Universities are increasingly being asked to take an active role as research collaborators with citizens, public bodies, and community organisations, which, it is claimed, makes them more accountable, creates better research outcomes, and enhances the knowledge base. Yet many of these research collaborators, as well as their funders and institutions, have not yet developed the methods to ‘account for’ collaborative research, or to help collaborators in challenging their assumptions about t...

This book provides invaluable guidance for thinking through and planning a qualitative study. Rather than offering recipes for specific techniques, master storyteller Robert Stake stimulates readers to discover "how things work" in organizations, programs, communities, and other systems. Topics range from identifying a research question to selecting methods, gathering data, interpreting and analyzing the results, and producing a well-thought-through written report. In-depth examples from a...

This unique text provides a broad introduction to qualitative analysis together with concrete demonstrations and comparisons of five major approaches. Leading scholars apply their respective analytic lenses to a narrative account and interview featuring "Teresa," a young opera singer who experienced a career-changing illness. The resulting analyses vividly exemplify what each approach looks like in action. The researchers then probe the similarities and differences among their approaches; ...

Do you need to manage a research project?This guide presents and partially reviews 25 online tools and resources, available at zero cost, to help researchers, evaluators, doctoral students and supervisors, research managers and administrators, with a range of activities and skills involved in managing research successfully.Includes tools and resources for:• Project planning• Goal-setting• Time management• Document sharing and storage• Orga...

Over the course of ten years, this extensive qualitative study focused on the academic resilience phenomenon. The research delves into the educational resilience experiences of fifty low socioeconomic students of color from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. In addition to chronicling specific protective factors and processes active in the students' lives, several symbiotic relationships between groups of protective factors are documented and explored. A Resilience Cycle ...

Kevin C. Dunn and Iver B. Neumann offer a concise, accessible introduction to discourse analysis in the social sciences. A vital resource for students and scholars alike, Undertaking Discourse Analysis for Social Research combines a theoretical and conceptual review with a “how-to” guide for using the method. In the first part of the book, the authors discuss the development of discourse analysis as a research method and identify the main theoretical elements and epistemological a...

Doing Visual Research offers an innovative introduction to the use of photography, collaborative video, drawing, objects, multi-media production and installation in research. Claudia Mitchell explains how visual methods can be used as modes of inquiry as well as modes of representation for social research.The book looks at a range of conceptual and practical approaches to a range of tools and methods, whilst also highlighting the interpretive and ethical issues tha...

Since its first edition in 1985, Patrick McNeill's Research Methods has become a classic introductory text for students of sociology at A level and in undergraduate courses as well as for a range of specialists in education, business, social care and medicine who need a brief but authoritative account of how sociologists set about conducting research.After a brief overview of the history of sociological research which introduces key concepts, this new edition, co-authored ...

Clinically oriented professionals and students need to understand and evaluate the research and statistics in professional articles, especially given today's emphasis on evidence-based practice. This book demonstrates how the research approach and design help determine the appropriate statistical analysis. Understanding and Evaluating Research in Applied and Clinical Settings features:*short, independent, chapters that do not have to be read in order;*a guide to unde...

This book will help readers understand the practice of qualitative research--whether they want to do it, teach it, or just learn about it. All the major research phases are encompassed (startup, design, data collection, analysis, and composing), including newly emerging trends. Numerous easy-to-read vignettes show how other scholars have successfully implemented specific procedures. Equally distinctive, the book presents qualitative research as an adaptive craft. The array of choices among...

This book bridges scholarly forms of inquiry and practitioners’ daily activities. It introduces inquiry as a process of relational construction, offering resources to practitioners who want to reflect on how their work generates practical effects.There are hundreds of books on research, but in keeping with social scientific traditions, many emphasize method and neglect broader, overarching assumptions and interests. Further, most are written in ways that speak to those in the acade...

What is educational research? What are its current approaches, methods and methodologies? How should existing literature be reviewed and evaluated critically? What are the key philosophical debates in and on educational research? How should research in education be conducted and how should it be presented? And what is the value of such research?With this extensively revised edition of a much-admired and engaging guide, Jerry Wellington provides clear and constructive answers to the...