigorous scrutiny. The growing sense that many published results are potentially erroneous has made those conducting social science research more determined to ensure the underlying research is sound. Transparent and Reproducible Social Science Research is the first book to summarize and synthesize new approaches to combat false positives and non-reproducible findings in social science research, document the underlying problems in research practices, and teach a new generation of students and scholars how to overcome them. Understanding that social science research has real consequences for individuals when used by professionals in public policy, health, law enforcement, and other fields, the book crystallizes new insights, practices, and methods that help ensure greater research transparency, openness, and reproducibility. Readers are guided through well-known problems and are encouraged to work through new solutions and practices to improve the openness of their research. Created with both experienced and novice researchers in mind, Transparent and Reproducible Social Science Research serves as an indispensable resource for the production of high quality social science research.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods PDF Author: Michael Lewis-Beck
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761923633
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
Featuring over 900 entries, this resource covers all disciplines within the social sciences with both concise definitions & in-depth essays.

Understanding Social Research

Understanding Social Research PDF Author: Angela Dale
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 184860145X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Jennifer Mason and Angela Dale's book seeks to set out cutting-edge developments in the field of social research and to encourage students and researchers to consider ways of learning from different approaches and perspectives in such a way as to make their own research richer, more insightful and more rewarding. Social Researching brings together a wide variety of research methods - both qualitative and quantitative - to help students and researchers to consider the relative benefits of adopting different approaches for their own research work. The authors clearly identify the most appropriate methods for different research questions and also highlight areas where it might be fruitful to compliment different methods with each other or exploit creative tensions between them. The book is therefore a highly practical guide which also seeks to draw readers outside their methodological comfort zones. This book includes: - Critical coverage of issues in research design; - Expert experience in many methodological fields; - An overview of the many different ways to approach similar research problems; - Coverage of the tensions between different methodological approaches; - Examples of excellence in research design and practice; - An examination of how to turn methodological tensions into richer research practice. The methods covered include highly innovative, 'cutting-edge' approaches and they are demonstrated in terms of their transferability between the different social sciences. This inter-disciplinary approach is complimented by a wide range of strategically chosen examples which demonstrate the authors' pragmatic and creative take on research design.

Visualizing Social Science Research

Visualizing Social Science Research PDF Author: Johannes Wheeldon
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 145223955X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This introductory text presents basic principles of social science research through maps, graphs, and diagrams. The authors show how concept maps and mind maps can be used in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research, using student-friendly examples and classroom-based activities. Integrating theory and practice, chapters show how to use these tools to plan research projects, "see" analysis strategies, and assist in the development and writing of research reports.

Understanding Political Science Research Methods

Understanding Political Science Research Methods PDF Author: Maryann Barakso
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113662239X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This text starts by explaining the fundamental goal of good political science research—the ability to answer interesting and important questions by generating valid inferences about political phenomena. Before the text even discusses the process of developing a research question, the authors introduce the reader to what it means to make an inference and the different challenges that social scientists face when confronting this task. Only with this ultimate goal in mind will students be able to ask appropriate questions, conduct fruitful literature reviews, select and execute the proper research design, and critically evaluate the work of others. The authors' primary goal is to teach students to critically evaluate their own research designs and others’ and analyze the extent to which they overcome the classic challenges to making inference: internal and external validity concerns, omitted variable bias, endogeneity, measurement, sampling, and case selection errors, and poor research questions or theory. As such, students will not only be better able to conduct political science research, but they will also be more savvy consumers of the constant flow of causal assertions that they confront in scholarship, in the media, and in conversations with others. Three themes run through Barakso, Sabet, and Schaffner’s text: minimizing classic research problems to making valid inferences, effective presentation of research results, and the nonlinear nature of the research process. Throughout their academic years and later in their professional careers, students will need to effectively convey various bits of information. Presentation skills gleaned from this text will benefit students for a lifetime, whether they continue in academia or in a professional career. Several distinctive features make this book noteworthy: A common set of examples threaded throughout the text give students a common ground across chapters and expose them to a broad range of subfields in the discipline. Box features throughout the book illustrate the nonlinear, "non-textbook" reality of research, demonstrate the often false inferences and poor social science in the way the popular press covers politics, and encourage students to think about ethical issues at various stages of the research process.

Doing Social Science Research

Doing Social Science Research PDF Author: Simeon Yates
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761967989
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Providing an introductory overview of the process of social research, and including classic readings in research methods that all students and researchers should be familiar with, this text offers a comprehensive introduction to key areas of quantitative and qualitative research.

The Impact of the Social Sciences

The Impact of the Social Sciences PDF Author: Simon Bastow
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446293254
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
The impact agenda is set to shape the way in which social scientists prioritise the work they choose to pursue, the research methods they use and how they publish their findings over the coming decade, but how much is currently known about how social science research has made a mark on society? Based on a three year research project studying the impact of 360 UK-based academics on business, government and civil society sectors, this groundbreaking new book undertakes the most thorough analysis yet of how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity, and informs public understanding of policy issues as well as economic and social changes. The Impact of the Social Sciences addresses and engages with key issues, including: identifying ways to conceptualise and model impact in the social sciences developing more sophisticated ways to measure academic and external impacts of social science research explaining how impacts from individual academics, research units and universities can be improved. This book is essential reading for researchers, academics and anyone involved in discussions about how to improve the value and impact of funded research.

Narratives in Social Science Research

Narratives in Social Science Research PDF Author: Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761941958
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Provides: an historical overview of the development of the narrative approach; a guide to how narrative methods can be applied in fieldwork; how to incorporate a narrative approach within a field project; guidelines for interpreting collected or produced narratives; and useful guides for further reading.