Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
Purchase Benefits
What is included with this book?
Taking the Leap into the Research World | |
The challenge of tackling a research project | |
So what is this thing called research and why do it? | |
The need for research knowledge | |
The potential of research knowledge | |
Delving into the 'construct' of research | |
Ontology and epistemology | |
Competing positions | |
The position of the reflexive researcher | |
Getting help along the way | |
The structure of the book | |
How to get the most out of the book | |
Getting Started | |
On your mark, get set, go! | |
Navigating the process | |
Understanding your programme | |
Getting set up | |
Getting the right advice | |
Managing the workload | |
Staying on course | |
Finding a balance | |
Dealing with 'crisis' | |
Striving For Integrity in the Research Process | |
Power, politics, ethics and research integrity | |
Understanding the power game | |
Credibility: Integrity in the production of knowledge | |
Working with appropriate indicators | |
Managing subjectivities | |
Capturing 'truth' | |
Approaching methods with consistency | |
Making relevant and appropriate arguments | |
Providing accurate and verifiable research accounts | |
Ethics: Integrity and the 'researched' | |
Legal obligations | |
Moral obligations | |
Ethical obligations | |
Ethics approval processes | |
Integrity indicators and checklist | |
Developing Your Research Question | |
The importance of good questions | |
Defining your topic | |
Curiosity and creativity | |
Looking for inspiration | |
Practicalities | |
From interesting topics to researchable questions | |
Narrowing in | |
The need to redefine | |
The hypothesis dilemma | |
Hypothesis defined | |
Appropriateness | |
Characteristics of good questions | |
Crafting a Research Proposal | |
The role of the proposal | |
Demonstrating merits of the research question | |
Demonstrating merits of the proposed methods | |
Demonstrating merits of the researcher | |
Elements of the proposal | |
Writing a winning proposal | |
Following guidelines | |
Writing purposively | |
Drafting and redrafting | |
Obstacles and challenges | |
When your design doesn't fit proposal requirements | |
When your design is emergent | |
When want to or need to change direction/method | |
Working with Literature | |
The importance of literature | |
The role of literature | |
Sourcing relevant literature | |
Types of literature | |
Calling on 'experts' | |
Honing your search skills | |
Managing the literature | |
Assessing relevance | |
Being systematic | |
Annotating references | |
Writing a the formal 'literature review' | |
Purpose | |
Coverage | |
The writing process | |
Designing a Research Plan | |
Methodology, methods and tools | |
The relationship between methodology and methods | |
Moving from questions to answers | |
Finding a path | |
Hitting the target | |
Getting down to the nitty gritty | |
Fundamental questions | |
Emergent methodological design | |
Understanding Methodologies: Quantitative, Qualitative and 'mixed' Approaches | |
Understanding the quantitative/ qualitative divide | |
The quantitative tradition | |
Scientific/ hypothetico-deductive methods | |
Experimental design | |
Exploring a population | |
The qualitative tradition | |
Credibility in qualitative studies | |
Ethnography | |
Phenomenology | |
Ethnomethodology | |
Understanding feminist approaches | |
Mixed methodology | |
Arguments for mixed methodology | |
Perspectives and strategies | |
Challenges and obstacles | |
Understanding Methodologies: Evaluative, Action-Oriented and Emancipatory Strategies | |
Research that attempts to drive change | |
Evaluation research | |
Summative/outcome evaluation | |
Formative/process evaluation | |
The politics of evaluative research | |
Negotiating real-world challenges of evaluative research | |
Action research | |
The scope of action research | |
Key elements of action research | |
Challenges associated with action research | |
Emancipatory research | |
Participatory action research | |
Critical ethnography | |
Issues in emancipatory research | |
Seeking 'respondents' | |
Who holds the answer? | |
Samples: Selecting elements of a population | |
Opportunities in working with a 'sample' | |
Sample selection | |
Random samples | |
Non-random samples | |
Key informants: Working with experts and insiders | |
Opportunities in working with key informants | |
Informant selection | |
Cases: Delving into detail | |
Opportunities in working with cases | |
Case selection | |
Direct Data Collection - Surveys and Interviews | |
The challenge of getting data directly from the source | |
Surveying | |
Options and possibilities | |
Issues and complexities | |
The survey process | |
The survey instrument | |
Interviewing | |
Options and possibilities | |
Issues and complexities | |
The interview process | |
Conducting your interview | |
Indirect Data Collection: Working with Observations and Existing Text | |
The challenge of gathering indirect data | |
Observation | |
Options and possibilities | |
Issues and complexities | |
The observation process | |
Receiving, reflecting, recording, authenticating | |
Working with existing 'text' | |
Options and possibilities | |
Issues and complexities | |
The process of textual analysis | |
Delving into documents, history, artefacts, and secondary data | |
Analysing Quantitative Data | |
Moving from raw data to significant findings | |
Keeping a sense of the overall project | |
Doing statistical analysis | |
Managing data and defining variables | |
Data management | |
Understanding variables - cause and effect | |
Understanding variables - measurements scales | |
Descriptive statistics | |
Measuring central tendency | |
Measuring dispersion | |
Measuring the shape of the data | |
Inferential statistics | |
Questions suitable to inferential statistics | |
Statistical significance | |
Understanding and selecting the right statistical test | |
Presenting quantitative data | |
Analyzing Qualitative Data | |
The promise of qualitative analysis | |
Keeping the bigger picture in focus | |
From raw data to significant findings | |
QDA software | |
The logic of QDA | |
Balancing creativity and focus | |
Moving between inductive and deductive reasoning | |
The methods of QDA | |
Identifying biases/ noting impressions | |
Reducing and coding into themes | |
Looking for patterns and interconnections | |
Mapping and building themes | |
Developing theory | |
Drawing conclusions | |
Specific QDA strategies | |
Presenting quantitative data | |
The Challenge of Writing up | |
The writing challenge | |
Research as communication | |
Knowing and engaging your audience | |
Finding an appropriate structure and style | |
The writing process | |
Writing as analysis | |
Constructing your 'story' | |
Developing each section/ chapter | |
From first to final draft | |
The need for exposure | |
Attending conferences | |
Giving presentations | |
Writing and submitting articles | |
The final word | |
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.