Social Research Methods / Edition 4

by David Dooley

Overview

This book presents a balanced presentation of research methods across disciplinary boundaries—both psychological and sociological, laboratory experiments and survey methods, quantitative and qualitative techniques. It offers a coherent, organizing theme, in this case, that of validity in its various guises-internal, external, inferential statistical, and measurement construct. KEY TOPICS: The organizing theme is validity—the extent to which the researcher's conclusion can be judged credible. Validity is broken down into several components each of which is developed in one or more chapters including construct validity (both measurement and experimental), statistical inference validity, internal validity, and external validity. These validity types are then revisited as appropriate in the treatments of the several basic research approaches—true experimental, quasi-experimental, correlational, and qualitative. MARKET: Ideal for professionals belonging to various psychological or sociological association or anyone interested in review or updating their current knowledge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780139554285
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	05/12/2000
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

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Preface

This edition represents the fourth stage in a project that has gone on for almost 20 years. The first edition (1984) crystallized my teaching approach developed over the prior decade. I drafted it on an electric typewriter, an ancient artifact that many readers of this edition may not have seen except in old movies. The second edition (1990) was prepared on the first generation Apple Macintosh personal computer. Imagine a computer with 128K (not megs) of RAM and no hard drive, modem, or ethernet port.

During the life of the third edition (1995), the internet revolution has changed everything from world commerce to the way colleges and even high schools offer courses. Students increasingly find that their classes are accompanied by web sites that post syllabi, links to reading assignments, and gradebooks with scores from tests. Students may add or drop classes by computer and participate in electronic office hours or section discussions via e-mail. Homework may be sent in by e-mail or posted on students' own web pages.

It is appropriate, therefore, that this new edition for the second millenium should reflect the role of the World Wide Web. In writing this version, I often had two windows open on my computer screen—the word processing document for this manuscript and a Netscape portal to the rest of the world. Without leaving my office, I might jump from a library catalogue to a professional association's code of ethics to a government agency's data archive. I expect that readers of this text will often be seated at a computer alternating between reading from this hard copy and browsing the web.

Just as teachers and students have learned new waysof functioning on the internet, so social researchers have also adapted to this new technology. This edition reflects those changes in social research methods. A new chapter-length section (Appendix A) summarizes the variety of ways that social researchers are using the World Wide Web. In addition, all of the other chapters have not only been revised to update the material but also to include a new subsection called "Web Sites." Here you will find links to information that supplements and extends the hard copy on each topic.

It goes without saying that no one really writes a book (or a new edition) alone. My thanks go to many people—the reviewers Sherri Lind Hughes (Western Maryland College), James Rotton (Florida International University), and R. Dean Wright (Drake University) for their comments on past editions, colleagues both friends and strangers who have taught me, former students now numbering in the thousands who have taken my research methods course, and my family for their support.

David Dooley
University of California, Irvine

Table of Contents

I. INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL RESEARCH.

1. The Logic of Social Research: Ruling out Rival Hypotheses.

2. Ethics: Protecting Human Subjects and Research Integrity.

3. Finding, Using, and Writing Research Reports: Library Usage and Report Style.

II. THEORY AND MEASUREMENT (CONSTRUCT VALIDITY).

4. Theory: Tentative Explanations.

5. Measurement Theory: Toward Validity and Reliability.

6. Types of Measures: Finding and Using Them.

III. SAMPLING: SURVEYS AND INFERENCE (STATISTICAL INFERENCE VALIDITY).

7. Survey Data Collection: Issues and Methods in Sample Surveys.

8. Inferential Statistics: Drawing Valid Conclusions from Samples.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL AND NONEXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS (INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL VALIDITY).

9. Designing Research for Internal Validity.

10. True Experimentation: External Validity and Experimental Construct Validity.

11. Quasi-Experimentation: When Multiple Groups and Random Assignment Are Not Possible.

12. Correlational Methods: Controlling Rival Explanations Statistically.

13. Qualitative Research: Participant Observation.

V. DRAWING CONCLUSIONS.

14. Interpreting Research: Overview of Research Design and Review Methods.

15. Applied Social Research.

Appendix A: Social Research and the Internet.

Appendix B: Statistics Review.

Glossary.

References.

Name Index.

Subject Index.

Preface

Preface

This edition represents the fourth stage in a project that has gone on for almost 20 years. The first edition (1984) crystallized my teaching approach developed over the prior decade. I drafted it on an electric typewriter, an ancient artifact that many readers of this edition may not have seen except in old movies. The second edition (1990) was prepared on the first generation Apple Macintosh personal computer. Imagine a computer with 128K (not megs) of RAM and no hard drive, modem, or ethernet port.

During the life of the third edition (1995), the internet revolution has changed everything from world commerce to the way colleges and even high schools offer courses. Students increasingly find that their classes are accompanied by web sites that post syllabi, links to reading assignments, and gradebooks with scores from tests. Students may add or drop classes by computer and participate in electronic office hours or section discussions via e-mail. Homework may be sent in by e-mail or posted on students' own web pages.

It is appropriate, therefore, that this new edition for the second millenium should reflect the role of the World Wide Web. In writing this version, I often had two windows open on my computer screen—the word processing document for this manuscript and a Netscape portal to the rest of the world. Without leaving my office, I might jump from a library catalogue to a professional association's code of ethics to a government agency's data archive. I expect that readers of this text will often be seated at a computer alternating between reading from this hard copy and browsing the web.

Just as teachers and students have learned new ways of functioning on the internet, so social researchers have also adapted to this new technology. This edition reflects those changes in social research methods. A new chapter-length section (Appendix A) summarizes the variety of ways that social researchers are using the World Wide Web. In addition, all of the other chapters have not only been revised to update the material but also to include a new subsection called 'Web Sites.' Here you will find links to information that supplements and extends the hard copy on each topic.

It goes without saying that no one really writes a book (or a new edition) alone. My thanks go to many people—the reviewers Sherri Lind Hughes (Western Maryland College), James Rotton (Florida International University), and R. Dean Wright (Drake University) for their comments on past editions, colleagues both friends and strangers who have taught me, former students now numbering in the thousands who have taken my research methods course, and my family for their support.

David Dooley
University of California, Irvine

Editorial Reviews

Textbook for undergraduate students. Introduces the whole array of social research approaches and retains the organizational strategy of linking designs and data collection procedures with validity types. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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