Real World Research - Softcover

Colin Robson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1405182407 ISBN 13: 9781405182409

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1911

Synopsis

Real world research is a common responsibility of professionals and practitioners in a wide range of both public and private settings. These include teachers, social workers and health service professionals, managers and specialists in business, architects, designers, criminologists and accountants among many others.

Real World Research provides a clear route-map of the various steps needed to carry out a piece of applied research to a high professional standard. It is accessible to those without a social science background while providing rigorous and fully up-to-date coverage of contemporary issues and debates. It brings together materials and approaches from different social science disciplines, seeing value in both quantitative and qualitative approaches, as well as their combination in mixed-method designs.

Updated throughout, the third edition includes:

• A brand new chapter on multi-strategy designs
• Increased coverage of ethical issues
• A chapter on writing a project proposal
• Discussion of Internet-based research - both as a research tool and as a subject for research
• Coverage of evidence-based approaches - seeking to present a balanced assessment of their value

Colin Robson's bestselling textbook is essential reading for many higher education courses, at both undergraduate, taught postgraduate and doctorate level, as well as practitioners and others carrying out a research project as part of their job. A very extensive website, which is closely keyed in to the text, provides additional resources including copious examples of research and further discussion of research issues, links to other useful resources and selected journal articles, annotated lists of further reading and an extensive set of PowerPoint slides.

About this title

Review:

“This wonderfully comprehensive book tells you all you need to know about doing applied social research, whether you are a newcomer or an established researcher. It includes all the crucial bits that standard research methods textbooks leave out: what happens after all the data collection and analysis – and why do it at all? Colin Robson writes in a friendly and accessible style, very much in the real world, and the book is so well structured that it is easy to dip in and out, to take exactly what you want from it.” Professor Sonia Jackson, University of London

“This book is the best general resource that I know of for those wanting to conduct research in the “real world.” The writing is clear and accessible, the coverage is remarkable for its comprehensiveness, and the focus is admirably practical.” Professor Joseph Maxwell, George Mason University

From the Back Cover:

This successful text furnishes students with the skills necessary to conduct research outside the laboratory, in real world situations. For the second edition, the text has been thoroughly revised and updated to make it as useful as possible for teachers and students from a range of behavioral and social science disciplines. Features of this new edition include: Updated examples and references, and new examples drawn in from the fields of applied psychology, applied social science, health studies, social work and education. Greater emphasis on flexible designs using largely qualitative methods, including additional coverage of ethnographic and grounded theory approaches. Critical discussion of the place of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and statistical significance testing in fixed, quantitative design research The quantitative analysis section is based around version 10 of SPSS, while the section on qualitative analysis is based around the NUD∗IST software. Additional material on combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. Material more clearly situated within theoretical conceptualizations of the nature of social science research, pointing to the advantages of a critical realist approach. More incorporation of tests and test theory. Improvements to the pedagogical material such as the addition of a glossary and detailed cross–referencing across chapters. For sample chapters please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/robson

About this edition

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 1911
• ISBN 10: 1405182407
• ISBN 13: 9781405182409
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 608