Social Research Methods
Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
- H. Russell Bernard - University of Florida, USA
This text provides a comprehensive guide to doing research in the social and behavioral sciences—from research design and sampling to collecting and analyzing data. Rich in examples, the book has been revised and updated to provide today's students with a conceptual understanding of each qualitative and quantitative technique, as well as showing them how to use it.
"The main strength of this text is coverage of both quantitative and qualitative methodology from a broad range of fields. The examples are often my students' favorite thing to discuss in class." -Erica B. Gibson, University of South Carolina
"Bernard does an excellent job of not only showing how to practice research but also provides a detailed discussion of broader historical and philosophical contexts that are important for understanding research." -Julian Kilker, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
"The depth of detailed descriptions (foundations of social research; interviewing, participant observation, field notes, and data analysis) go beyond other texts…the organization is superb." -Benedict J. Colombi, University of Arizona
Click here to read what The Qualitative Report said about this title.
This is an excellent work - accessible, comprehensive and interesting. I am recommending this as the textbook that all students *should* buy as they prepare for Masters-level dissertations, as it will provide the foundation for a lifetime of research. That said, the price is a bit too high to set this as an essential text
Whether researchers are focussing on qualitative or quantitave research methods, this book has provided a good material for students of social sciences undertaking social reseaching. Design and methods are well presented. The section on Likert scale is expanded and well explained.
Well written introduction. Very basic, which is both the primary strengths of the book and the primary weakness (to the skilled reader).
An easy read, packed with a great deal of information.
A great introduction to research methods with a useful 'further reading' list at the end of each chapter.
This book is the ‘bible’ of the social research methods containing over 600 pages of both qualitative and quantitative research methods from across a range of disciplines. Regardless of the heavy image, the page layout is dived into two columns which makes the reading enjoyable and fast. The author provides some excellent examples of social research methods as well as an insight into how research methodologies are applied to the detailed analysis of both theoretical and practical issues.
This book is wonderful! I am recommending it to all of my doctoral students.
Selected in error. I am still waiting to receive this review copy. I begin teaching next month!
This has much of the information I will use with the EdD class.
Gives best description of data collection methods.
Nice visual appeal
Balances quantitative and qualitative methods
The text I am currently using covers some very critical chapters for my students in a little more detail.
The Further Reading section at the end of each chapter is expanded and the result is that the bibliography is about 60% larger than in the last edition. People ask me why there are so many references to really, really old stuff. The reason is that I want students to know that the literature on research methods is very rich and I want them to know about many of the classics. Many examples have been updated, including new information about some of the classics.
The separate chapter on searching the literature is gone from this edition because students are universally aware of the databases. Chapter 3 retains the information about the databases that I think are most important for students to control and instructions on how to use the databases effectively.
Sampling takes up three chapters in this edition, up from one in the first edition. A lot of progress has been made in the development of nonprobability methods of sampling, for example, so these are treated in a separate chapter. In the first edition, I treated consensus analysis in the chapter on participant observation and on choosing informants. Consensus analysis has become much more widely used in the last 15 years. It is now described in greater detail in Chapter 16, on cultural domain analysis. Choosing both key informants and specialized informants, however, remains in the chapter on nonprobability methods of sampling.
Interviewing takes up three chapters in this edition, up from two in the first edition. In Chapter 8, on unstructured and semistructured interviewing, the sections on recording equipment and on voice recognition software (VRS) have been updated, and examples have been added or updated. Chapters 9 and 10 are on two very different kinds of structured interviewing. Chapter 9 focuses on questionnaires and surveys. I've updated the material on computer-based methods and on Internet-based surveys and added material on the list experiment. Chapter 10 introduces methods used in cognitive science, including free lists, pile sorts, triad tests, and paired comparisons. Methods for analyzing these data are in Chapter 16.
In Chapter 11, on scaling, I've updated material on the various instruments. In Chapter 12, on participant observation, I've updated several examples and added bibliography. In Chapter 13, on taking and managing field notes, I've updated or added examples and added information on using word processors as text managers. In Chapter 14, the bibliography has been updated.
Chapter 15 is unchanged from the first edition. Chapter 16 contains new material on analyzing data from the systematic ethnographic methods described in Chapter 10: free lists, pile sorts, and so on. The section on network analysis in Chapter 16 is new to this edition. Multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis are described in Chapter 16, as is cultural consensus analysis and cultural consonance analysis. Chapter 17 continues with methods in this cognitive science tradition of social science, including decision modeling and taxonomic analysis and it covers new methods for analytic induction.
The chapter on text analysis in the last edition is now two chapters. Chapters 18 and 19 owe much to my work with Gery Ryan (Bernard and Ryan 2010; Ryan and Bernard 2000, 2003). Chapter 18 focuses on methods for analyzing whole texts; Chapter 19 deals with methods that involve finding themes in texts and analyzing the distribution of themes.
Chapters 20, 21, and 22 are updated versions of Chapters 14, 15, and 16 in the first edition.
Sage College Publishing
