Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-researchers - Softcover

Robson, Colin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0631176896 ISBN 13: 9780631176893

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1993

Synopsis

This textbook is an innovative introduction to research methods in psychology and the social sciences. Whereas traditional texts deal with laboratory–based experimentation, this book is a guide to carrying our research in the "real–world" which is often more complex and difficult to control than the laboratory, but where an increasing number of students and researchers are required to work.

About this title

About the Author

Colin Robson is Professor of Psychology in the School of Human and Health Sciences and Director of Postgraduate Programmes at Huddesfield Polytechnic. He is author of the highly successful Experiment, Design and Statistics in Psychology 2nd edition.

From the Back Cover

Though few students of the behavioural and social sciences go on to be laboratory–based experimentalists, traditional degree and other courses, and the texts that they use, tend to concentrate very largely on the design and analysis of laboratory experiments. Many graduates do however go on to jobs where they are called upon to carry out some form of enquiry task – often in complex, messy, poorly controlled situations.

This text is the first to give advice and support in the carrying out of such real world research. The emphasis is on achieving rigour and trustworthiness in the enquiry through systematic procedures appropriate to the task. Particular features include an advocacy of multi–method case study as a serious strategy alongside field experimentation and the survey, and an even–handed coverage of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Many real world studies are, in effect, evaluations and their distinctive features are stressed. A final section covers issues in ′making an impact′ including different approaches to reporting, the place of enquiry in promoting change, and the relative roles of practitioners and researchers.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0631176896
• ISBN 13: 9780631176893
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528