qualitative and quantitative research methods in sociology

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research in Social Sciences: Choosing the Right Path

by Prince Kumar | Dec 10, 2022

When embarking on the journey of research, one of the first crossroads you will encounter is the decision between quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. Both paths offer unique insights into social phenomena, but they differ fundamentally in their approach, execution, and analysis. Understanding these differences is crucial for any budding researcher or anyone interested in the mechanics of social sciences research.

Table of Contents

Quantitative Research: The Path of Numbers

Quantitative research is akin to the backbone of empirical inquiry. It’s the systematic investigation of phenomena through statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques. Let’s delve into the specifics of this method.

Defining the Quantitative Approach

At its core, quantitative research seeks to quantify the problem by generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. It is used to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other defined variables – and generalize results from a larger sample population.

When to Use Quantitative Methods

Quantitative research is most effective when you have a clear hypothesis and seek to determine whether the hypothesis holds true across a specific population. It is particularly useful for studies that aim to:

Measure variables: When you need to measure or identify patterns in numerical data.
Test theories or hypotheses: When seeking to support or refute existing theories or assumptions.
Make predictions: When aiming to forecast potential future occurrences based on gathered data.

Tools for Quantitative Research

The tools for quantitative research include various forms of surveys – online surveys, paper surveys, mobile surveys, kiosk surveys, longitudinal studies , and systematic observations . These are typically structured in nature, often featuring closed-ended questions that facilitate statistical analysis.

Qualitative Research: The Essence of Subjectivity

On the other side of the spectrum, qualitative research is characterized by its aims to understand the deeper reasons, opinions, and motivations behind social phenomena. It’s less about the ‘how many’ and more about the ‘why’ and ‘how’.

Understanding the Qualitative Perspective

Qualitative research is primarily exploratory research. It is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It provides insights into the problem or helps to develop ideas or hypotheses for potential quantitative research.

When to Use Qualitative Methods

Qualitative research is particularly relevant in situations where you need to:

Explore complex issues: When you’re dealing with complex issues that require detailed understanding.
Develop theories: When forming theories or hypotheses that require deep insights into human behavior.
Capture contextual detail: When the context or background of the study is as important as the issue itself.

Qualitative Research Techniques

Methods used in qualitative research include interviews , focus groups , ethnographic research , content analysis , and case study research . These methods help to reveal the context of the research topic through the collection and analysis of non-numerical data.

Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Research

While quantitative and qualitative research can be used independently, combining them can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the research problem. This integrated approach is known as mixed methods research .

Benefits of Mixed Methods Research

By integrating quantitative and qualitative data, researchers can:

Validate findings: By using one method to validate the results of the other, thereby increasing the credibility of the results.
Develop holistic insights: By combining the statistical trends from quantitative research with the in-depth understanding from qualitative research.
Bridge gaps: By using the strengths of both methods to offset the weaknesses of the other.

Choosing the Right Path for Your Research

Deciding whether to take the quantitative or qualitative path, or a mix of both, is an important step in the research process. The choice depends on the nature of the research question, the discipline within which you are working, and, ultimately, what you aim to uncover.

Considerations for Your Research Path

As you weigh your options, consider the following:

The nature of your research question: Is it exploratory, aimed at understanding ‘why’ or ‘how’? Or is it more about ‘how much’ or ‘how often’?
Your research objectives: What do you hope to achieve through your research? Are you trying to measure something or understand the depth of something?
Available resources: Do you have the resources necessary for extensive statistical analysis or in-depth qualitative investigation?
Your target population: Is your study population large and diverse enough for quantitative methods, or is it more suited to qualitative inquiry?

In the grand scheme of research methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative research play vital roles. They are not just mere paths but are tools that, when chosen wisely, unlock a world of insights into the social sciences. The key is to understand your research objective clearly and choose the path that aligns best with your goals.

What do you think? Have you encountered a situation where one research method was more beneficial than the other? Could a mixed-methods approach enhance the research in your field of interest?

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Research Methodologies & Methods

1 Logic of Inquiry in Social Research

A Science of Society
Comte’s Ideas on the Nature of Sociology
Observation in Social Sciences
Logical Understanding of Social Reality

2 Empirical Approach

Empirical Approach
Rules of Data Collection
Cultural Relativism
Problems Encountered in Data Collection
Difference between Common Sense and Science
What is Ethical?
What is Normal?
Understanding the Data Collected
Managing Diversities in Social Research
Problematising the Object of Study
Conclusion: Return to Good Old Empirical Approach

3 Diverse Logic of Theory Building

Concern with Theory in Sociology
Concepts: Basic Elements of Theories
Why Do We Need Theory?
Hypothesis Description and Experimentation
Controlled Experiment
Designing an Experiment
How to Test a Hypothesis
Sensitivity to Alternative Explanations
Rival Hypothesis Construction
The Use and Scope of Social Science Theory
Theory Building and Researcher’s Values

4 Theoretical Analysis

Premises of Evolutionary and Functional Theories
Critique of Evolutionary and Functional Theories
Turning away from Functionalism
What after Functionalism
Post-modernism
Trends other than Post-modernism

5 Issues of Epistemology

Some Major Concerns of Epistemology
Rationalism
Phenomenology: Bracketing Experience

6 Philosophy of Social Science

Foundations of Science
Science, Modernity, and Sociology
Rethinking Science
Crisis in Foundation

7 Positivism and its Critique

Heroic Science and Origin of Positivism
Early Positivism
Consolidation of Positivism
Critiques of Positivism

8 Hermeneutics

Methodological Disputes in the Social Sciences
Tracing the History of Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics and Sociology
Philosophical Hermeneutics
The Hermeneutics of Suspicion
Phenomenology and Hermeneutics

9 Comparative Method

Relationship with Common Sense; Interrogating Ideological Location
The Historical Context
Elements of the Comparative Approach

10 Feminist Approach

Features of the Feminist Method
Feminist Methods adopt the Reflexive Stance
Feminist Discourse in India

11 Participatory Method

Delineation of Key Features

12 Types of Research

Basic and Applied Research
Descriptive and Analytical Research
Empirical and Exploratory Research
Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Explanatory (Causal) and Longitudinal Research
Experimental and Evaluative Research
Participatory Action Research

13 Methods of Research

Evolutionary Method
Comparative Method
Historical Method
Personal Documents

14 Elements of Research Design

Structuring the Research Process

15 Sampling Methods and Estimation of Sample Size

Classification of Sampling Methods
Sample Size

16 Measures of Central Tendency

Relationship between Mean, Mode, and Median
Choosing a Measure of Central Tendency

17 Measures of Dispersion and Variability

The Variance
The Standard Deviation
Coefficient of Variation

18 Statistical Inference- Tests of Hypothesis

Statistical Inference
Tests of Significance

19 Correlation and Regression

Correlation
Method of Calculating Correlation of Ungrouped Data
Method Of Calculating Correlation Of Grouped Data

20 Survey Method

Rationale of Survey Research Method
History of Survey Research
Defining Survey Research
Sampling and Survey Techniques
Operationalising Survey Research Tools
Advantages and Weaknesses of Survey Research

21 Survey Design

Preliminary Considerations
Stages / Phases in Survey Research
Formulation of Research Question
Survey Research Designs
Sampling Design

22 Survey Instrumentation

Techniques/Instruments for Data Collection
Questionnaire Construction
Issues in Designing a Survey Instrument

23 Survey Execution and Data Analysis

Problems and Issues in Executing Survey Research
Data Analysis
Ethical Issues in Survey Research

24 Field Research – I

History of Field Research
Ethnography
Theme Selection
Gaining Entry in the Field
Key Informants
Participant Observation

25 Field Research – II

Interview its Types and Process
Feminist and Postmodernist Perspectives on Interviewing
Narrative Analysis
Interpretation
Case Study and its Types
Life Histories
Oral History
PRA and RRA Techniques

26 Reliability, Validity and Triangulation

Concepts of Reliability and Validity
Three Types of “Reliability”
Working Towards Reliability
Procedural Validity
Field Research as a Validity Check
Method Appropriate Criteria
Triangulation
Ethical Considerations in Qualitative Research

27 Qualitative Data Formatting and Processing

Qualitative Data Processing and Analysis
Description
Classification
Making Connections
Theoretical Coding
Qualitative Content Analysis

28 Writing up Qualitative Data

Problems of Writing Up
Grasp and Then Render
“Writing Down” and “Writing Up”
Write Early
Writing Styles
First Draft

29 Using Internet and Word Processor

What is Internet and How Does it Work?
Internet Services
Searching on the Web: Search Engines
Accessing and Using Online Information
Online Journals and Texts
Statistical Reference Sites
Data Sources
Uses of E-mail Services in Research

30 Using SPSS for Data Analysis Contents

Introduction
Starting and Exiting SPSS
Creating a Data File
Univariate Analysis
Bivariate Analysis

31 Using SPSS in Report Writing

Why to Use SPSS
Working with SPSS Output
Copying SPSS Output to MS Word Document

32 Tabulation and Graphic Presentation- Case Studies

Structure for Presentation of Research Findings
Data Presentation: Editing, Coding, and Transcribing
Case Studies
Qualitative Data Analysis and Presentation through Software
Types of ICT used for Research

33 Guidelines to Research Project Assignment

Overview of Research Methodologies and Methods (MSO 002)
Research Project Objectives
Preparation for Research Project
Stages of the Research Project
Supervision During the Research Project
Submission of Research Project
Methodology for Evaluating Research Project

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Principles of Sociological Inquiry – Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

(28 reviews)

Amy Blackstone, University of Maine

ISBN 13: 9781453328897

Publisher: Saylor Foundation

Language: English

Formats Available

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Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Sosanya Jones, Associate Professor, Howard University on 1/31/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The book does a fairly good job of covering a lot of topics in the research design process for both qualitative and quantitative research. I think it could have been more expansive in the coverage and discussion about the role of paradigm, reflexivity, and positionality for qualitative research. I also think that its division between qualitative and quantitative research was a bit antiquated with little nuance and complexity for those who want to conduct mixed methods research.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

I think the coverage of paradigms was limited and there was a lack of complexity when it discussed some topics such as approaches. But overall, most of it was fairly accurate.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

I think that it needs to be updated to be more relevant, but overall there are still concepts of importance that are well covered in this text.

Clarity rating: 4

It's fairly simple and easy to read for the most part.

Consistency rating: 4

Some topics are covered more in-depth than others.

Modularity rating: 3

It's a bit dense and strangely formatted. In terms of presentation, I don't think it's very appealing for students, but instructors may enjoy the exercises offered.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

I think the order and organization could have been more cohesive.

Interface rating: 5

Good interface.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

Good grammar.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

I think it could have featured more diverse examples.

Overall, this is a good textbook for beginning researchers, but it may need some supplemental articles for areas that are not covered.

Reviewed by Christina Pratt, Professor, Pace University on 7/25/21

Good basic coverage of interpretive and qualitative methods; explanatory and quantitative methods; mixed methods; scant content on innovative approacheds to online surveys, big data; understanding behavior through smartphones; technology and... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

Content Accuracy rating: 3

Methods content is accurate.

The heteronormativity of examples render the text unfriendly.

The text is written in clear accessible language. The examples neglect attention to diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Consistency rating: 3

The text is consistently biased toward examples representing dominant cultural heteronormativity.

Modularity rating: 4

The modules proceed in a logical progression. Good content on research ethics.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Fine level of organization and navigation.

Interface rating: 3

The pdf is easily navigated; the hyperlinks to New Yorker cartoons do not visualize the cartoon captioned in the text. All research questions, case examples, illustrations of concepts carry a dominant cultural heteronormative bias.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

No errors detected.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

Heteronormativity in case examples, illustrations, questions, inquiry dominate the text. As such, it is outdated as relevant to structural sources of intersectionality in investigator positionality.

Reviewed by Florencia Gabriele, Adjunct Professor, Massachusetts Bay Community College on 6/29/21

The book would benefit from an index and glossary. The material is easy to find despite lacking an index and the book follows a logical order and the material becomes more complex as the book progress. read more

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I found no errors in the book

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The book can be used in any humanities/social science class, not only in sociology

Clarity rating: 5

The book is an excellent source for any principles of research class for high school, community college, or college classes. the book si clear to understand and follow

Consistency rating: 5

The book is consistent and provides a complete overview of what it takes to do research and write a research project/paper for students.

Modularity rating: 5

the book is divided into chapters that are easy to follow and understand and could be divided into smaller sections if needed.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The book is organized in a logical manner.

I had not issues using the interface and neither did my students.

I found no grammatical errors

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The book is inclusive and provides excellent examples

I used the textbook to introduce college methods to a pre-college class of outstanding students who wanted to write a good sample paper to be used in their application essays for college. The book was clear, well organized, and provided great examples. also, it did not overwhelm my students. while it might not be appropriate for a college-upper level class, it is a great introduction on how to do research, how to ask a proper question, how to organize the work and the data, what type of study to do, and how to write a paper.

Reviewed by Kay Flewelling, Adjunct Faculty, University of San Diego on 5/3/21

This is an easy-to-read description and introduction to principles of sociological inquiry. Blackstone is adept at explaining critical social science research terminology as she places these in context with other disciplines. The introduction to concepts is comprehensive, though not overwhelming with details. There is no glossary provided, though the Table of Contents provides some help with navigating through the different chapters.

I found the overall tone to be well managed, and found no errors in her descriptions of sociological concepts and research terminology.

The content was relevant, and timely. As the focus is on research principles, these topics were well-placed within context of seminal theories. If topics become outdated, these could be easily updated.

The strength of this text is the clarity of the prose. The author speaks directly to the reader, and makes research and methodology seem accessible and relevant. Terms are carefully defined and placed in easy-to-access contexts.

The text has a direct tone throughout. Each aspect of the research process is described in a similar, conversational tone.

This text is somewhat modular, but there are numerous points of self-reference that might make it less able to be easily assigned as distinct chapters.

The structure and flow was strong, especially in the early chapters. I found some of the later chapters to be a bit tacked on. For example, there is a chapter on how to consume research that I personally would assign with the chapter on reading literature.

I had no issues with navigation.

The book is clearly written. There were no grammatical errors that I noticed.

The text felt clear and culturally sensitive. If anything, it could have been more explicit to address cultural issues.

Reviewed by Yang Cheng, Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University on 4/2/21

I reviewed the topics such as quantitative methods and qualitative methods, Chapter 2: Linking Methods With Theory, research ethics... The author did contain different topics in this book. If the author could provide more examples of quantitative... read more

Yes, it did accurately described each type of method and its applications in the real world.

It is relevant to the book introduction and title.

It accurately described qualitative and quantitative methods in sociology and provide concrete examples as well. The book could elaborate more on each type of research method. For example, when they introduce the survey method, more content could be illustrated such as how to design a research question for what type of survey method...

The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology such as quantitative methods, measurement, and research design, etc.

The text is easily divisible into smaller reading sections.

The book follows a logical way to present different topics: It introduces why we need research methods, research methods, and then illustrates each type of method, and finally discusses the application in real practice.

The text is free of significant interface issues and I did not observe one.

The text contains no grammatical errors.

Yes, the book is inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.

Reviewed by Antwan Jones, Associate Professor, The George Washington University on 12/16/20

The textbook covers a large amount of material that introduces the reader to research methods. One of the weak points of the book is a lack of discussion on how to conduct a literature review. This information can obviously be supplemented, but it... read more

The material is accurate with no presence of bias – which is great because you can normally tell whether the author of a methods textbook has a partiality for quantitative or qualitative methods. In this book, the author presents the material for all types of methods objectively.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Some of the examples provided are dated, but that is simply an artifact of when the book was written. Professors who decide to use this text should supplement examples included in the book with more contemporary examples that could be used to reinforce the material.

The language is very clear and user-friendly for an undergraduate student with limited exposure to research.

The book is well-structured with similar headings across all chapters.

If an instructor wanted to shuffle some of the content around, the structure of the book would allow for that to occur with ease.

This textbook is organized like other textbooks that I have used for Methods courses. One of the issues that I find with this “standard” organization is that that the reading and understanding research is one of the final chapters, when it really should be one of the first chapters of the book.

Interface rating: 4

I usually do not rely on external content from textbooks in my courses, but I decided to click on a random selection of external links within some of the chapters. Overwhelmingly, the links work and some of the content was highly relevant, but there were links that were broken as well. I mentioned in another section of my review that instructors should supplement this textbook with newer examples. By doing so, it would also remedy this potential textbook flaw.

Very few, minor grammatical errors are present in the book, but none are so egregious that it takes away from the quality (or the readability) of the work.

The examples and content are relevant to national (i.e., American) and international audiences, but more global examples would make the textbook even more culturally sensitive to a demographically changing world.

Research methods is a “bread-and-butter” course for the social sciences, so the context rarely changes. If you are looking for a quality textbook that gives students a solid foundation of the basic tenets of social research, this book will meet your needs.

Reviewed by Linda McCarthy, Professor, Greenfield Community College on 6/29/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

I have not reviewed or used other methods books, but this book includes what I would expect. I imagine most students would need more guidance on how to analyze data, whether it be quantitative or qualitative. I appreciate that Blackstone includes the reasoning or the whys and whens of each method, as most students I encounter all are drawn to surveys, even when their research question would not warrant a survey. I liked the inclusion of how to review existing sociological research. I wonder if that would be interesting as part of the opening of the book? At least, the media module? Great to end the book with where we see sociological research being used in the "real world". And, excellent idea- to include a list of "transferable skills"! Students will feel that reading this book is time well spent! I did not see a glossary or an index.

Each chapter provides examples from research and gives citations for all these cited. I did not detect bias.

Research studies referred to are relevant, though some are highlighted more than others, and I was curious about some of those choices. I believe it will not be difficult to update the examples. Some of the examples (such as videos to check out) are pretty dated. For example, a clip from The View from 2011 will seem like ancient history to these students. I wonder if there are ways to better incorporate examples from social media (e.g Tic Tok instead of email)? That may be challenging as it changes so quickly. I like that students are introduced to a variety of sociological resources throughout this book.

I like the tone of the writing; it's easy to follow and friendly. The "technical" terms are explained well and contextualized as to why they are important. Blackstone's tone is personable; I like that she refers to her own experiences in a variety of ways.

Each module has the same Learning Objectives, Key Takeaways, and Exercises. Some of the Exercises are not as strong as others. The author wraps up the book by referring back to the beginning Intro chapter.

I like the modules format. Works for the short attention we all have these days. I would assign a chapter or two from this book to my Intro course.

I liked the order of topics very much. Starting with an intro, then theory, and ethics, before moving into how to start a research project makes sense. I liked how the student is encouraged to "start where they are". Being led through the possibilities of qualitative vs. quantitative, including the different types of field research was helpful and interesting. The order of the chapters made sense to me.

Interface rating: 2

On the PDF version, some tables carried over between pages, as did some of the Key Takeaways sections. Some of the visuals were not visible. Also, I got some 404 messages (the "hilarious video" on page 5, for example), which was disappointing. Also, every time I opened a link, it brought me back to the first page again, and that was frustrating. In fact, it taught me not to open any more links. The New Yorker cartoon links just takes you to a whole lot of them, not the one listed. Why list the Endnotes BIG (2) if they aren't hyperlinked? I don't like the different fonts. I checked out the online version and it is much easier to look at. Can the hyperlinks be set into the text, rather than the whole addresses listed out?

A couple minor grammar issues here and there, including no space between sentences.

In the research ethics section, I would suggest addressing the idea that vulnerable populations have included GLBTQ populations and therefore, sexuality research has been hindered to a certain extent (See Janice Irvine's work). A good variety/diversity of studies is referenced, allowing everyone to "see" themselves" in the book. I love the variety of examples in the "starting where you are" section.

I enjoyed it! I would feel comfortable assigning this book to second year community college students.

Reviewed by Walter Carroll, Professor of Sociology, Bridgewater State University on 6/10/20

This book appears reasonably comprehensive although the absence of coverage on network analysis is a weakness. Some recent textbooks have begun to cover this important approach. I would also have liked to see more coverage on data archives. For example, although the texts refers to materials like Addhealth and the GSS, I did not see mention of the Inter-university Consortium on Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Although I emphasize both quantitative and qualitative aspects in teaching research methods there are topics covered that I would leave out, such as ethnomethodology. I would also liked to have seen information on carrying out Literature Reviews. I may have missed some of these things because of the lack of an index and a glossary. Other reviewers have pointed this out. For me this is a serious problem. As others have also pointed out, the 2012 publication date leads to some dated examples and no opportunity to include more recent examples. I used the pdf version for this review. I would like to see a deailed Table of Contents and an overall Chapter Outline at the beginning of each chapter.

The book seems to be accurate in discussing the material. The author presents the material accurately and in an unbiased way.

The contents were up-up-to date as of 2011-2012, but it needs revision to include more recent research examples and techniques. Although network analysis is not new, it is receiving renewed attention in methods texts. This book does not consider that approach. Although there are many basic underlying principles in research, there are also advances and many new examples of research that ought to be incorporated. Other reviewers have pointed out that instructors could add newer materials and resarch examples. This is true, but given the uneasiness with which undergraduate students approach research methods they often cling to the text as a life-saver and I'd prefer a more recent text.

The writing is accessible and clear. Occasionally there are grammatical errors and odd sentences, but overall Blackstone's writing is approachable.

Yes, the book is internally consistent in terminology and framework.

I differ somewhat from other reviewers on this. Yes, text is modular and sections and chapters can be moved around and reshuffled. However, I think that there is an order to thinking about research so a lot of modularity is not necessarily a big advantage to me. This is especially true in early sections fo the book when the author discusses general issues in methods, such as ethics, sampling, and research design. Actually, I prefer integrating discussions of some of those topics, such as ehtics, into coverage of each type of data gathering.

It is a well-organized text although a detailed table of comments, as I mentioned above, would make the organization more apparent to students early on in the class.

In the pdf version there are interface issues, but this may not be true of the online version.

There are a few, but not many.

The text is culturally senstivie and inclusive. A newer edition with more recent examples of studies in inequality, racial and ethnic issues, and gender would strengthen it.

This is a praiseworthy effort that arose from the author's own experiences and frustrations taking and -- presumably -- teaching research methods. It is accessible and has no major flaws, other than being a little old and lacking a few topics that I emphasize. I, and I think most faculty members, consider cost in adopting texts so it is appealing in that sense. However, there are other reasonably-priced methods texts. If it were updated to say 2017 or so, included more recent examples, and covered a few areas that I emphasize, such as network analysis, I would consider using it. As it stands however, although I like it, I would not use it.

Reviewed by Colleen Wynn, Assistant Professor, University of Indianapolis on 5/27/20

This text is quite comprehensive for an introductory methods course. It nicely covers both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. I appreciate the use of sociological examples both historical and contemporary. Of course, since this edition is from 2012, the current examples are becoming a little outdated in 2020, but still serve as quality examples for students. As other reviewers have pointed out, there is not an index or glossary, though in the online version one can hover over key terms for definitions.

The content appears to be accurate and free from bias. There are some links that are broken, so instructors would need to check these and perhaps provide the current link or a substitute, but as the reference information is provided, this seems possible to do. There are also some editing errors, but the content itself is accurate.

This text uses both more classic examples and ones current to the 2012 publication date. Instructors could easily layer on additional examples in lecture or supplemental reading. The core concepts of research methods do not change very often, and most instructors use a combination of classic and contemporary examples, as this text does. The discussion of experiments in Chapter 12 could use more sociological examples of audit-studies, etc. This would be something instructors would probably want to add and discuss since these studies are used quite frequently in sociological research and their omission is disappointing.

The book is written very clearly and would work well in an undergraduate class. Key terms are bolded and explained, and in the online version, you can hover over them for a brief definition. Each section begins with learning objectives and ends with key takeaways and exercises. This presentation allows students to understand what they should be getting from the section (learning objectives), review that information (key takeaways), and apply their new knowledge (exercises). Instructors can use these to guide their classes, student reading, activities, etc.

The book is very consistent, using the same format for each chapter and subsection. This allows students to reorient before each new topic by reviewing the learning objectives and summarize each section in the key takeaways. This consistency is key as students often perceive methods to be a dry, boring subject.

Individual chapters or even subsections could easily be pulled out and used for other courses. Additionally, it seems possible to reorder some of the chapters, if an instructor would prefer, or to skip one here or there if time or course design warranted. This modular ability is a real strength of the text.

The book is well-organized and follows the same convention of many methods texts. However, if instructors would like to reorganize, the modularity would allow for the reorganization of this content to fit their course. Personally, I would probably move Chapter 14 on reading research earlier in the semester (maybe after Chapter 2) as I like to have students read examples of research alongside the text, and having a foundation of how to read and understand these articles and reports would be useful. But, overall, I think the text is well organized.

The online interface is easy to use. However, the PDF version has tables breaking across pages, figures missing, and the text sometimes changes size and font, which is quite distracting. Additionally, in the PDF there is no table of contents or way to easily navigate within the document. For this reason, I would encourage students to use the online version but download the PDF as a backup.

There are several grammatical errors throughout, but these are relatively minor.

The text uses a variety of diverse examples. The author could include more global examples in future editions if they wanted to add a more global component.

I appreciate there is an open-access methods book for sociology and I look forward to using this book in my future courses. Methods books tend to be quite expensive and it is a class where having the book is crucial for success so I think this is a great option to ensure students have access!

Reviewed by Yvonne Braun, Professor, University of Oregon on 11/27/19

I generally really liked this methods book and can imagine using it in an undergraduate methods course. It covers the main sections that most of us would expect to see in a methods text. The text needs a table of contents with breakdowns by... read more

The book generally seems accurate. I think some of the discussion at times could have more nuance, but I understand and appreciate that the author has kept this methods book concise and focused which may have come at the cost of nuance in some areas.

This is a very relevant text with updated materials and I can imagine using it for a methods course. I really appreciate the focus on mixed methods which tries to move beyond the quantitative and qualitative divide that too often is the focus. It seems it would be relatively easy to update in the future due to the way it is organized.

The author writes very clearly and directly which I imagine would work well for undergraduate students at the introductory level. At times, I can imagine definitions being made more distinct could be useful for students.

The author keeps the book very consistent throughout, and successfully builds on examples and references made in multiple chapters.

The book has multiple levels of modularity. I particularly like that the chapters largely stand on their own so that I can imagine selecting chapters to be used in a different order in my class. Each chapter has multiple modules that seem to keep each section reasonably focused on a particular set of ideas and concepts. A table of contents would really help.

I generally like the organization of the book. It seems organized similarly to other methods books in the field. As noted above, I particularly like that the chapters largely stand on their own so that I can imagine selecting chapters to be used in a different order in my class.

I reviewed the PDF version. In general, I found it easy to navigate. My biggest complaint is the font and spacing issues that I find very distracting and even overwhelming at times. Some of the text, like chapter titles when referenced in text, are larger and in a different font and the spacing feels crowded.

There are a few grammatical errors that another round of edits would easily fix. A few sentences end strangely, and take a second read to understand.

The author does a nice job of aiming to be inclusive in the text with diverse examples.

I look forward to using this book in a future course.

Reviewed by Fatima Sattar, Assistant Professor of Sociology , Augustana College on 7/30/19

The text does a great job covering a range of qualitative and quantitative methods. I did not see an index or glossary. The text would benefit from adding both and/or a list of terms students should be familiar with at the end of each chapter. It is very helpful that key terms are in bold in the text. In a future edition, more recent sociological scholarship on experimental methods and comparative and historical methods would be helpful.

The text appears to be accurate and unbiased as the author discusses strengths and weaknesses of the methods. The only error I noticed was that there were a few links to sources that did not work. The full reference is given so this can be easily found.

There are many relevant and classic examples that undergraduate students will be able to relate to. The narrative/personal style makes the text very accessible.

The author's writing is very clear, making it easy for undergraduates to comprehend. For example, students struggle with abstract concepts, e.g. theory vs. paradigm. The examples given provide clarity for students. There could be some clarification in Chapter 2. In Figure 2.2 the three main sociological theories are mentioned but also listed as paradigms. An explanation of interchangeable terms/complexity could be discussed more. The examples are excellent for giving students a better understanding of theory. The discussion of methods and theory could be elaborated as well (e.g. more examples of macro-micro links, macro forces impinging on the micro-local, research not being about just one of these, micro, meso, or macro).

The book is very consistent. Each section begins with "Learning Objectives" and ends with "Key Takeaways" and "Exercises". Very easy to follow!

I think the sections can be read on their own and assigned when needed.

I would probably reorganize some of the sections in teaching the course, because, for example, I would teach qualitative methods before quantitative methods. Also, the chapter on "Reading and Understanding Social Research" could be linked with "Research Design" to offer students examples earlier in the term to help inspire a project or begin a literature review for a research methods proposal assignment.

Interface is clear.

I did not notice any significant grammar issues.

The text has diverse examples but could expand to include more global research examples.

I would reorganize chapter 12 and 15. Focus group research could fit with applied or evaluation research - so these chapters could be combined. I also think the title of Chapter 12 could be more concrete than just "other methods." Experiments could be discussed earlier in the ethics chapter to offer more balance with ethically questionable experiments with experimental research done for social good/advancing equality. Add more examples of experiment research in sociology (e.g. Pager, 2003).

Reviewed by Rae Taylor, Associate Professor, Loyola University New Orleans on 4/24/19

The text covers all the areas a research methods textbook should, in an easily digestible way. read more

The text covers all the areas a research methods textbook should, in an easily digestible way.

While there are some quirky examples and passages throughout that undergraduates will probably roll their eyes at, the book reads free of bias and certainly accurate.

The content is indeed up-to-date, and will be easy to update as examples become obsolete.

The book does a great job of covering the material in a straightforward, non-intimidating kind of way. In my experience, students are nervous about taking Research Methods (though, not as nervous as Data Analysis), and this text should put them at ease. It is written in a very undergraduate-friendly way (indeed, probably too rudimentary for graduate students), explaining the more complicated concepts in a clear manner.

The book's writing style and layout are very consistent, which should help students navigate what may otherwise be considered dry material. This is a real plus.

This is a major strength of the book. I teach methods in a variety of formats (i.e. full semester, face-to-face, online, 8-weeks) and need a text that is modular. Not only are the chapters organized in a logical order, the individual chapters are modular, allowing a professor to assign sections of a chapter. This is particularly useful for some of the more complex areas, and areas where the professor would have supplemental materials.

The order of the chapters is logical and the individual chapters are also organized in a logical, useful way.

The text appears to be free of any of these problems. I am not sure how different computers or different software may affect this, but I had no interface issues while reading the text at home or at the office.

I did not detect grammatical errors.

I did not find anything to be culturally insensitive or offensive.

I appreciate very much that there is an open textbook option for research methods. There are many of these texts available, many very good, but they are always quite expensive, and often students will not buy them. As this is one text I believe is critical for a class, having the open text option is a wonderful alternative. I reviewed this book looking for things that were important but omitted, but it was comprehensive and current. I was also particularly concerned about the order of topics, but it has a great layout and order to the chapters. Finally, as stated above, I find the modularity to be a major strength.

Reviewed by DeAnn Kalich, Professor and Head, University of Louisiana at Lafayette on 3/31/19

I like the approach used here because I agree qualitative and quantitative methods are complementary rather than competing. Many methods books divide these out rather than synthesizing; I find that Blackstone has done an excellent job of weaving these complementary methodologies together in her use of real research examples throughout the text. Chapter 3 is excellent not only as an introduction to ethics in research on human subjects, but on the history and purpose of IRB as well. There is no glossary as other reviewers have noted, but I honestly don't mind that. I have seen students rely on such items exclusively and therefore to not read the context or elaboration in the text and to subsequently understand the definition poorly. An index would be nice, but possibly difficult to tie to pages since the formats shift in differing versions (pdf v. online, for example).

The content is accurate and unbiased as it pertains to research methods per se. The presentation of the content, on the other hand, is not error free, and could use some finer editing. For example, there are missing words throughout the first chapter – this should be caught and fixed; it will undermine a student’s value placed upon the book assigned by their instructor. There are also broken links throughout the book but especially heavy in the first two chapters: 1.2 Exercise 3 video link doesn’t work; 1.3 Exercise 2 link is bad for ASA jobs; video clip links don't work in chapters 1, 2, 3.

The book uses both classic and contemporary research studies as excellent examples to further understanding of content. It will be relevant for the future with very little need to update due to obsolescence. I like the arrangement of the content and think it will flow naturally for a research methods class.

This text is one of the most lucid for students I have ever read. Many methods books are written with so much jargon that they hinder rather than help, especially undergraduate students. This text, on the other hand, provides easy to understand examples that are of interest to today's students, especially in North American undergraduate sociology programs.

The text is internally consistent and is well organized. The PDF version, however, is difficult to follow because the page breaks occur at inconvenient places (in the middle of a table or graph, or citation information).

In particular, the subsections in each chapter are divided into small reading sections that can easily be assigned at different points in the course. It is easily realigned to match the subunits of a course you may already teach without being difficult to do.

As stated above, the text is very well organized. It is logically ordered, and topics align closely to those found in most methods texts, but without unnecessary detail or extraneous fluff. Only one non-logical portion exists: Chapter 4 starts with a reference to preceding questions and BethAll and neither are in my version of the book. Not sure what is missing.

Again, the PDF format of the text has more interface issues due to the page-break locations that could be confusing to a student reader especially. Other features such as links to external cites like the ASA can confuse or distract a reader when the promised link is no longer a working link. A regular (twice yearly?) check of all such links is highly recommended.

Grammar is error free but copy editing is not. It is clear that the author is capable of executing complex sentences without grammar errors, but, there are words that are completely absent throughout the text that are obviously proof-reading related. It is highly recommended that there be a copy editor for this text.

The text is inclusive and not offensive or culturally insensitive. It makes use of examples that include a variety of backgrounds and characteristics (race/ethnicity, gender, SES).

Chapter 15 is excellent for undergraduate sociology programs that require a research methods sequence for majors. Some of these students will go on to graduate work, but many will not, and this chapter provides real world information on careers using sociology and research methods that is useful and accurate.

Reviewed by Sarah Quick, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, Cottey College on 8/2/18

This book, in general, is comprehensive in that it covers research questions, the research process and design types, major methods or data collection strategies, and ethics from a sociological perspective. It is very accessible for undergraduate readers, but also assumes they are sociology students (as the title would suggest). Nevertheless, as one of the few open access methods books available, I have opted to use this book in a more interdisciplinary research methods course; and I am a cultural anthropologist—so I don’t see it as comprehensive if you include a wider disciplinary breadth. Even when other disciplines are included to locate their differences in framing research questions (chapter 4), anthropology is missing. Nevertheless, anthropology is definitely covered in the field research chapter (chapter 10), and I found this chapter to have a lot of depth in considering field notes and the next steps towards analysis. However, this chapter did not include anything on the more quantitative forms of observation used by some social scientists (even anthropologists). Finally, there could be at least a list or a list of resources for those other missing methods that the author implies exist in the Other Methods chapter (Ch 12).

As previous reviews have noted, there is no index. So, for example, a reader would not necessarily know that there’s a section on content analysis in the Unobtrusive Research chapter (chapter 11) unless reading that section directly. However, if you use the pdf. version instead of the online version, you may search it easily enough with key words/control f.

Part of the comprehensiveness or uniqueness of the text is the inclusion of the three final chapters on broader questions related to research (or why an informed research perspective may help you more broadly). One covers writing/publishing issues, another on how to read research papers critically as well as interpret others’ critiques/interpretations; and the final chapter really addresses the undergraduate audience by highlighting how research appears in jobs that may not be so obviously related to sociology. I imagine these chapters would be really helpful for a specifically-sociology methods course, but I’m not sure I will use all of them for the course I will be teaching.

Overall, a previous reviewer caught many more problems (although some of them were semantic rather than accuracy issues). But, I would agree with this reviewer on the paradigm vs. theory sections. I think these distinctions could be posed with more nuance, within a more interdisciplinary understanding/approach to paradigms and theory. I would agree with this reviewer that the paradigms and the theoretical umbrellas proposed are more overlapping than the author indicated. Also inaccurate is to not mention animal research in the non-human section and to not link this with ethical questions in the social sciences. Although perhaps uncommon in sociology, human-animal interaction studies are a growing area of interest that should not be excluded and require a nod to ethical concerns

The text does use relatively recent examples alongside classic studies, which I think is a good strategy. Nevertheless, some things (like the current president, the reliance/influence of social media) could be updated further.

Overall, the text is written very accessibly, and one of the reasons I plan to use it.

I did not notice any consistency issues although other reviewers did.

The book does reference previous sections/chapters quite a bit, but each section generally stands on its own well enough so that it could be sectioned out in different ways.

Overall the book flows well, and I especially appreciate the resource links and discussion questions at the end of each section.

Depending on whether you use the pdf vs. the online link, you will have a different experience. The online version, at first, seems easier to read until you get to a reference, then your reading is interrupted by the citation/citations, which can make the reading quite disjointed. In the pdf version these citations are in numbered notes that do not link, and the endnotes appear at the end of these sections. Neither interface is completely ideal.

Also, I appreciated the links to additional resources, but at least one link didn’t work (http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_08_jun_04/).

I did not find any grammatical errors.

Overall, the cultural relevance seems fine for a sociology course, although I would like more examples of cultures/studies outside the U.S., since that’s what I’m more used to as an anthropologist.

As noted above, I plan to use this book supplemented by many other chapters/articles for a Qualitative Methods course I will be teaching, one that is not housed in any one discipline. Because of the book’s accessibility (writing and price), even with the problems noted above, I will use it.

Reviewed by Bernadine Brady, Lecturer, National University of Ireland, Galway on 2/1/18

This text provides a very comprehensive introduction to Research Methods. In my opinion, it covers much of the content required on an undergraduate social science methods course, and is of particular value for sociology students. The value of the book is in providing a comprehensive primer to help students to understand why and how research is undertaken. The reader can then supplement this knowledge with more in-depth texts as required. For example, the text is a little light on the philosophical foundations of qualitative and quantitative research (which may be seen as a strength or a weakness depending on your perspective!). No index or glossary are provided.

The book content was accurate and no errors were noted. The language and content was unbiased.

This book feels like it was written by a young person and draws on a range of examples and case studies that have contemporary relevance, which will have appeal for a lot of students. There are some specific content that will date - for example, in Chapter Four it is stated that Barack Obama is president. However, this content can be easily updated meaning that the book will remain relevant for a long period of time.

The main strength of the book, in my opinion, is its clarity. It is written in a very accessible style and the author does a really good job of explaining difficult concepts and research jargon in a very clear way. Practical examples are used throughout to demonstrate key concepts.

The text appears to be consistent in terms of its terminology and framework.

This book can be easily divided into sections. Each chapter has a number of sub-sections, with clear learning objectives and takeaway messages included. I plan to use specific chapters of the book as recommended reading in a number of sessions of my research methods course. It should be noted that qualitative and quantitative methods are considered in tandem which may not lend itself to the teaching of modules dedicated to one approach only.

The structure of the book makes sense, with the topics organised in a logical, clear fashion.

The book is available in both Pdf and online format. The interface is clear and easy to navigate but there are some aberrations with regard to the formatting of in-text references in the online version. This is not a deal breaker - the Pdf version can be used if this is off-putting.

I did not have any issues with regard to grammar.

The content is probably quite North American in focus but has broader cultural applicability. A variety of examples are used that are inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicity and backgrounds.

In her preface, the author says that she was inspired to write this book from her experience as a student and having ideas about how she would like to be taught. The book is approached in this spirit and is written with the student in mind. There is a strong emphasis on making sociology and social research relevant to the students everyday life and interests. The author does a good job of de-mystifying complex concepts. As a result, it is a very accessible text that will appeal to students both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I will be recommending this text for my courses.

Reviewed by Joanna Hunter, Assistant Professor, Radford University on 2/1/18

There isn't a glossary at the end of the book, or a list of bolded terms with definitions at the end of each chapter, which would greatly improve its navigability. My experience is that when students see a bolded term, they expect a list of them somewhere with definitions included. There is no index available. That said, the book is a comprehensive introductory textbook about research methods in sociology. The choice to tease out the differences between qualitative and quantitative interviewing is an interesting one, and one that is different from the approach in almost all other methods textbooks I am familiar with. I worry this would confuse students as they tend to want to draw clear lines between qualitative and quantitative methodologies, particularly at the introductory level.

There are a few small inconsistencies as noted in prior reviews, but the book is generally accurate. I will focus the bulk of my comments here on the chapter/section on public sociology. This text focuses very specifically on public sociology, but gives short shrift to policy sociology, with only a short paragraph on page 176 covering it. Particularly as we move into a paradigm where students expect that the skills they learn from our courses and programs will lead them directly to employment opportunities, this is a problematic omission.

Methodology changes comparatively slowly than other subject areas within sociology. That said, several of the examples given should be updated to reflect current realities.

Writing is generally clear, concise, and straightforward. That said, some of the terms used different than the terms I'm familiar with from other textbooks on the subject, which would require a bit of a shift in teaching style. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but could be a barrier to adopting the textbook.

The book is relatively consistent, but there are some editorial errors wherein certain tables/typologies use one set of terms and then other set uses a slightly different set of terms, which could be confusing for students.

The book is organized into modules that could be separated, but not without some work on the part of the instructor. At several points, there are calls back to previous chapters/modules that would need to be edited or addressed by an instructor if they were attempting to only use one (or several) modules.

Topics are organized well, but I found the insistence of including a learning objective for each and every small section to be a bit overbearing.

There are some issues with tables/charts not paginating correctly in the PDF format, and the HTML version sometimes returned a 404 error when using the 'back' button on my browser (Safari). There is no TOC in the PDF version.

No major grammatical errors.

No issues with cultural relevance.

Overall, a useful resource that could be modified to fit a variety of different courses.

Reviewed by Jessica Ganao, Associate Professor, North Carolina Central University on 2/1/18

The text covers all areas and ideas of the subject appropriately and provides an effective index and/or glossary. I especially like Chapter 14, as this something that I often assume students understand but they really do struggle with it. read more

Content is accurate, error-free and unbiased.

Content is up-to-date, but not in a way that will quickly make the text obsolete within a short period of time. The text is written and/or arranged in such a way that necessary updates will be relatively easy and straightforward to implement. I like the fact that is a generic social science methods book because I can then add examples relevant to my field (criminal justice), but at the same time I adjunct at other universities in different disciplines so it will allow me to offer examples in those areas as well.

The text is written in lucid, accessible prose, and provides adequate context for any jargon/technical terminology used. Indeed, this is very important as to make the content accessible to all students.

The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

The text is easily and readily divisible into smaller reading sections that can be assigned at different points within the course (i.e., enormous blocks of text without subheadings should be avoided). I agree, the text reads like a real book, which makes it easy to divide the content into sections for students and to assign sections for different class activities.

The topics in the text are presented in a logical, clear fashion. The book flows like all the other research texts I have used. It is very consistent with the leading research texts.

The text is free of significant interface issues, including navigation problems, distortion of images/charts, and any other display features that may distract or confuse the reader.

The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.

I really am excited about this option for my students! I cannot believe a book of this quality is free!

Reviewed by Molly Dondero, Assistant Professor, American University on 2/1/18

Overall, I found the book to be fairly comprehensive. It touches on the main topics covered in an undergraduate sociological methods course, as well as some additional topics such as the chapter on “Research Methods in the Real World.” In general, I found the later chapters to be more comprehensive than the earlier ones. Some of concepts presented in the early chapters would benefit from additional depth. For example, I think the text would benefit from a stronger focus on how theory guides research and particularly, the link between theory, research questions, and hypotheses. The section on research questions could also be expanded. For these reasons, I would likely supplement the text with additional readings and/or lecture to expound on some of these key concepts.

The book lacks a glossary or index, which would be quite helpful.

I found the book to be generally accurate. As explained in my comment above, the explanations of some concepts could be improved by going into more depth, but they are not inaccurate as is.

The content is up-to-date. As is common, many of the examples provided will likely benefit from updating in the next several years, but the core material has longevity.

The writing is one of the main strengths of the text. The writing is clear and engaging. Blackstone defines key terms and concepts in a largely jargon-free fashion. This makes the text well-suited to an undergraduate audience of Sociology majors and non-majors alike.

The text is consistent in terminology and framework. Throughout the book, Blackstone makes references to concepts and examples discussed in previous sections. This adds to the overall consistency of the text and helps students to see how concepts connect.

Chapters are divided into short sections that can be easily assigned to and digested by students. The “Key Takeaways” sections at the end of each chapter are particularly helpful.

The organization of the book, particularly in the first four chapters, was not intuitive to me. If I adopt the text, I will likely teach the chapters out of order. For example, I would likely reverse the order of Chapters 2 and 3 (“Linking Theory and Methods” and “Research Ethics”).

There are no figures in the PDF version. I did not note any other significant interface issues.

Grammatical Errors rating: 3

There are no significance grammar issues. However, there are sentences that are cut-off throughout the text (e.g. pp.52, 56, 62, 64 in the PDF version). These sentences all seem to be missing references to other sections of the book. The text would benefit from an additional round of editing to correct these issues.

The language is culturally relevant and inclusive. The author (understandably) draws most heavily on examples from her own research, but overall the examples provided throughout the text are inclusive of a range of diverse backgrounds.

Reviewed by Susan Calhoun-Stuber, Chair, Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Colorado State University Pueblo on 2/1/18

The book is a comprehensive social science research methods text. It includes expected topics and some additional attention to some subjects. There is not index or glossary but the chapter titles would guide readers to appropriate topic areas. read more

The author presents a balanced view of different methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives in the social sciences.

There's little problem with current content as the information that needs to be kept current, examples from published research, could easily be updated.

One of the author's stated objectives in writing the text was accessibilty and she has accomplished this goal. Overall, the presentation, including examples, explanations, and definition, is straightforward and clear. The author's style will facilitate student understanding.

The text is internally consistent, within and across chapters.

The text's modularity is a strength. The sub-sections or units within each chapter could easily be reorganized within a different overarching course structure without detracting from the readers' learning or comprehension. Similarly, units within chapters could be re-aligned and chapters could be combined or rearranged with relative ease.

There is a clear logic to the book's organization. The key points (to be covered) and key takeaways at the opening and closing of sections, respectively aid the reader in focusing on core concepts. Resources and exercises function similarly.

There are some tables split across pages, which is distracting. Although many of the links, including re-directs work, several do not. Anyone using the text would need to update or replace - because this is a large number this would be a time-consuming task.

No problem with the writing, technically - at least not anything of a nature to raise this issue to a level of concern.

The heavy use of examples from published research provides a varied range of subject areas for readers, however not always in terms of cultural diversity specifically. While reading the text I was struck more by the diverse presentation than by a need for more inclusiveness. However, there was no offensive content. This part of the text's format however could be a way that users could augment the material by bringing in a more diverse array of examples.

Reviewed by Helen McManus, Adjunct Professor, Librarian, George Mason University on 6/20/17

This review considers this book's usefulness for a political science qualitative methods course. Political science programs typically require only quantitative methods training, therefore I am approaching this text with a distinct student... read more

The book is most comprehensive on questions of data gathering and research ethics. Blackstone quickly runs through research design and philosophy of social science questions. Chapters 6 and 7, on measurement and sampling, respectively, are useful reference points. Chapters 8 through 12 introduce approaches to gathering data--surveys, interviews, field research, content analysis, and, briefly, focus groups and experiments. These chapters explain the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, tips for using each approach, and a very brief note on analysis. Students would need additional readings, exercises, and exposure to software before analyzing any data they collect.

As a text covering both qualitative and quantitative methods, the book is a useful primer with a pragmatic approach to choice of methods (what does your question require?). Blackstone treats quantitative and qualitative methods in parallel, and convincingly construes them as complementary approaches. Chapters on sampling, interviews, and content analysis (under "unobtrusive methods"), for example, consider qualitative and quantitative methods in turn. Students with quantitative methods training may find this reassuring, as the book draws connections between the familiar and the unfamiliar.

Much of the book is applicable across the social sciences, though the discussion of levels of analysis, prominent theories, and library research tools are specific to sociology, as are example research questions. Instructors might supply, or ask students to come up with, examples suitable to political science. Sociology does not typically refer to "puzzles", so political science instructors would need to introduce that in other course materials.

There is no index or glossary.

Like other reviewers, I have some concerns about terminology, such as in the discussion of paradigms and theories in the earlier chapters.

I was struck that gender remains male/masculine, female/feminine, or "other, though. This is an outdated approach, both within and beyond the academy.

Blackstone uses some contemporary (ish) examples, such as the Brangelina phenomenon, but she explains them well enough to keep readers on board. Links out to videos and cartoons are an excellent idea, but some links are already dead (for example, in section 10.1 there is a dead link to a cartoon: Cotham, F. (2003, September 1). Two barbarians and a professor of barbarian studies. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.cartoonbank.com/2003/two-barbarians-and-a-professor-of-barbarian-studies/invt/126562 )

This book is concise and easy to read. Blackstone uses clear, unpretentious language. In the online interface, readers can hover over bolded technical terms to see a quick definition.

I have no concerns here.

The chapters and sections lend themselves to easy rearrangement. For example, I plan to use chapter 15 (Research Methods in the Real World) belongs at the beginning of a course.

I am also incorporating sections of chapters into my online course. I find it helpful that each section of a chapter comes with its own learning objectives, key take aways, and exercises. Sections are clearly labeled, and the linked table of contents makes it easy to send students straight to a section of interest.

The chapters lead students from basic terminology to research design, on to data gathering, and then to possible uses of both research and newly acquired skills. I appreciate the early chapter on research ethics, prior to questions of research design.

Within each chapter, there are several sections of a manageable length. Each section opens with learning objectives, and closes with "key take aways" in a green box and "exercises" in a blue box.

The online interface is extremely simple. The most consistent navigation tool is a link to the Table of Contents, top and center of the interface. The additional navigation tools, though, vary somewhat. In some chapters, a reader can navigate to the next section (of that chapter); in other chapters, a similarly placed link allows the reader to navigate to the next chapter only. I found this inconsistency mildly troublesome, and quickly decided to rely on the ToC for moving between chapters and sections.

I notice that the PDF has unfortunately placed page breaks--some tables sit across two pages. The PDF also lacks a table of contents.

Blackstone writes in a casual tone, often using informal constructions and technically incorrect but ordinary usages. I find this inoffensive, and suspect that students will too. I noticed just one typographical error substantial enough to confuse a reader.

The text includes examples referring to gender roles, people of color, urban and rural contexts. As mentioned above, the use of male/female/other categories for gender is problematic, and hopefully would be addressed in any updates.

Citations are oddly inserted into sentences. Immediately following each regular in-text parenthetical citation, there is also a full (works cited list) citation, right there in the text. This is distracting.

Reviewed by Matthew DeCarlo, Assistant Professor, Radford University on 4/11/17

This book covers all of the important concepts in an introductory research methods text. Some of the more advanced concepts (e.g. types of validity and reliability) are cut out of this textbook, which is a choice I understand. Students are often overwhelmed by the more advanced concepts within a chapter. This book does a great job of focusing on the important parts of each concept.

The content inside the book is accurate. Definitions of key research concepts are explained correctly and clearly.

This book is relevant well outside of its own discipline of sociology. Additionally, the research used for examples is generally from the last few years. While those examples would need to be updated as time moves forward, the core content will remain relevant for decades.

The language used to write this research textbook is the best I have seen so far in my career as a research methods instructor. Students are often put off by research language, and the author does an excellent job of avoiding jargon and making her language plain.

The framework of the book is perhaps its greatest strength. The author has framed research concepts within the proper epistemological and ontological frameworks, which allows her even-handed treatment of qualitative and quantitative methods to cohere well within each section.

This is a highly modular book. Chapters are subdivided into smaller subsections, so they can be easily assigned and rearranged by professors teaching from the text. Because the pages are hosted in HTML format, students can follow links to each chapter and subsection, rather than scrolling through a long PDF.

Organization is remarkably clear throughout. Each chapter flows conceptually into the next.

I had problems with almost all of the graphics used in this textbook. They are referenced in the text and are often integral to understanding concepts as presented. This happened in both the HTML and PDF versions of the text. In spite of those issues, the overall ease of navigation was strong.

No grammar errors noted .

Culturally inclusive language is used throughout the text.

What is perhaps most promising about this text is that it is hosted on GitHub. Any professor who wanted to adapt this text for their discipline or make changes can easily do so using an HTML editor and GitHub.

Additionally, the author does a fantastic job of putting qualitative and quantitative research on equal footing, rather than relegating qualitative research to one or two chapters.

Reviewed by Mikaila Arthur, Associate Professor, Rhode Island College on 4/11/17

There is no index or glossary. The chapter on theory provides many useful explanations, but never focuses on the question of what theory or why it is an important part of sociological research. The chapter on research ethics is better. though in... read more

The chapter on theory provides many useful explanations, but never focuses on the question of what theory or why it is an important part of sociological research. The chapter on research ethics is better. though in discussing the issue of confidentiality it is important to mention that not all researchers promise confidentiality (see Mitch Duneier's "Sidewalk", for example) and that this is a controversial issue in research given the fact that some research participants would prefer their identities to be known. It would also be helpful to explain more about the IRB process and to talk about recent examples of research fraud and the replicability crisis.

The discussion of sociological questions uses language different from what most sociologists use, contrasting empirical questions to ethical--rather than normative--ones. Ethics, to me, are a subset of normative issues, not synonymous with them. However, the section on what makes a good question is very strong, though it never points out the importance of having a NEW question. In discussing the literature review process, the book focuses insufficient attention on the parts of the article important to reviewing literature--students following the author's advice are likely to turn in literature reviews focused on methods and limitations rather than findings.

The section on conceptualization is very good, and more thorough than in many texts. However, the discussion of operationalization is weaker, not giving students the foundation they need to really struggle through what many believe is the hardest part of the research methods curriculum. It would be useful to mention binary variables.

The discussion of sampling does not address appropriate sample size, margins of error, etc. The discussion of study design (cross-sectional, longitudinal, etc.) appears inside the survey research chapter, making it appear as if study design is not an important criterion in other sorts of research. But the discussion of survey question design is great.

The chapters on individual methods of data collection are generally stronger, though the chapter on unobtrusive measures would benefit from more attention to archival research. Also, the discussion of experiments would benefit from more attention both to the benefits of experiments for studying causality and the ethical issues that experiments raise. The chapter on sharing work should say more about the structure and format of articles and should contain a section on writing research proposals, as that is a key element of many research methods courses.

If this text were used in a one-semester research methods course, it probably has too little on data analysis; if it is used in the first semester of a two-semester course where analysis is covered separately, then the coverage of many topics seems a bit superficial.

In general, the content is accurate and unbiased, but there are a few exceptions. Many research methods instructors and textbooks would take issue with the way reliability and validity are defined here and the examples provided. The author also ought to present MUCH more in the way of cautions around convenience samples. The text also does not seem to understand the difference between a phone survey and an interview--but given the closed-ended (and machine-administered) nature of many contemporary phone surveys, there is a big difference. It also seems odd that focus groups are shunted off to a different chapter rather than treated as a kind of interview.

The discussion of measurement of gender, on page 71, seems to be a bit out-of-date--most scholars of gender now would suggest that just adding "other" to male and female is insufficient.

The most recent examples seem to come from about 2011, with more clustered between 2008 and 2010. While I absolutely agree that we should not have new editions just to have new editions, there does come a time when books begin to seem out of date. A couple of years from now, these examples will be from when our students were in middle school--so I hope there is a plan to update the book by then.

Examples, though, would generally seem relevant to students, and I like the examples from student work throughout the book (I do hope the author had permission to use them).

There are several instances in which the author uses terminology different from that typically used in research methods texts and courses. I wouldn't say the terminology is inaccurate, exactly, but it would require a major adjustment among instructors to adapt to using language consistent with the text. Otherwise, the writing is generally clear and terms are defined as needed.

There are some issues with internal consistency. For example, Table 2.1 on page 17 lays out four theoretical paradigms; table 2.2 on page 18 applies these paradigms to the sociology of sport, but it leaves one of them out with no explanation--these seem like editing problems more than authorial ones, though.

Many sections of the book are self-referential, which would make it hard to fully reorganize the text. This is especially notable in the section on reading research articles in chapter 15, which many instructors would want to use along with material from early in the text about the literature review process. Subsections are clearly marked with subheadings, but the format of the book would make it more difficult to locate, find, and separately assign these subsections.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

The text does seem to jump around quite a bit--the section on how to read research results occurs long after students are introduced to reading articles, for instance. In the chapters on different research methods, the discussion of strengths and weaknesses comes before students are fully introduced to those methods. And the lack of detailed table of contents or chapter summaries at the beginning of chapters makes it harder to follow the flow of the book.

Interface rating: 1

The text does not have a cover page or a table of contents.

The pagination is not very well done--tables break across pages in the middle of rows, for example. Similarly, headings sometimes occur at the end of pages, with the text on a subsequent page. Fonts sometimes seem to change sizes, particularly for endnote references and and table titles referred to in the text (and endnote numbers are not clickable, which seems unfortunate in an electronic text). A number of links referred to in the text are broken. It would be helpful to have a detailed table of contents laying out chapter subsections. Some keywords appear in bold and others do not. There are editing errors, typos, spaces missing after periods, etc. Many figures are indicated but are missing (for example, diagrams of inductive and deductive research processes are mentioned, but they do not appear in the text--this is a really bad omission). Generally, this text does not make use of any of the features which would be beneficial in an online text, but yet is not set up to be a well-designed print text.

Other than typos, as referenced in the interface section, I noted no issue with grammar or writing.

I did not notice anything which was culturally insensitive of offensive. Examples were generally appropriate, though primarily focused on American sociology. Given the author's scholarly focus as a sociologist of gender, work, and family, it should not be suprising that examples are more likely to relate to these areas, leaving issues of race, sexuality, ethnicity, immigration, language, religion, disability, etc. to have much lesser coverage. Given that this is a research methods course, this may not be a primary concern for many instructors, but those teaching in very diverse institutions may want to think about whether the text has sufficient relevance to their students' backgrounds, concerns, and experiences. I would also point out here that the text does seem to assume a traditionally-aged residential classroom composition, not the norm for many of us.

The text includes suggested exercises, but these are not really exercises. Some are discussion questions, others suggest students "check out" links or view images which are not contained within the text (no link given). I do not recommend instructors use this text unless they really have no other adequate alternatives--the lack of appropriate visuals, editing errors, etc. make it easy for students accustomed to higher-quality resources to dismiss it, and you'd be just as well off using a collection of websites as this.

Reviewed by Alexa Smith-Osborne, Professor, University of Texas at Arlington on 4/11/17

This text's comprehensiveness, in combination with simple language suited to first exposure to the topic, is one of the chief strengths of the book. However, community-based participatory action research methods were not included in this text, thus reducing its utility for the social work discipline. I especially liked the linked in-text definitions, which provide an easy-to-use glossary to enhance reading comprehension for undergraduates.

The text is accurate and unbiased for its discipline. For optimal utility in social work teaching, the text would need to be used with a companion file using social work examples, including social justice-focused research using community-based participatory action methods. These methods were not included in this text.

Relevance/longevity of content is one of the main objectives of this textbook. For social work, chapters 14 “Reading and Understanding Social Research” and 15 “Research Methods in the Real World”, are the most directly relevant since, as a profession, we do applied research.

Its simple language makes it accessible to most undergraduates, and the in-text "drop-down" definitions provide adequate support to allow comprehension of technical terminology.

The content was internally consistent, and sufficient aids were provided in tables and headings/subheadings to promote consistency.

Tie-ins to earlier material, tables, and headings/subheadings made the text easily divisible into smaller reading sections and discrete modules for instructor use.

Accessibility is one off the main objectives of this text. It succeeded in reaching this objective, through logical and clear organization, structure, and flow, including many connectors to earlier concepts.

The online version had greater interface than the pdf version, but both were useable.

I did not see any grammatical errors.

Cultural diversity is discussed within the context of the social constructivist theoretical perspective. Measurement and study examples which focus on cultural differences are presented throughout, making this text particularly syntonic with social work values. The text makes use of examples that are inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.

With a companion portfolio of materials on community-based participatory action methods and social justice-focused research examples, this text would be suitable to use in an undergraduate social work research course.

Reviewed by Robert Liebman, Professor, Portland State University on 2/8/17

Text is comprehensive in two senses: it covers what is standard in Research Methods texts and it serves the author’s focus on teaching research design/methods to prepare students for undertaking a research project (or doing a research proposal). Late in the book (159) is review of 6 key “diagnostic” questions on a research project: Why? How? For whom? What conclusions can I draw? Knowing what I know now, what would I do differently? How could the research be improved? These are diagnostic questions, to ask at the end of a project (and could be used as guidelines that reflect a grading rubric). Missing for me at the start are: a) flow-chart that would list of the steps in doing a project, roughly: 1. Turning an interest into a research question, 2. Design the research, 3. Choosing appropriate methods, 4. Collecting Data, 5. Summarizing/Synthesizing, 6. Write up a report & b) a look-forward to the last chapters including the 6 key “diagnostic” questions that says what you will learn from the book I like that the text conveys to students a sense of agency – if you learn methods, you can design/do research. I like section 13.3 which suggests that sociologists write for both academic or public audiences. The author comes to the writing having done both academic and public sociology – that adds a engaging perspective lacking from mainstream texts (Babbie, Schutt) Great ! On that point, a special feature of the text is the final chapter (Research Methods in the Real World) that gives a rationale for the benefits/payoffs of studying sociology: getting a job/building a career, being a judge of research reported in the media. One regret is that too little is said of the payoff having sociological research skills (surveys, statistical training) for doing environmental stewardship and public citizenship I used the pdf and think most students will not be logged on while reading the text. It does not provide a Table of Contents, glossary, or an index. Adding them would make much easier to use the book. BTW Table 15.1 "Transferable Skills Featured in This Text" could be redone as a TofContents.

There are many strong chapters (measurement, survey methods, fieldwork plus other qualitative methods that are sometimes left out) and well-written sections (conceptualization, operationalization) But I found Ch 2 Linking Theory with Methods confusing. The setup says it will cover “connections between paradigms, social theories, and social scientific research methods. We’ll also consider how one’s analytic, paradigmatic, and theoretical perspective might shape or be shaped by her or his methodological choices” Then: “While paradigms may point us in a particular direction with respect to our “why” questions, theories more specifically map out the explanation, or the “how,” behind the “why.” We go from 4 paradigms to 3 theoretical perspectives in a chart of examples on sport – these are illustrated but not well-explained. I like the treatment of styles of doing research in Charles Ragin, Constructing Social Research

I found discussion of micro-, meso-, and macro confusing. One study question asks: “Identify and distinguish between micro-, meso-, and macrolevel considerations with respect to the ethical conduct of social scientific research” Hard to answer based on text

I think that the terms “nomothetic” and “ideographic” are not well-defined nor is the link btw causality and tests of hypotheses well-explained. The matter of “falsifiability” is not discussed In my view, most confusing chapter.

Text lacks a discussion of control in the section on experimental design Might ask students what prior knowledge of experiments they got before coming into the course

I believe there is confusion about the roles of quantitative/qualitative in confirmation vs contextualization (p56) Multi-methods folks sometimes use “theoretical” sampling to assemble focus groups to clarify (more than contextualize) survey responses from subgroups

One small error: Rik Scarce studied radical environmental movement, not animal rights

Up-to-date and easily updated

Here the book shines. Major strengths: clear writing, engaging research examples, easy-to-understand tables, plus provides Learning objectives/Takeaways that encourage preview and review by students Re use of jargon/technical terminology – Add glossary

Internally consistent – enhanced by “look-back” devices such as Table 15.1 "Transferable Skills Featured in This Text"

High modularity both of chapters: Easy to re-arrange the order to fit different instructor’s styles and of entries: Short and crisp – can be read in a short sitting. As written, allows instructors to insert other examples/illustrations or remove sections that are less central (eg Conversation Analysis)

The inclusion of links to YouTube and other media (Colbert interview with Sudhir Venketash) is a very important feature that allows instructors to have students preview at home & review in class for discussion .... The book opens way to using resources outside of it

I might introduce What is Sociology? ahead of Ethics – but that option is open to an adopter of the book

Online and pdf versions differ – While most links work in pdf, it does not include some Figures, Table of Contents

No objections to author’s usage. Some sentences are truncated. (p55)

In my view, not culturally insensitive or offensive. However, the book has a bias in that it reflects Armstrong’s research on women’s movements & sexual harassment. Few examples address race, ethnicity, class – These could be added for balance and reaching instructors who cover fields different from author.

I love how the book invites students to engage the topic by sharing examples of the topics offered by students in her course.

A strong text that matches the organization of standard texts which replicate themselves from generation to generation. Hoping to go beyond them, I wish the text had more full-blown discussions of how sociologists write for different audiences as in Charles Ragin, Constructing Social Research and of how sociologists make inferences from data (which comes into some of the examples eg The Second Shift). Give a bit more on how to write up results

Reviewed by Anna Berardi, Professor, George Fox University on 2/8/17

This text is comprehensive in scope and depth of content. The HTML version is extremely effective in helping the reader identify material as listed in the ToC. The PDF and DOCx versions are difficult to manage and do not have an attached ToC. read more

This text was written by a professor who teaches this material in the higher ed setting. His expertise and familiarity with how to make this subject matter accessible is evident.

This text is covering both timeless, mainstream research methods relevant to all social and behavioral science professions, as well as newer methods common in post-modern research.

The layout makes the information very easy to access. The outline / section formatting "chunks" (breaks down into manageable form) information that is otherwise dry when assembled in the traditional narrative format.

Concepts build on each other, and consistent language is used throughout.

As I was reviewing clarity, its strength is its use of divided sections - very nicely done making the text easy to use.

Research methods has a natural flow to the way information builds on each other, and that is evident in this text.

Loved manuevering in HTML, but had preferred PDF so I could annotate. Wished that the ToC was in all formats.

Well edited; no issues with grammatical errors.

Sociology is by nature aware of contextual identities, and this is evident in the types of examples given.

Two main recommendations: 1. Please make the author's name visible 2. Please include the Table of Contents attached to all versions of the text.

Thank you for a great resource!

Reviewed by Noelle Chesley, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on 1/7/16

I find the text to be very comprehensive. I think it covers most of the topics and subtopics one would expect to see in an undergraduate sociology research methods text. However, within topics, this text may not cover details as comprehensively as some other texts out there (I describe the texts I am familiar with at the end of this review). Just as one example, in the survey research chapter (ch. 8), the author(s) point out that different methods of survey delivery (in person, online, etc.) have pros and cons, but these are not contrasted in any detail, particularly in terms of how they might influence response rates or allow (or not) for sufficient coverage of the sampling frame. However, for those instructors that incorporate a research project (such as developing a research proposal), the text covers elements of research planning, design, and development that are not necessarily well-covered in some other texts, an addition which I believe adds to the texts’ comprehensiveness. The final chapter (Research methods in the Real World) that connects research skills to possible career tracks and one’s role as an engaged citizen is excellent and is material that is often not present in these sorts of books, but should be.

My read suggests that this text is generally accurate. I was not aware of any instances of bias in the presentation of material (although as a white, women academic, I may be subject to the same biases as the author of the book!).

In thinking about the relevance/longevity of a research methods text, I would focus on: 1) examples used to illustrate key concepts; and 2) how up-to-date more rapidly changing topics are in terms of addressing areas of development (survey methods, sampling). This text utilizes examples (like illustrations from President Obama’s election), that may seem dated at some point. On the other hand, the topic on survey research accurately (see point 2, above) reflects the current state of knowledge about the relationship between survey response rates and the potential for bias. This is an area that has been changing rapidly, so keeping up with current state of knowledge will be important. In general, though the examples and cultural references are those most likely to date a text. There are such references in this text that may make students say “huh?” in just a few years.

Clarity rating: 3

In general, writing clarity is a strength of this text. Overall, the ideas are delivered in a very clear, understandable way. However, one element that detracted from clarity for me were embedded, full citations in the text. Throughout the book, when a particular research study is mentioned, the entire citation is embedded in the sentence, which was cumbersome to encounter as a reader. In addition, there are places where the clarity of the text falls apart (see point 10 in this rating for more). The embedded citations are cumbersome enough, that I think they detract substantially from clarity, which is reflected in my rating.

I found the text to be generally consistent in terms of use of terminology and framework.

There is an inherent tradeoff in writing a text that utilizes hyperlinks and makes references to earlier sections or discussions and modularity, or the ability to use portions of the text in a stand-alone fashion. I do think it would be possible to use sections of the text, rather than the whole text, to support teaching in particular areas. There will be some references to material in previous chapters or sections that the student has not read, but many of the chapters could also stand on their own to support teaching of a particular topic in research methods.

The organization of ideas and subtopics adds to the overall clarity. Similar ideas are grouped together and hyperlinks back to earlier ideas in later sections reinforce the organization, which enhances the overall clarity of the text (see clarity, above).

The .pdf of the text does not contain a table of contents, which I found limiting in using the text. There is also no information about the author in the beginning of the document. The only way to get either of these pieces of information is in the open text web entry for this book. The text does contain a number of hyperlinks. While I did not try every link (not even close), my own attempt to use some of these found just a few that don’t work (e.g., the link at the bottom of p. 9). Most links, however, did connect as expected. There are also places within the text where the font changes—this is distracting.

There are regular writing errors in the text. For instance, in section 9.1, it looks like a sentence referencing Regis Filban (will anyone know who this is in a few years?) was cut off and lives as a fragment in the current version. In fact, this whole opening paragraph is not well-written. Similar problems are apparent in the opening paragraph of chapter 10.

In thinking about cultural relevance in a research methods text, I tried to think about the descriptions of research—what sorts of examples get used to illustrate particular techniques or problems, as well as depictions of what a methods student might look like. In terms of research examples, I think the text utilizes a fairly wide variety of examples, although studies focused on gender seemed more common than those investigating race/ethnicity or class, for example. I also noted one instance of depictions of methods students (p. 152, focus group chapter) that provided illustrations of research participants using names like “Sally,” “Joe” and “Ashley.” A more diverse set of names (Jose, Darnisha, etc.) in an instance like this might add to cultural relevance of the text.

? I have been regularly teaching undergraduate research methods since 2005, and I teach in both in-person and fully online formats. I have been using Schutt’s Investigating the Social World as my primary teaching text in these courses, and this is the book that was my implicit comparison as I read the Blackstone text. However, I am also familiar with Neuman’s text and had parts of that book in mind, as well, as I read this text. The strengths of the text include its coverage of how to construct research questions and research documents as well as how the skills developed in an undergraduate course might translate to life outside of higher education. Weaknesses include a still “rough” look to the final document and some topic areas where coverage might not be as detailed as one would like. Overall, a solid text that has the potential to make teaching research methods more affordable for students.

Reviewed by Alison Bianchi, Associate Professor, University of Iowa on 1/7/16

This textbook covers all of the research methods needed for an undergraduate level research methods course. I have specific concerns that I will address in the "accuracy" section, but overall I am pleased with this book. I have used it in one... read more

However, as far as I could tell (and just in case I missed an update, I just downloaded the PDF from Saylor's Website just now), there is no glossary or index for this book. It would be great to have at least a glossary of terms, as there are quite a few! Given that this is one of the criteria for comprehensiveness, I do have to grade accordingly.

The author works very hard to diminish biases that are often found in Research Methods texts, and are taught in classes. Dr. Blackstone is no "Methods snob" -- she does the correct thing by telling students that it is the nature of research question that should drive one to use the method. This means that no method should be privileged just because the researcher(s) prefers it.

As far as accurate and error free, this is where I have concerns. I'll address them one by one:

(1) When discussing the micro-meso-macro level definitions and examples on page 13, the author muddles the concepts by suggesting that the meso-level is about studying groups, and the micro-level is more about individuals. Actually, micro-level scholars study groups, too. Accordingly, the author should use some definitions from the sociology of organizations literature, and define the meso-level as that which describes ORGANIZATIONS and the micro-level as potentially for SMALL GROUPS, such as dyads and triads. This issue is also found on page 14, first two full paragraphs.

(2) In the "Sociological Theories" section starting on page 17, the author has some problems discussing what is and isn't theory. The problem, of course, is not the author's, but rather the fact that sociologists cannot agree on what is theory! Accordingly, there's a way to deal with this issue -- I recommend using Abend's (2008) typology for the 7 ways that sociologists discuss theory. For example, some would say that "symbolic interactionism" is NOT a theory, but rather a paradigm. So, the discussion of what a theory is and what a paradigm is gets muddled and confusing for students. Using the aforementioned typology will help sort this out.

(3) In the section on IRB, page 25, the authors states that there are "human" and "non-human" sources of information, and that the "human" one refers to human subjects and the "non-human" one refers to data derived from humans, such as content analyses. However, there is a third possibility, and that is that "non-human" subjects are animals that are not homo sapiens. The IRB protocols for these subjects is a whole different ball of wax!! So, I would just use the terms "human" and "non-living" throughout.

(4) On page 52, the terms "idiographic" and "nomothetic" are poorly defined, as well as throughout the text, and not well linked to the concepts of qualitative and quantitative research throughout the text, or to the concepts of deductive or inductive ways of knowing. I recommend a brief history of the concepts and a better way to connect all of these notions of the theory-data linkage.

(5) In the section on causality, around page 54, I had many red flags. First, you simply cannot say that any qualitative method reveals causal relationships. This method is not designed for that! Qualitative research can suggest hypotheses, but it cannot reveal relationships. And, quite frankly, for other reasons, neither can quantitative methods! The author really must discuss the difference between causal theory and hypothesized relationships -- any test of a hypothesis can never be a perfect test of causation. Nomothetic theory can conceptualize it, but quantitative tests can never, ever completely capture causation.

(6) When discussing hypotheses on page 59, hypotheses have two other qualities that are of utmost importance: (1) falsifiability and (2) repeatability.

(7) On page 61, the use of the term "triangulation" is interesting. I realize that in the feminist literature that this is a way to describe multi-method studies, but it's confusing for students because triangulation is also a technique for qualitative studies to collect many points of view. I realize that this is problem with so many concepts in research methods -- take the term "control", for example. We have control variables, control conditions, experimental control -- just too many concepts that are different, but use the same word. Can we avoid this for yet another concept?

(8) The section on Experiments is not great. First, "true experiments" are not ones with experiment and control conditions -- they are those that use random assignment. "Quasi-experiments", including those with just post-tests, are those without this technique. And yes, experimentalists have to deal with external validity, but the author writes the text as if they have never considered that or found ways to deal with it. That's simply not true. In general, I just don't use this section when I teach experiments.

(9) I found the chapters on measurement and operationalization, survey methods, and qualitative methods to be first rate!

The content is up-to-date, and can be easily updated. However, I would like to see more examples of data collection using the Internet, social media, and other digital media.

I found the prose to be very accessible, and so did my students. The author does have a much more casual tone than other Research Methods books (for example, she uses "OK" a lot), but I like that, and so do my students. Methods is dry enough -- why not make the text more accessible and readable?

The text is very internally consistent. Dr. Blackstone correctly refers back to examples and concepts throughout the book.

I do think that the modularity is well done. In fact, I could easily assign chapters out of order. For instance, I always start my methods courses with ethics before we do anything else. That chapter stands alone very well, and can be assigned right away. Also, the chapter referring to "what is sociology" is somewhere around Chapter 4, but I just assign that next.

I would change the order of the topics, but this is just my style. Most Research Methods books follow the format of the author's, so that OK. However, Chapter 2's content on theory meanders a bit. I would reorganize it to start with paradigms, then theories, then the micro-meso-macro discussion.

We need a Table of Contents!!! And, throughout the text there are references to figures ... I looked in the back of the book, I downloaded it a couple of times to see if my computer was the problem, etc. No -- there are no figures!

I caught many mistakes. While Dr. Blackstone likes to split infinitives and use "in order to", a phrase that should be struck from the English language, I'm willing to forgive! However, there were typos that were problematic -- I'm not going to list all of them, but see page 55, paragraphs 5 and 6, for example. Both paragraphs have sentences that end with "in ." Weird.

I would do another thorough edit.

Dr. Blackstone goes out of her way to make sure that she is inclusive, especially with her research examples.

I really liked how Dr. Blackstone discusses what it's like to be a professional sociologist. Many of my students wonder: (1) what do I do and (2) what kind of jobs that they can get with a degree in Sociology? It's nice that Dr. Blackstone includes examples from her own life, and explains to the students that being a strong methodologist could one day land them a job!

Reviewed by Susan Burke, Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma on 1/12/15

I used two online textbooks for my Fall 2014 course and this Blackstone text was far more comprehensive than the other one. It contained either chapters or short sections on nearly everything that I wanted to cover with the course, although for... read more

To the best of my knowledge the text was accurate. One student commented in the course evaluation that he found several typos in the text and that undermined his faith in the content, so possibly the book could use a check up by a copy editor.

This is a research methods book written specifically for undergraduate sociology students and it does a very good job of molding the information to fit that audience. I happened to be using the text for an introductory master's course in a different subject field, so the very purposeful focus on sociology made the book somewhat less translatable. In order to help my students make the cognitive leap to apply the concepts to their interests, I supplemented the text with articles and other readings from my discipline.

The book is well-written in a manner that makes the concepts clear and easy to understand for students who are beginners to research methods.

The book's structure and style was consistent across chapters and sections.

This book was available in two versions, a web version where you would click on a chapter from the index and it would take you to a separate page for that chapter, and a full length PDF. I strongly preferred the clickable web version as it was easier to jump right to the needed section, and I would use that to give the specific web site address for the chapter to students weekly. Many chapters were further divided into sections which were also linked so one could jump directly to that section of the chapter. This was a very useful feature.

The book was not arranged in the order in which I present the topcis in the course that I teach. However, the order that the author used is logical.

This was excellent. It was easy to access and easy to navigate. Several students reported being delighted with their ability to access and use the text easily from anywhere that was internet-enabled. One student suggested that the interface could be enhanced with a navigation bar on the side of the page that would facilitate jumping to other chapters.

I have no opinion on this - while I didn't notice grammatical errors, it's possible that they may exist in the text.

The author has given examples from sociological studies that have examined controversial topics, but she has done so with care and in a non-offensive manner.

There are some features of published works that were not available with this textbook. One is a date. I was unable to find any indication of when the book was written. Another is that it has no index. That is one function for which the PDF was a better option as one can use the "find" feature for keywords throughout the text.

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Linking Methods With Theory
Chapter 3: Research Ethics
Chapter 4: Beginning a Research Project
Chapter 5: Research Design
Chapter 6: Defining and Measuring Concepts
Chapter 7: Sampling
Chapter 8: Survey Research: A Quantitative Technique
Chapter 9: Interviews: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
Chapter 10: Field Research: A Qualitative Technique
Chapter 11: Unobtrusive Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
Chapter 12: Other Methods of Data Collection and Analysis
Chapter 13: Sharing Your Work
Chapter 14: Reading and Understanding Social Research
Chapter 15: Research Methods in the Real World

Ancillary Material

About the book.

The author of Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods , Amy Blackstone, started envisioning this textbook while sitting in her own undergraduate sociology research methods class. She enjoyed the material but wondered about its relevance to her everyday life and future plans (the idea that one day she would be teaching such a class hadn't yet occurred to her).

Now that she teaches the research methods course, she realizes that students today wonder the very same thing. While the importance of understanding research methods is usually clear to those students who intend to pursue an advanced degree, Amy wanted to write a text that would assist research methods teachers in demonstrating to all types of students the relevance of this course.

In addition, Amy Blackstone's experience as an active researcher who uses both qualitative and quantitative methods made her acutely aware of the need for a balanced approach in teaching methods of sociological inquiry.

Together, Amy Blackstone's experiences as a student, researcher, and teacher shape the three overriding objectives of Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Relevance, Balance, and Accessibility.

Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods emphasizes the relevance of research methods for the everyday lives of its readers, undergraduate students.Each chapter describes how research methodology is useful for students in the multiple roles they fill:

As consumers of popular and public information
As citizens
As current and future employees. Connections to these roles are made throughout and directly within the main text of the book

Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods also provides balanced coverage of qualitative and quantitative approaches by integrating a variety of examples from recent and classic sociological research. The text challenges students to debate and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches.

Finally, one of the most important goals Amy had for Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods was to introduce students to the core principles of social research in a way that is straightforward and engaging. As such, the text reflects public sociology's emphasis on making sociology accessible and readable. No one can validate that claim more than a teacher or student. So, take a look for yourself today and review Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods by Amy Blackstone to see if its approach toward relevance, balance, and accessibility are right for your course and students.

About the Contributors

Amy Blackstone is Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Maine. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, her research includes studies of workplace harassment, childfree adults, and activism in the breast cancer and anti-rape movements. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and edited volumes including Gender & Society, Law & Society Review, American Sociological Review, and Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. Blackstone has served as a Consulting Editor for Contexts, the American Sociological Association’s public-interest magazine. She is currently a member of the Social Science Research Group on the University of Maine’s National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant, for which she examines faculty satisfaction and the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women faculty in particular. Blackstone enjoys her work with numerous undergraduate research assistants and student clubs. In 2011 she received the University of Maine’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Outstanding Faculty Award in Teaching/Advising. Blackstone received her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Minnesota and her B.A. in Sociology at Luther College.

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Table of Contents

Last Updated on October 13, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Sociologists use a range of quantitative and qualitative, primary and secondary social research methods to collect data about society.

The main types of research method are:

Social surveys (questionnaires and structured interviews)
Experiments (Lab and Field)
Unstructured interviews
Partipant Observation
Secondary qualitative data
Official Statistics.

This page provides links to more in depth posts on all of the above research methods. It has primarily been written for students studying the A Level Sociology AQA 7192 specification, and incorporates Methods in the Context of Education.

qualitative and quantitative research methods in sociology

Research Methods at a Glance – Key Concepts

Research Methods Top Ten Key Concepts – start here if you’re all at sea – includes simple explanations of terms such as validity, reliability, representativeness, Positivism and Interpretivism .

Research Methods A-Z Glossary – a more comprehensive index of the key terms you need to know for AS and A Level Sociology .

An Introduction to Research Methods

Without research methods there is no sociology!

This section covers the basics of the different types of research method and factors influencing choice of research methods, also the important distinction between Positivism and Interpretivism.

Research Methods in Sociology – An Introduction – d etailed class notes covering the basic types of research method available to sociologists such as social surveys, interviews, experiments, and observations

Factors Effecting Choice of Research Topic in Sociology – detailed class notes on the theoretical, ethical, and practical factors effecting the choice of research methods

Factors Effecting Choice of Research Method in Sociology – detailed class notes covering theoretical, practical and ethical factors and the nature of topic. NB choice of topic will affect choice of research method. Choice of topic and method are different issues!

Positivism and Interpretivism – Positivists generally prefer quantitative methods, Interpretivists prefer qualitative methods – this post consists of brief summary revision notes and revision diagrams outlining the difference between positivist and interpretivist approaches to social research.

Positivism, Sociology and Social Research – detailed class notes on the relationship between The Enlightenment, industrialisation and positivist sociology, which sees sociology as a science.

Stages of Social Research – detailed class notes covering research design, operationalising concepts, sampling, pilot studies, data collection and data analysis.

Outline and explain two practical problems which might affect social research (10) – A model answer to this exam question, which could appear on either paper 7191 (1) or 7191 (3).

Good Resources for Teaching and Learning Research Method s – simply links (with brief descriptions) which take you to a range of text books and web sites which focus on various aspects of quantitative and qualitative research methods. NB this post is very much a work in progress, being updated constantly.

Primary Quantitative Research Methods

social surveys.

An Introduction to Social Surveys – a brief introduction to the use of different types of survey in social research, including structured questionnaires and interviews and different ways of administering surveys such as online, by phone or face to face.

The advantages and disadvantages of social surveys in social research – detailed class notes covering the theoretical, practical and ethical strengths and limitations of social surveys. Generally, surveys are preferred by positivists and good for simple topics, but not so good for more complex topics which require a ‘human touch’ .

Structured Interviews in Social Research – Interviews are effectively one of the means of administering social surveys. This post covers the different contexts (types) of structured interview, and the stages of doing them. It also looks at the strengths, limitations and criticisms.

Experiments

An Introduction to Experiments in Sociology – a brief introduction covering definitions of key terms including hypotheses, dependent and independent variables and the Hawthorne Effect. NB sociologists don’t generally use experiments, especially not lab experiments, but you still need to know about them!

Laboratory Experiments in Sociology – detailed class notes on the strengths and limitations of laboratory experiments. Sociologists don’t generally use lab experiments, but examiners seem to ask questions about them more than other methods – one hypothesis for why is that sociology examiners have a burning hatred of teenagers.

Field Experiments in Sociology – detailed class notes on the strengths and limitations of field experiments. Field experiments take place in real life social settings so are more ‘sociological’ than lab experiments.

Seven Examples of Field Experiment for Sociology – class notes outlining a mixture of seven classic and contemporary field experiments relevant to various aspects of the AS and A level sociology syllabus .

Longitudinal Studies

Longitudinal Studies – These are interval studies designed to explore changes over a long period of time. Researchers start with a sample and keep going back to that same sample periodically – say every year, or every two years, to explore how and why changes occur.

The Seven Up Series – an in-depth look at Britain’s longest running and best loved Longitudinal study.

What Makes a Good Life ? – Lessons from a Longitudinal Study – This is one of the longest running Longitudinal studies in the world – the respondents were in their 20s when it started, now those who are still alive are in their 80s.

Primary Qualitative Research Methods

Primary qualitative research methods tend to be favoured by Interpretivists as they allow respondents to speak for themselves, and should thus yield valid data. However, because qualitative methods tend to involve the researcher getting more involved with the respondents, there is a risk that the subjective views of the researcher could interfere with the results, which could compromise both the validity and reliability of such methods.

Qualitative research methods also tend to be time consuming and so it can be difficult to to them with large samples of people.

Participant Observation

Overt and Covert Participant Observation – Participant Observation is where researchers take part in the life of respondents, sometimes for several months or even years, and try to ‘see the world through their eyes’. Overt research is where respondents know the researcher is doing research, covert is where the researcher is undercover.

The strengths and limitations of covert participant observation – sociologists don’t generally use covert participant observation because of the ethical problem of deception means they can’t get funding. This methods is more commonly used by journalists doing investigative reporting, or you could even say undercover police officers use it, and you can use these examples to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of this method.

Some recent examples of sociological studies using participant observation – including Pearson’s covert research into football hooligans and Mears’s research into the modelling industry.

Non-Participant Observation – detailed class notes on non-participant observation. This is where the researcher observes from the sidelines and makes observations. Probably the most commonly used form of this is the OFSTED inspection.

Interviews in Social Research – This post consists of detailed class notes focusing strengths and limitations of mainly unstructured interviews, which are like a guided conversation that allow respondents the freedom to speak for themselves.

Secondary Research Methods

Official statistics.

Official Statistics in Sociology – class notes on the general strengths and limitations of official statistics, which are numerical data collected by the government. Examples include crime statistics, school league tables and education statistics.

Evaluating the Usefulness of Official Statistics – the UK government collects a wide variety of statistics, the validity of which can vary enormously. This post explores the validity of Religious belief statistics, crime and prison statistics, and immigration data, among other sources of data.

Cross National Comparisons – Comparing data across countries using official statistics can provide insight into the causes of social problems such as poverty, and war and conflict. This post looks at how you might go about doing this and the strengths and limitations of this kind of research.

Univariate Analysis in Quantitative Social Research – This involves looking at one variable at a time. This post covers the strengths and limitations of bar charts, pie charts and box plots.

Secondary Qualitative Data

Secondary Qualitative Data Analysis in Sociology – class notes covering private and public documents. Public documents include any written or visual document produced with an audience in mind, such things as government reports and newspapers, whereas private documents refer to personal documents such as diaries and letters which are not intended to be seen by their authors.

Content Analysis of the Media in Social Research – class notes covering formal content (quantitative) analysis and semiology .

Personal documents in social research – a more in-depth look at the strengths and limitations of using sources such as diaries and letters as sources of data.

Autobiographies in social research – Autobiographies are popular with the British public, but how useful are they as sources of data for the social researcher?

Sociology, Science and Value Freedom (Part of A2 Theory and Methods)

Sociology and Value Freedom – Detailed class notes .

Methods in Context – Research Methods Applied to Education

Field Experiments applied to Education – are Chinese Teaching Methods the Best? This is a summary of a documentary in which some students at one school undertook a Chinese style of teaching for 3 months, involving 12 hour days and ‘teach from the front techniques’. The students were then tested and their results compared to students from the same school who stuck to the traditional British way of teaching. The results may surprise you!

Participant Observation in Education – focusing on the work of Paul Willis and Mac An Ghail.

Non-Participant Observation in Education – focusing on OFSTED inspections, as these are probably the most commonly used of all methods in education .

The Strengths and Limitations of Education Statistics – This post discusses the strengths and limitations of results statistics. NB these may not be as valid as you think .

Evaluating the Usefulness of Secondary Qualitative Data to Research Education – there are lot of documents sociologists may use to research education, including school promotional literature and web sites, policy documents, written records on students, and, if they can access them, personal messages between students referring to what they think about school.

Focus on the AS and A Level Exams

Research Methods Practice Questions for A-level Sociology – you will get a 10 mark question on both papers SCLY1 and SCLY3 most likely asking you to ‘outline and explain’ the strengths and limitations of any of the main research methods. This post outlines some of the many variations.

Research Methods Essays – How to Write Them – general advice on writing research methods essays for the AS and A level sociology exams. This post covers the PET technique – Practical, Ethical and Theoretical.

Assess the Strengths of Using Participant Observation in Social Research (20) – example essay, top mark band.

Methods in Context Essay Template – a suggested gap fill essay plan on how to answer these challenging ‘applied research methods’ questions.

Methods in Context Mark Scheme – pared down mark scheme – easy to understand! It may surprise you to know that you can get up to 12/20 for just writing about the method, without even applying it to the question!

Outline and explain two advantages of overt compared to covert observation (10) – you might think that being undercover provides you with more valid data than when respondents know you are observing them, however, there are a few reasons why this might not be the case. This post explores why, and some of the other advantages overt has over covert observation. (Honestly, covert is a lot of hassle!). NB this post is written as a response to an exam style question .

Using Participant Observation to research pupils with behavourial difficulties (20) – a model answer for this methods in context style of essay.

For more links to methods and applied methods essays see my page – ‘ Exams, Essays and Short Answer Questions ‘.

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Quantitative Methods in Sociological Research by Erin Leahey LAST REVIEWED: 27 July 2011 LAST MODIFIED: 27 July 2011 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0044

Sociology develops, adopts, and adapts a wide variety of methods for understanding the social world. Realizing that this embarrassment of riches can bewilder the newcomer, this entry is intended to guide scholars through some of the main methods used by quantitative social scientists and some of the key resources for learning such methods. Because many sociologists in the United States receive foundational training in multivariate linear regression, this entry focuses on developments that go beyond this topic, including categorical data analysis, structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, longitudinal data analysis, causal inference, and even network analysis. The recent wave of interest in mixed methods also merits inclusion. A section on critical reflections aims to encourage researchers to be reflective and thoughtful about the approach(es) they choose.

A number of professional associations are open to quantitative methodologists and researchers, including the two ASAs ( American Sociological Association and American Statistical Association ), the Population Association of American (PAA) , for demographers broadly defined, and the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) for survey researchers and methodologists.

American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) .

Founded in 1947, AAPOR is an association of individuals who share an interest in survey research, qualitative and quantitative research methods, and public opinion data. Members come from academia, media, government, the nonprofit sector, and private industry. Meetings are held in even-numbered years.

American Sociological Association (ASA) .

The national professional association for sociologists, ASA serves as a reference for professional, ethical, and pedagogical topics; sponsors nine journals; and hosts an annual meeting.

American Statistical Association (ASA) .

ASA is the world’s largest community of statisticians and the second-oldest professional society in the United States. For 170 years, ASA has supported excellence in the development and dissemination of statistical science. Its members serve in industry, government, and academia, advancing research and promoting sound statistical practice to inform public policy and improve human welfare.

Population Association of America (PAA) .

PAA is a nonprofit organization that promotes research on population issues such as fertility, migration, health, and mortality. PAA sponsors the journal Demography .

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Book Review: Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

Irene khosla.

Author information
Article notes
Copyright and License information

Edited and reviewed by: Laura Galiana, University of Valencia, Spain

*Correspondence: Irene Khosla [email protected]

This article was submitted to Quantitative Psychology and Measurement, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

Received 2021 Apr 17; Accepted 2021 Apr 30; Collection date 2021.

Keywords: research, qualitative research, quantitative research, review, social sciences

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

“The Art and Science of Asking Questions is the Source of All Knowledge”—Thomas Berger

In an endeavor to bridge the gap between knowledge and applicability, Neuman ( 2014 ) presents a meticulous and comprehensive amalgamation of concepts and theories, defining qualitative and quantitative research methods in his book “Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches.” A professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, William Lawrence Neuman has gained immense experience and has worked rigorously in his subject matter. He has authored seven books, numerous book chapters, and articles in the field of social sciences.

The book reviewed at present is the seventh edition of the “Social research methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches,” which was published by Pearson Education Limited in 2014. The book was written to help aspiring researchers gain an in-depth understanding of research and its purpose while stressing the essentials and theoretical considerations of conducting research. With a total of 15 chapters, the book elucidates various research methods, balancing between qualitative and quantitative approaches with an aim to emphasize the conceptual framework, applications, strategies, and the pros and cons of each approach, along with highlighting the benefits of using a combination of the two approaches.

The current edition is divided into five parts—foundations of research; planning and preparation for research; quantitative research methods—collection and analysis of data; qualitative research—methods of collecting data and analysis; and lastly “communicating the results of research with others.”

Part one of the book consists of five chapters, shedding light on the basics to provide an understanding of the and how of research and its importance; types of research; theoretical conceptualizations; methodology; and conducting a literature review and ethics in research. For example, in chapter one, the author explains the need to learn how to conduct research, followed by explaining the use, scope, and target audience for research in chapter two. Furthermore, in chapter four, in the most beautifully structured manner, the author has elaborated on the philosophical foundations and paradigms of research.

Part two describes the basics of the process of conducting research. Divided into three chapters explaining qualitative and quantitative research in terms of—research designs and its various strategies; measurement of data; and sampling. Research design issues, reliability and validity, and the types of scales and inventories used are also discussed in this section, providing an integrative and inclusive view of the research process.

In the third part, the types of research and their processes are elaborated for collection of data and analysis in quantitative research. Spread across four chapters, the topics covered under this section include experimental research; survey research; non-reactive research and secondary analysis; and quantitative analysis of data. Whereas, the fourth part is dedicated to qualitative research. Described in two chapters, this section focuses on field and focus group research and analyzing qualitative data.

Parts three and four of the book do justice to the concepts by providing thorough information about the procedure and methods of research. It covers the history, advantages, disadvantages, uses, requirements, as well as gives details about the types of variables and statistical and non-statistical techniques that can be applied. Each chapter is enriched with figures, diagrams, and maps which aid in enhancing conceptual clarity. For example, chapter ten includes information about the latest technological advances such as online surveys and computer-assisted data collection and chapter 14 includes detailed figures depicting qualitative data analysis techniques, with a figure for each like narrative analysis.

The last part of the book and the final chapter provides detailed information on writing and publishing research reports as well as talks about the politics in social research. This part covers everything from why a research report is required, to understanding the writing process, formulating a research proposal, to discussing the ethics, limitations, advantages, and difficulties faced in conducting and publishing research.

In terms of the structure of the book, each chapter begins with the title and key pointers of the topics to be discussed, along with a quote or a small paragraph, which in a theoretical yet poetic style serves as a brief introduction to the topic. Needless to say, each topic mentioned is covered scrupulously and thoroughly in a holistic manner and is explained in-depth, clearly divided point-wise and under sub-categories. This helps in reducing the burden of information overload and aids in maintaining the readers interest.

The most noteworthy and distinguishing part of the book is the use of alternate means of representing and expressing information. Each topic is supported with various realistic examples, enriched with numerous figures, maps, diagrams, and is summarized in organized and structured tables for comparison and ease of understanding. The author has also included dialogue boxes in each chapter with short definitions of the topics in discussion. This is advantageous from a learning perspective as it provides a quick glimpse, simplifying the comprehension of concepts. It is these features that give the book an edge over other books of research.

The book also incorporates empirical evidence and statistical data in supporting its content and illustrations, making it more credible. The language used is simple and straightforward yet catchy in terms of grasping the reader's attention, making even complex theories and perspectives intelligible. At the end of each chapter, a list of key terms is provided, followed by a set of review questions. These questions are beneficial as a means of assessing conceptual clarity in addition to encouraging the reader to ruminate and indulge in lateral thinking over the subject matter.

Overall, the book is a valuable asset for the field of research. The confluence of theoretical concepts with realistic examples makes the book highly applicable and significant not just for students, but for anyone keen to venture into the realm of social research. Just like a building cannot withstand without a strong foundation, a researcher cannot exist without building and maintaining their repositories of knowledge. In conclusion, the book is a quintessential means of grasping and gaining mastery over research knowledge.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Neuman W. L. (2014). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 7th Edn. United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited. [ Google Scholar ]
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Understanding Social Research Methods and Perspectives in Sociology

Nick Osbaldiston

The key goals of this chapter are to:

understand the principles of research methodology in sociology
explain the differences between positivism, interpretivism and constructivism
understand the basics of quantitative and qualitative research
explain the differences between quantitative and qualitative research
examine the different approaches to methodology that exist in sociology
consider the critiques of social science research via Indigenous worldviews.

As a discipline, like any other social science, sociology undertakes research to explore and understand the phenomenon it studies. Traditionally, sociology uses either quantitative or qualitative research methods or a mixture of both in research projects. Central to understanding this are some fundamental differences in how sociologists, and philosophers, have understood the world around them, how we can best understand that world, and what methods we can use to get the best data. Unlike the natural sciences, sociologists cannot take their research subjects into the laboratory and conduct experiments on them (thankfully!). Rather, social research requires entering a social world full of complexity and utilises the best tools available to understand how people act, interpret, and engage within that. In recent times, however, sociology has expanded its approach to social research, engaging in diverse ways of knowing, including Indigenous perspectives in Australia and New Zealand. These matters will be discussed and considered in detail throughout this chapter.

Foundations of Methodologies

A useful place to start our discussion of the different methods employed by sociologists is to examine the different perspectives that underpin these. While there are many perspectives including that of Indigenous ways of knowing that align with research methods, we will briefly focus here on roughly three areas, positivism , interpretivism , and constructivism . Each of these areas leads to different approaches to how we undertake research, and how we understand the notion of ‘truth’.

Positivism: Sociology as Science

During the period of enlightenment in Europe, traditional ways of knowing the world were challenged by the rise of science and other forms of logic. Worldviews based on supernatural, superstition or vague abstract thought, which in the past dominated how Europeans saw the world around them, broke down, replaced instead by a modern scientific approach to understanding life. This shift was labelled by French philosopher (and forefather of sociology), Auguste Comte (1798-1857), as ‘positivism’ though the roots go right back to Greek philosopher Plato (Todd, 1993). Positivism here should not be understood as a general optimistic outlook! Rather, it is a ‘matter of fact’ approach that studies phenomenon through observable data.

Comte, the inventor of the term, argued that there were three phases of history that led to the development of a scientific understanding of the world (Bourdeau & Pickering, 2018). Firstly, humans, especially Europeans, understood their world through a theological or religious lens – attributing life to the divine or supernatural. Secondly, and moving into the different intellectual discussions that occurred even within theology, questions of metaphysics developed – that were somewhat disconnected from religion, but still considered the world through abstract and vague interpretations and knowledge. The last moment in human history for Comte led to the development of scientific understanding where understanding life took on a matter-of-fact approach. In other words, we no longer relied on supernatural or metaphysical knowledge. Rather hard observable facts about how the world works and operates dominated our understanding and pursuit of truth (Pickering, 2011).

At a general level, positivists like Comte (Pickering, 2011) held a strong belief in the power of evidence, and would not entertain an understanding of the natural and social worlds beyond facts. Our world and how we understood truth had to be measurable and knowable through empiricism which requires undertaking scientific reasoning through data. His approach had a major influence at the time on the burgeoning social sciences, including Emile Durkheim’s approach to sociology. For Durkheim (1895/2014), in his Rules of Sociological Method , sociology ought to be like a natural science, observing only what he deemed as the ‘social facts’ that exist distinct from individuals and hold sway over them. Social facts here for Durkheim (1895/2014) can be understood as customs, rites, rituals, norms, beliefs, and values that are collectively developed and agreed upon, which exert a power on individuals to conform. He argued initially for the use of statistics to unpack social facts, as these help to understand the general rules which impact social behaviours. This approach he took up in his famous investigation into Suicide in 1897. Durkheim’s approach to sociology had a major impact on various others, including Talcott Parsons who led the development of sociology in The United States of America (see the identity, self and culture chapter).

For the most part, positivism advocates for the use of statistics, as the most appropriate scientific method , in order to understand society and rejects any attempt to establish ‘truth’ via other methods. As you will see later, this includes demographic, statistical and survey data that can be studied mathematically, to explore general social trends which impact us all as individuals in society. We loosely describe these approaches to research quantitative methodology. In positivism, there is a fundamental belief in an independent truth that can be acquired, studied and turned into knowledge, via statistical measurement.

In recent times though, there has been a movement against pure positivism across the social sciences in what we might call ‘ post-positivism ’. Broadly speaking, post-positivists tend to argue that the world we study is not disconnected from our own impressions, world-views and values as researchers. Truth should still be found, but we cannot ignore the impact researchers have in naming, framing, describing and even publishing what that ‘truth’ is. The problem of a purely ‘objective’ truth is that we are always involved in the process of bringing that truth to light. Our social, cultural and even historical contexts matter, and the development of knowledge on what is real is mediated through human interaction. For this to exist, we must recognise according to post-positivists, that we have biases, that can shape the way information is presented. We also have limitations of knowledge, so that even if researchers are careful, precise and have well-developed methods, there might always be ‘unknowns’ that impact reality. Post-positivists remain committed to scientific methods of understanding truth but are cautious about their results due to these unknown factors along with potential biases and other issues. This means we can never declare in our research that there is a universal truth (Panhwar et al., 2017). Reality is messy, and as such, we need to try and get as close to the truth as we can. Post-positivists therefore will talk of correlation and not ‘causation’ in statistics, but also push for data triangulation which involves using all available resources including qualitative research, to obtain a broad explanation, as much as possible, of the thing being studied.

Interpretivism: Sociology as Understanding

Several criticisms have been levelled at positivism over the years, including from German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) and philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911). For both, the disciplinary fields of the natural sciences were starting to dominate the understanding of reality or social life (Hammersley, 2012). Max Weber in particular constructed a new approach to sociology based on the German term verstehen which incorporates understanding of the context, intentions and perceptions of the individual when analysing social behaviour (Tucker, 1965). In other words, instead of trying to understand social behaviour as a ‘matter of fact’, Weber argued for an understanding of social life as dependent on the context, and the individual’s perceptions, rather than seeking generalised social facts as Durkheim would.

This led to the cultivation of a new trend known broadly as interpretivism in the social sciences. Broadly, interpretivism entails a wide appreciation of our social lives beyond mere natural laws and facts. Rather, we live in complex social and cultural worlds, where a range of factors including culture, history, social relations, values, and personalities, impact on how we see and view the world around us. Social scientists, to really understand how people behave, try and incorporate as much of this as possible into their analysis. This is not achieved, for people like Weber, in the sorts of positivist approaches that theorists like Durkheim advocated for (Harrington, 2004). Rather, the social sciences ought to examine how individuals make meaning out of life, by interpreting their behaviour as closely as they can. For disciplines like anthropology then, this entails spending significant time with communities of interest, documenting behaviour, examining, and asking questions of people, and building a stronger understanding of cultural norms, ideas, values, rituals and everyday behaviour. For sociologists, this approach usually results in researchers speaking to participants, and providing space for them to explain their perceptions and explanations on the phenomenon being studied.

Important for interpretivists is the ability to switch off (as best as one can) any preconceived ideas about society when entering the research field. Rather than dismissing or even criticising the behaviour of other people, researchers need to document and treat all behaviour as meaningful to those who are being studied (Hammersely, 2012). This is known broadly as being reflexive, which entails setting aside your own pre-existing morals and values and having empathy for those you are researching with. For instance, you might have strong political views about a certain issue, and when researching find people who have alternative or opposing views to your own. As a social scientist in this case, interpretivism argues that one ought to suspend judgement and focus instead on building an understanding of why people believe what they do, and why they may indeed voice their opinion differently. This is easier said than done!

Interpretivism heavily impacted the development of sociology starting with Max Weber’s interpretive sociology, leading into the symbolic interactionist traditions of the Chicago school scholars of Harold Garfinkle and Erving Goffman , through to the feminist researchers and critical theorists. Importantly, it has led to the development of qualitative research in sociology, which, unlike statistics, focuses on exploring the individual’s lives via interviews, ethnography, biography and other spoken or written data.

Constructivism: Sociology as Sceptical

Somewhat like interpretivism, constructivists will reject the positivist way of understanding truth and the reliance on the scientific method. However, constructivism has its roots in a sceptical approach to knowledge which treats social life as an emerging process wherein even knowledge, ideas, values, concepts, and norms is a process of continuing relations between actors. Unlike interpretivism, constructivists question whether we can really ever have an understanding of other people and argue that we can never really truly be objective in the development of knowledge.

Social constructivism is difficult to really understand at first. It involves being sceptical about our knowledge of the social world – arguing that things are the result of human beings actively and reactively developing their understanding of everything in life (Fox, 2008). For instance, love for a social constructivist is an emotion whose meaning is developed via a range of actors over time. This includes not just everyday individuals but past romantic writers and present-day romantic movies and so on which are not fixed. In other words, in the future, new framings of love will emerge as our understanding/knowledge of love shifts with new ideas. What we perceive as the definition or understanding of a particular thing, is contextual, and will change over time.

This theory is the product of several sociologists and philosophers including Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann who in 1967 wrote a book entitled The Social Construction of Reality . In this work, Berger and Luckman (1967) argue that our reality developed via a process they call habitualisation. This involves actions that are frequently repeated, which will eventually become a norm over time. However, this is not universal but will change in the future as societies change and actions alongside them. For now though, actions that humans undertake eventually become a type of ‘common sense’ which appears as reality, but which ultimately becomes an independent entity of sorts that can be governed by institutions such as the state. For instance, certain actions that we have considered abnormal in the past, such as homosexuality, have in time become an accepted norm. Whereas in the past, the aversion to homosexual practices was reinforced by disciplines like psychiatry and the state.

For philosophers like Michel Foucault (1926-1984), constructivist thinking is important when we start to unpack norms that we consider ‘common sense’. For him, historical processes, language and importantly, expertise, creates ideas about what is normal behaviour in society. For instance, what is considered throughout modernity as ‘ madness ’ (what we might deem mental unwellness today) is the direct result of both a history of dealing with abnormal people and the growing power of psychiatry that owned ‘knowledge’ of what it meant to be normal. As a consequence for Foucault (1990), knowledge is power and determines what can be declared as abnormal behaviour. This is important as these ideas distill into society who come to govern themselves according to what is scientifically known as normal or abnormal. But constructivists are sceptical of the idea of normal/abnormal as these are usually contingent on certain representations of reality that have been agreed upon and taken up by society in general.

Consequently, constructivists are interested in unpacking what reality is by examining the fluid nature of meaning throughout time, place and context, arguing that these things are context-specific (Hammersely, 2012;. Nothing is ‘real’ per se, but rather the result of different actors agreeing and disagreeing to certain definitions of thing being studied. Important, social scientists are themselves a significant actor in this process. Through research, certain behaviour is defined and labelled via concepts and thus researchers provide a reality for the thing being studied. Thus, social scientists themselves contribute to the social construction of reality. However, for the most part, constructivists will lay claim to the idea that all realities are constructed through the conglomeration of social, cultural, technical, political, scientific and other knowledge that has a direct impact on how we as individuals envisage our reality (and renegotiate with these at an individual level). Thus social scientists in this domain study how these processes come about, while also acknowledging the role they play in developing social life.

Watch this short presentation on what constructivism is in the philosophy of research for further information [3:15].

Indigenous Worldviews

Social research today has a complicated relationship with people who are marginalised relative to the dominant groups in society. This is because research has been used throughout history to bolster power, and to justify practices that we now recognise as harmful to cultures and communities. In the context of Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, this is especially the case for Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. These groups have been subject to considerable amounts of social research since the beginning of European colonisation, and yet still experience considerable disadvantage and inequality relative to the rest of the population (Rigney, 1999).

However, as more First Nations people earned academic qualifications and began working in formal social research settings, a few things happened. One was a response to the problem outlined above – that a lot of unhelpful, and sometimes harmful, research was done on and about First Nations people, without meaningful input from them. Scholars such as Graham (2008) suggest that Aboriginal worldviews share a common approach to land and community that differs considerably from Western worldviews. This is a fundamental difference that can’t be adequately captured by outsider researchers. Another was an articulation of long legacies of research amongst First Nations cultures directly. Long before colonisation, First Nations people studied everything from the environment and animals around them, to the stars in the night sky, to healing and medicine, to people and social interactions. First Nations researchers in academic settings drew on those traditions and worldviews to underpin their own approaches to research.

First Nations worldviews, and their impacts on research, have been well laid out by a number of scholars. These include Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Porou, Māori), whose book Decolonizing Methodologies (first published in 1999) both critiqued the development of the scientific method for its racist practices and exploitation of First Nations peoples and knowledges, and also laid out an argument for how research can be used to decolonise settler-colonial institutions. Lester-Irabinna Rigney (Narungga, Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri) is another influential thinker in terms of research methodologies. Rigney (1999, p.109-110) defined an approach to research that can “contribute to self-determination and liberation struggles” on First Nations’ own terms. He terms this an ‘Indigenist’ methodology, which is based on three principles which overlap with one another:

an emancipatory imperative of resistance, or research that aids survival, healing, and self-determination
political integrity or research conducted by First Nations people themselves, who are responsible to their communities
a prioritisation of Indigenous voices in research outputs.

First Nations researchers utilise a variety of research methods, but they ask different research questions, interact with their research field, analyse their data, and construct research outputs differently. There are often more culturally appropriate versions of particular research methods that can be applied. For example, instead of structured or semi-structured interviews, a researcher might adopt a Dadirri approach to research conversations with First Nations participants. Dadirri is about place and Country, and also about deeply listening (West, et al, 2012; Ungunmerr-Baumann, et al, 2022). A quantitative sociologist must follow the principles of good data collection outlined above, but will seek to subvert the dominant approach to statistics that homogenises First Nations people, does not adequately consider the contexts for findings, and often takes a blame-worthy approach (Walter, 2018).

While researchers who come from non-Indigenous backgrounds can never fully adopt an Indigenous worldview, they can follow key principles to adopt a decolonising approach as much as is possible. These include a commitment to self-determination, undertaking research that responds to community priorities, and considering Indigenous Data Sovereignty , which is explained briefly in the video below [3:32].

Sociological Methods

In sociology, multiple methods are utilised in the design of research and subsequently analysis of data. To understand societal patterns, behaviours, attitudes and opinions, there is perhaps an endless list of approaches we can take to get as much information as we can. However, for the most part, sociology is divided into three main camps – which are a direct result of the above perspectives and debates on what is truth and how it can be found in our discipline’s history. These are quantitative, qualitative social research methods, and a combination of the two in what is known as ‘mixed methods’ approaches.

The two main approaches (quantitative and qualitative) are underpinned by something broadly known as theory. Theory is a way of making sense of the social world that we live in, via observation, by developing ideas, concepts and even ideologies that explain what we find as researchers. Importantly, theory allows us to make comparisons between different cultures, societies and histories. In the case of the latter, comparing how different things are today to how they were say 100 years ago, is pivotal to the ongoing development of sociology.

To develop theory though, we need firstly to obtain observations (or data). There are usually two strategies in the production of theory in sociology – these are generally known as theory building and theory testing. The first is more specifically known as inductive reasoning where the researcher begins with some understanding, description or knowledge of the phenomenon being studied, and then enters the research field to obtain data. Inductive research involves gathering data first, and then as time progresses, turns to data analysis techniques to make sense of what is observed. Through this process, theory comes together as we attempt to make sense of the results of the study (Blaikie and Priest, 2019; De Vaus, 2013). Put another way, inductive reasoning means building theory from the ground up!

The other approach to this is what we might call theory testing, or deductive reasoning. In this instance, we utilise theory to predict or hypothesise what the results of our research will be. This approach recognises past research in particular, by examining the theories or concepts that emerge out of other studies, and then developing predictions based on what others have discovered. Another way of describing this process is that of constructing and then testing hypotheses. Once we gather our data, we test to see if the theory fits with the results of our research. If the results confirm the theory, we can say that the theory is correct and build on this further using future research. If the results do not align with the theory, we can conclude that the theory is either wrong, does not work in the context of the study (i.e. the population we are studying or the place where the research is conducted), or potentially that our data collection exercise was flawed.

There are other approaches to reasoning now that exist that go beyond theory building/testing recognising that these approaches are too rigid. For instance, Blaikie and Priest (2019) describe retroductive and abductive styles where theory is not simply a process of either building from the group up or testing from the top down – but an integrative process as one develops and then proceeds to gather data (see also Meyer and Lunnay, 2013). From this perspective, the reality of research is never as clearly divided as inductive/deductive strategies indicate. Rather, at times researchers participate in the development of their theories. However, in this text, we want to follow the basics first! Below you will find an overview (unfortunately by no means exhaustive!) of the different methods of research in sociology with some examples from the antipodes.

Quantitative Research Methods

Unpacking the different methodological styles of research means understanding the different types of data we can use. For quantitative research methods, data is usually statistical, aligning with the principles of positivism and post-positivism for the most part (see above). Statistics can be found everywhere in our contemporary life. In fact, we produce statistics daily ourselves every time we log onto the internet and search for something, click on a link, like a video or post on social media or even when we walk if we own a smartwatch! Statistics in this sense is also known as Big Data , which represents a challenge to sociology (see chapter on digital sociology ).

Quantitative sociology tends to use statistics that come from two areas, population data and survey data. In the case of the former, we all are measured and counted in various population data sets across our nation-states including via the instrument known as Census. Censuses collect information from us all, usually once every five years, on important variables to sociology such as sex, marriage status, family types, income, language, nationality, migration movement, occupation, and chronic health conditions. Data from these censuses are provided back as a public service by the state which the public can access whenever they please. Sociologists use this data to examine sociological issues from poverty through to migration. This data is invaluable as it is one of the few sources that holds information on all of the population of the country.

🛠️ Sociological Tool Kit: Explore Australia and New Zealand via statistics

Census is undertaken every five years in both Australia and New Zealand with the data taken publicly available for all. Have a look at either the Australian Census Data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics , or the New Zealand/Aotearoa Data provided by Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa.

See if you can find the answers to the following questions

What is the population of the country?
What is the median age of the country? Has that changed since last census?
What is the median personal income of those living in the country?

The second type of data that is often used in quantitative research is that of survey data. As Census is only run every five years, we cannot rely on this instrument alone. Furthermore, national surveys like Census do not necessarily answer questions that we might have in our respective research areas. For instance, Census might inform us that families are having fewer children now compared to the baby boomer generation, but this does not answer the question as to why. Subsequently, survey research is helpful in that it can (1) allow us an opportunity to design questions on issues that are relevant to the research we are undertaking, and (2) provide us with the opportunity to ascertain further information such as attitude, across the population.

Unlike census data though, researchers do not have the time, resources or the funds to deliver surveys to all of the population of a country! We also do not have the capacity to force people to do surveys if they do not want to. As such, surveys, and statistics more generally, depend on one vital scientific understanding, probability sampling or theory. Probability can be best described as the ability to “say with a specific degree of confidence, how likely the patterns in a sample are to reflect those in the wider population” (De Vaus, 2013, p.66). In other words, probability suggests that we do not have hand surveys out to everyone in a population. Rather, we can hand surveys out to some in the population and make inferences about how we all think on that basis.

Probability is reliant on what is known as the bell curve. This is something you probably have heard of before. It is based on the idea that most of us when measured on different things (such as weight, blood pressure, and IQ) will be quite similar to one another. We tend to group around what are known as measures of central tendency – which are mean (average), median (middle) and mode (most common). Take for instance the average height for an adult male in New Zealand which is 178cm. Average (or mean) is calculated easily by adding all the heights of adult men, and then dividing that by the number. Mathematically then, this would mean that most of New Zealand’s male population would be around 178cm tall. However, some men will be far taller than that, some will be far shorter!

To obtain a good understanding of the population, you need only take a sample of the population. Think about it this way. Let’s say you have a group of 100 students who are in your class and you want to know how many chocolate frogs they eat in a year. If we surveyed all 100 of them, we might find that the average (or what we call mean) is 55 (which isn’t that many let’s be honest). However, if we grabbed randomly, 30 students, and surveyed them, we might find that the mean for them is 53. So we are about 2 frogs off the real population mean. The difference is what we call sample error . We could keep sampling each student until we got to the actual average, but in probability, we do not need to do this. Simply put, we do not need to talk to everyone in the country! If we use good sampling techniques, we can obtain a good representation generally (remembering that most people are not unlike each other in the bell curve) of the population we are studying. How do we know, however, if our group is like the population if we do not know what the population mean is? This is where we use something called confidence intervals .

Watch the next two videos explaining the Bell Curve [1:04] and Confidence Intervals [5:34] :

In short, we will not be certain about whether our sample is truly representative of the population – but we use confidence intervals to suggest that we are fairly sure – usually 95% – or in other words, there is a 5 percent chance we made a mistake in our sampling process. Thus, social science statistics is never 100%.

In research, the most important thing is the variable . This is the thing that you are measuring and can be as simple as age, gender, location and so on or as complicated as trying to measure happiness, altruism, or motivation. We can measure one of these variables in a sample, which is called univariate analysis. As demonstrated in our example of chocolate frogs above, we found that the average our group ate in a year was 55. That is interesting information and might be good for a report to the local chocolate manufacturer! However, we wanted to know if there were differences in our sample of students.

This is where we introduce bivariate analysis – which basically means taking one variable (an independent variable) and seeing if it causes a difference to another variable (dependent variable). For instance, we might want to see if international students eat more or less chocolate frogs than domestic students. We examine our data again and find that domestic students eat on average 33 chocolate frogs a year whereas international students eat on average 65 a year. What we have here is a statistical difference between two cohorts – and there is some indication that the independent variable (student type) is having an impact on how many frogs one eats in a year (dependent variable). We can begin to infer that there is something going on here that demands explanation (maybe the local shop where international students live near markets to them heavily chocolate frogs!). However, we need to do some serious mathematical statistical testing to show how confident we are that it is indeed this independent variable that matters most (don’t worry we won’t teach that here!).

However, what if we were interested in differences between domestic and international students, and within that whether age had a role to play in determining chocolate frog consumption? This is something called multivariate analysis, which involves multiple independent variables, and even dependent variables. In our example, we might examine the cohorts and find that as international and domestic students get older, they consume far fewer chocolate frogs. Thus, we can begin to infer that, age plays a role as well in how many frogs people eat. Our results would suggest that younger international students eat more chocolate frogs than anyone else in the sample!

🔍 Look Closer: Survey research on religion following the Christchurch Earthquake of 2011

On February 22nd, 2011, Christchurch suffered a significant earthquake that killed 185 people and changed the landscape and townscape of the city even to this day. Sibley and Bulbulia (2012) were interested to see if people had turned more to religion during this period following what is known as the religious comfort theory. They conducted a survey to collect information from a nationwide survey instrument and analysed data from 2,305 women and 1,440 men. The research found the following:

Religion did become more appealing to those who had suffered during and following the earthquake – though they do raise caution in these findings as conversion to faith is complicated.
Those who were faithful did not experience any significant ‘buffering’ in subjective suffering or health over those who were not in a faith. The findings suggest that religion perhaps does not provide the level of comfort above those who are not religious.

This study provides a good example of survey research, and the ability to take a significant issue such as natural disasters, and conduct widespread research across society.

Qualitative Research Methods

Following the patterns of interpretivism and constructivism (above), qualitative research methods start with the premise that we cannot understand society through scientific methods. Rather, to explore social behaviour, we need to get down to individuals and collect information/data on how they perceive, experience, interpret and understand life. Furthermore, remembering what constructivism argues, we also need to understand how people ‘construct’ their worlds through their values, ideas, and actions.

Qualitative research tends to follow a pattern that separates it from quantitative research. Firstly, qualitative data gathering exercises are often inductive , in that there is little theory testing and more development of theory as one goes through the research process. This requires some flexibility in the design of the research, and an ongoing assessment of what data is being gathered, as the researcher meets with and works with participants (Hammersely, 2013). Furthermore, methods tend to be far more unstructured, unlike the statistical work of quantitative research. As Hammersely (2013, p.12) points out, “there is little pressure to engage in formal counting, ranking, or measurement” as most of the data is based on observations in the natural world and verbal/non-verbal communication from the participants in the project.

Secondly, in qualitative research, the foundation is to analyse and interpret human behaviour by getting as close to people as we can, and in natural settings. Quantitative research tends to do the opposite by either putting people into experimental conditions (such as in a lab) or having them take questionnaires with little room for the participant to elaborate their responses. As such, a criticism of qualitative research is this need for the researcher to be close to their participants, creating potential for bias, and for the research to have less objectivity than quantitative work. In qualitative research, this is not a major issue, however. All research has the potential to be influenced by the researcher. However, to overcome this, researchers try to exercise reflexivity to understand how their own values, ideas, and even theoretical positions, might influence the data that they see. To be short, reflexivity means identifying your own worldviews and trying to reduce the influence of these on your data analysis and reporting.

Lastly, research in qualitative work is not designed to be representative in the same way that quantitative research is and does not rely on probability sampling techniques. For researchers in this space, there is no unitary truth to be found as we all have very different backgrounds, ideas, values, socialisation and so on which means the amount of variables that could impact a dependent variable is endless. It is rather, better to get as close to the behaviour or people we are studying as possible to obtain quality data that can be interpreted later. As such, qualitative researchers tend not to worry too much about how many participants they have, nor that the data is truly representative of the population. Rather, the qualitative tradition focuses instead on interpretation of behaviour, perceptions, and ideas of those we research with.

Unlike quantitative research methods, the data obtained in qualitative research are usually text-based or words (though they can be other things – see below). As such, there are multiple styles of research that exist in the qualitative tradition. Below are some of the major approaches used by sociologists (and social scientists) in their work. Although as we will show towards the end, the list is potentially endless with new innovations in qualitative research happening consistently.

Ethnography

Ethnography is one of the oldest forms of qualitative research emerging out of the discipline of anthropology from the 1900s onwards. In general, ethnography is a practice that aims to obtain a “detailed, in-depth description of everyday life and practice” (Hoey, 2014, p.1). It involves the researcher entering into the field (where the community that they want to research lives) and engaging in what is known as participant observation to develop an understanding of culture especially. As Hoey (2014, p.2) suggests, “to develop an understanding of what it is like to live in a setting, the researcher must become a participant in the life of the setting while also maintaining the stance of an observer”. This entails a level of reflexivity , in ensuring that every day, one is ensuring that their own worldviews and values are not impeding the process of understanding the community you are researching with.

Fieldwork for ethnographers involves a myriad of things including participating with the community in active everyday life, asking questions of people to understand further actions or perceptions of different behaviours and/or life, and taking numerous ‘field notes’ along the way. Writing is an important aspect of ethnographic work, as these notes become data later when doing analysis. Every day, ethnographers take an account of the things that they have learned, observed, or have been told and look for patterns of behaviour to give eventually what Clifford Geertz (1973) calls a “thick description” in reporting later. Your task as an ethnographer is to gather as much information as you can on what you are observing, what it means for others, how people understand others, how social interactions are organised, when people do different things and what sorts of relationships people have. This means gathering data on verbal and non-verbal communication. For instance, we might do an observation in a classroom and note how students act while a lecturer is giving a lesson – noting how they’re sitting, interacting with their bodies, and verbally engaging with the class.

Hoey (2014, p.7) argues that writing never ends for an ethnographer and that “fieldnote writing is an interactive, iterative process” meaning that you go back and forth trying to understand what you have observed, and then looking for gaps that need filling in your data gathering. However, once you are finished, analysis requires you to have an “intimate relationship with your notes” so that you have a strong understanding of what you have found, and that you can if required, “make notes on your notes” (Hoey, 2014, p.8).

Ethnography as a research method can be incredibly important to understanding not simply cultures overseas, but within our own communities as well (see box out). However, ethnography can be time-consuming and often results are not forthcoming immediately. It also requires patience as a researcher, and trust from the community you are researching with. Without the latter, people may struggle to open up to you, and provide you with information. Furthermore, if you are researching with communities where you do not speak the language, the capacity to learn and understand is somewhat hindered. Nevertheless, ethnography is the oldest form of qualitative research and consistently demonstrates its value to a wider audience.

🔍 Look Closer

Example of Ethnography: Arlie Hochschild Strangers in their Own Land

Arlie Hochschild, a heavily influential sociologist in the United States of America, conducted a long ethnography with those in Louisiana Bayou country, to understand their views and opinions in relation to American politics. Her research paved the way for a greater understanding of those labelled in negative ways by those with progressive political worldviews. Watch this video interview [16:54] with her to see how participant observation allowed her to interpret and thereby understand those in these places.

One of the most popular forms of qualitative research, especially for sociologists, is that of interviews . Unlike ethnography , interviews are quicker forms of data gathering that require the researcher to meet with the participant and ask a series of questions to elicit understanding. Importantly for sociologists, interviewing is a moment of interaction, where the researcher can meet, discuss and explore their research topics with others. Social interaction, as we know from the class and status chapter, is a very important area for sociologists!

Like ethnography, the point of interviews is to investigate the research topic within natural settings by eliciting understanding from participants. There are three different types of interviews that occur generally. The first is the structured interview which involves a set schedule of questions, not deviating from them, in a one-on-one situation (or more as the case may be – for instance if you’re questioning partners or colleagues). The advantages of the structured interviews are as follows;

allows for comparison of answers to the same questions with different people in the sample
allows for the researcher to focus their interviews on the specific issues that they want to find information on
provides a more structured format to analyse later and is far less prone to issues of subjective interpretation
is a far more formal process that can be used in professional settings – such as interviews with workplaces
allows for a more survey-like approach where questions are closed and easier to analyse even using statistics later
provides an opportunity to understand what is missing from the research at the conclusion.

Conversely, structured interviews that follow a set list of questions limit how much the interviewer can deviate and explore interesting areas/topics that the interviewee may mention. In other words, using structured interviews means you leave little room for surprises in your research. It also means that you limit how much an interviewee can explain things and follow their own thoughts into different areas (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008).

The more common approach in sociology is to follow a semi-structured approach in the design and then implementation of interviews. Like structured interviews, the semi-structured approach requires an interview schedule with a list of questions. However, the questions are always open-ended, unlike a survey, allowing the participant to explore the topic, and provide more information. The questions also serve as prompts to elicit further discussion if needed. If the interviewee brings up something in a response to a question, the interviewer can press further asking them to elaborate further, or follow the thread of the conversation to other topics that were not expected. In short, this style of research is about providing the researcher more freedom to introduce new lines of inquiry into the research and may well prompt them to follow up on these in later interviews. The advantages of the semi-structured interview then, are as follows:

still allows the interviewee to follow specific questions that need to be answered for the research, that can be compared across interviewees
provides an opportunity for the interviewer to follow topics that emerge in the interview and stray from the interview schedule if needed
allows for the researcher to refine their research topic further as new ideas, thoughts and issues arise during the interviews
provides the opportunity for the interviewee to explore their own thoughts and connect the topic to other areas that might be important to the research
is less formal and can be used in multiple settings
provides thicker data as the interviewee can talk with more freedom with open-ended questions.

Of course, one of the issues associated with interviews in this manner is that the data produced is complicated and often conversational. This data can take significantly longer to analyse as the researcher has to sift through pages of transcripts trying to pick up on commonalities in the research. Furthermore, due to the nature of the data, semi-structured interviews are prone to questions of subjective bias. We might be more likely to impose our own worldviews onto the research data. Additionally, this sort of data might mean we find conclusions that align with theoretical inclinations in the form of confirmation bias . To overcome this, most qualitative researchers advise keeping notes on decisions made during data analysis and/or follow guidelines strictly on how to analyse data (Blaikie and Priest, 2019).

The final approach to interviews is that of the fully unstructured interview. Much like ethnography , the researcher here sets out to conduct interviews with freedom, following up with participants on a specific topic and being guided by discussion later. The interviewer here operates much like an ethnographer, attempting to understand culture, social interaction or the setting further in an exploratory fashion. Often, unstructured interviewing goes hand-in-hand with the ethnographic methods of participant observation . People go about their day-to-day lives and researchers ask them questions about what they are doing. Furthermore, researchers can also move with participants in their daily activities, asking questions on the meaning of different things, or trying to get interviewees to elaborate on repeated actions (such as rituals). In human geography in recent years, there has been a push for a type of unstructured interview that enables both the interviewer and interviewee to move through places/spaces in a walking interview (Evans and Jones, 2011). This is especially useful when the researcher wants to know how people view and experience different landscapes, settings, or spaces. It also provides an opportunity for the interviewee to be reminded of different past events as they walk through places, enabling the researcher to elicit meaning of place.

The advantage of the unstructured interview is therefore as follows:

allows the researcher complete freedom to obtain as much meaning as possible from the research topic with interviewees.
provides more chances to immerse oneself into the culture of the participant.
creates conditions where the conversation between the researcher and participant is more natural – potentially making the interviewee more comfortable.
additionally, the nature of the interview may provide a relationship of trust to develop, meaning the participant might open up further about difficult topics.
the style of interview can lead to stronger and more nuanced understanding, especially as they tend to be longer than other forms.
allows the interviewer to refine their research topic further as time progresses.

The natural style of unstructured interviews results in disadvantages not unlike semi-structured interviews. The most significant of these is that the data is often long and harder to organise. Researchers in this space will need to analyse a substantial amount of data, and in some cases will do so as the interviews proceed, rather than waiting until the end. Furthermore, these types of interviews take a long time in comparison to surveys or structured interviews. Additionally, the data that emerges is not easily compared as each unstructured interview may have different topics in comparison to others.

Example of Interviews: Deborah Lupton and John Tulloch and Risk Epistemologies of Australians

What do you think of risk? Do you think we try and avoid risks at all costs or even insure as much as we can against it? This is the question Deborah Lupton and John Tulloch asked in 2002 by conducting research in Australia with several Australians. Conducting interviews with them, they were able to challenge some of the dominant thinking of sociologists at the time like Ulrich Beck who argued that we have entered an age where people try hard to avoid risks at all costs. Rather, Lupton and Tulloch (2002) found:

different perceptions of risk exist depending on a range of factors including age, gender and sexual identity. We do not all experience risk the same – especially young people.
Many people take risks as a form of lifestyle. For instance, activities and sports like mountain biking, skydiving and surfing embrace risks as part of the experience. We also take risks daily with other things such as starting a new romantic relationship or investing in the stock market. All these things could end badly, but we embrace them nonetheless.

The interviews conducted by these researchers help us to understand that the risk theories of sociology at the time may need some reconsidering in different contexts.

We focused here on the role of interviews with one or two people. However, in some cases, sociologists and social scientists like to interview groups of people all at once. This style of interview is known as focus groups . You may have seen a focus group (or been part of one) when companies bring people together to elicit their opinions about a topic or even product. Focus groups within sociological research however allow us to bring a group of people together, and allow them to interact with one another on topics of importance to the research. As researchers, our task is to facilitate this discussion and provide the opportunity for all members of the group to interact, engage and even disagree with each other. Importantly, this style of research allows us to understand, especially in organisational settings, important issues such as power dynamics. For instance, we might find that one or two people within an organisation tend to dominate conversation, and/or disagree with comments made by other colleagues. Focus groups might also allow for groups to come together to evaluate their individual positions and provoke understanding amongst themselves. In addition to this, focus groups provide an opportunity to obtain significant amounts of data (in terms of people talked to) in a short period of time. However, the focus group tends to be difficult to organise at times, and can also cost money as researchers may need to arrange a venue. Furthermore, individuals within the focus groups, especially those who are introverted, may find it difficult to have a voice in large groups. Finally, researchers have little control in their moderation of focus group discussions, and as such they can lead to limited information/data that is useful for their research.

Alternative forms of qualitative research also exist using interview techniques as a guide. Photo elicitation is one such approach where researchers utilise visual imagery to guide interviews along the way (Harper, 2011). Interviewees may also provide images (such as photographs or videos) to evoke feelings, and memories or talk about certain topics. In addition to this, photo voice is another style involving imagery where participants are enabled to take photos or videos of their community, culture or setting in everyday life, and discuss the meaning of the images with the interviewer (Wang and Burris, 1997). This is especially important for those doing research to empower communities through a style of research called participant action research.

Technology is also useful in interviews. This includes for instance the use of mapping software where interviewees are able to make use of maps to show different places and pull together their life history for the researcher showing where they might have lived, where different important events of their lives occurred and even where they might want to go in the future (Buckle, 2020). Other forms include creating paintings (Balmer, 2021) which might be especially useful when researching with children, using sound to elicit understanding of place (Duffy, Waitt and Harada, 2016), and using diaries from participants in collaboration with interviews (Thille, Chartrand and Brown, 2022). In short, qualitative research and interviews are far more flexible than statistical analysis, and scholarship in this space is always innovating new methods to obtain deeper understanding.

Mixed Methods – a Pragmatic Approach to Research

You might be thinking by now that the division between qualitative and quantitative research based on the philosophical ideas we presented earlier in the chapter feels a bit too constraining. Maybe, like others, you find both forms of research appealing. In this case, there is good news! One of the styles of research that has garnered interest in recent times is that of mixed-methods approaches. In short, mixed methods provides an opportunity for the researcher to utilise whatever style of research is useful to answer the question and gather as much data as possible to gain a better perspective. This style of research is based on a pragmatic philosophy or worldview that Creswell (2014, p.10; Creswell and Creswell, 2018) describes in the following,

Pragmatism as a worldview arises out of actions, situations, and consequences rather than antecedent conditions[…] There is a concern with applications – what works – and solutions to problems. Instead of focusing on methods, researchers emphasize the research problem and use all approaches available to understand the problem.

In short, from this perspective, there is no ‘right way’ to conduct your research. Each method has advantages and disadvantages, and in the end, your research problem needs to be answered with the best methods on offer. Knowledge as we have seen above, is diverse and by using multiple methods in our research, we can obtain the best possible answers to our research problems. From this angle, we need to strip away the philosophical questions of ‘truth’ and focus instead on what the problem is we need to solve.

The mixed methods approach needs to be defined properly here before outlining some of the styles. Firstly, this pragmatic research method involves both gathering and analysis of quantitative and qualitative research. However, it might also involve the gathering of multiple forms of quantitative or qualitative data. Nevertheless, important to mixed methods is that whatever is done, is not separate from the other. In other words, we collect qualitative research to add to the quantitative data we have, or vice-versa (see below). As such, the methodologies of qualitative/quantitative research need to be followed appropriately and in keeping with the current research expectations.

Secondly, this style of research must be set out appropriately and methodically in a timeline. Mixed-methods approaches are not an anything-goes approach. Nor do we select different methods within the project for the sake of data gathering. Each method has a role to play in explaining or developing knowledge to answer a research problem. Lastly, this approach allows the researcher to cut across different research problems in a practical manner. For instance, statistics might assist the researcher in providing answers to organisational bodies, while qualitative data might assist in explaining that within community settings. The data produced can be aligned with the needs of different stakeholders.

There are multiple types of approaches to mixed methods that can be utilised (Creswell, 2014). Here we want to explore three. Firstly and one of the more popular, as Creswell (2014, p.219) outlines, is the parallel mixed methods design where the collection of qualitative and quantitative data occurs and is then compared with each other to ascertain differences or similarities of responses. For instance, we might conduct a survey with a large sample of people (let’s say 500) and then interview a smaller group (let’s say 20) and then compare the data we have. By doing so, we can elaborate further also on the data we get from statistics, and vice versa. This approach provides us with detailed insights at the individual level, while also giving large-scale data with a broader sample that can be used to both generalise to the population and provide nuance at local levels.

The next approach two approaches involve using one method to refine another method. Explanatory sequential mixed method design for instance involves a two-phase process where initial statistical work is done first and then followed up with qualitative research (Creswell, 2014). Important to this approach is the quantitative component. Gathering this data and then analysing it, provides the foundation for what types of questions we need to ask in qualitative research. For instance, let’s say we want to research understanding student love and attachment to sociology. We start by doing surveys with 400 students across the university. When we analyse the data we find that students who are most attached to sociology are those within the humanities and social sciences programs (hardly unsurprising!). Following this, we devise research through interviews to ascertain why students in these programs are, and also why others are not. You can hopefully see here that those with stronger skills in quantitative research would prefer this approach, as the grounding for the project remains in quantitative skills.

Conversely, exploratory sequential mixed methods are the reverse of the previous process. Firstly, we explore a research topic through qualitative research, perhaps using inductive analysis to build hypotheses. Following the analysis of this data, we then test potential variables at a broader level using quantitative measures (most likely survey research). Let’s say for instance that in the previous example, we start by exploring why students love sociology. After 20 or so interviews and analysis, we find that several interviewees express attachment to the discipline due to specific lecturers in the university. We hypothesise that students who have had these lecturers will be more attached to sociology than others. We then devise a broader survey instrument with 400 students across the university and statistically test our hypothesis. Those who are stronger at qualitative research will find this approach more suitable as it builds upon interview data, constructing a theory or hypothesis from within (Creswell, 2014).

These three styles are not the only way to do mixed-methods approaches in sociological research, but they are representative of two types of approaches. Firstly, to complement the data from both styles of research, and secondly, to take one form of method, and expand on that using another form. There are several other approaches such as embedded mixed methods where one style of research is embedded within a larger body of research, transformative mixed methods where all data is used to create change, and multiphase mixed methods where longitudinal information on both qualitative and quantitative data is collected side by side (Creswell, 2014).

There are significant benefits to this approach as outlined above. However, limitations to mixed-methods approaches are centred on the assumption that all data is useful, which can be critiqued by the different theories/philosophies we explored earlier. Furthermore, these approaches require skills in both qualitative and quantitative research and this might create difficulties if the researcher is not skilled in both areas. It is also possibly time intensive, requiring a lot of work to gather the data, and then analyse it all. Overall, though, this approach is well-developed and again, innovation within mixed-methods research is frequent.

Other Styles of Research – the Digital World

There are several forms of research that we have not covered here in this chapter. These include document analysis, socio-historical analysis, autoethnography, visual ethnography, experiments (which we do not do a lot of in sociology), case studies, social networks, and longitudinal analysis. One of the burgeoning areas of social research today is the incorporation of the internet and/or social media. Our everyday lives are now lived both in the offline and online worlds. As such, researchers such as Christine Hine (2020) and Robert Kozinets (2015) contend that the Internet needs to be considered a serious site for investigation in this contemporary age.

On the one hand, we establish several virtual communities in our online spaces which we engage with daily, including that of social media but also social or community groups. Kozinets (2015) argues that these online communities deserve attention as these groups, and online interactions, are meaningful to us. Consider a virtual gaming community of people who do not meet in real life at all, but perhaps collectively come together of an evening to play together. Their interactions and experiences represent a community of sorts, only lived in the online space. However, as Milton and Petray (2020) show in their research, sometimes these communities demonstrate some of the sociological problems that exist in our society. For instance, in their research into online crime forums, they find a clear division between those who consider themselves legitimate citizens and those they believe are not, and often this is based on age and/or race. This type of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality exists across many social media forums and perhaps exacerbates already established (although maybe unspoken in everyday life) biases towards other minority groups (see digital sociology chapter).

However, unlike Kozinets (2015), Christine Hine (2020) argues that there should not be a separation between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ communities when we conduct our research. Rather, Hine (2020) challenges us to think about life as lived concurrently in both online and offline spaces. She pushes for what is known as multi-sighted ethnography, which seeks to overcome the boundaries geographically in how we study. In short, the field sites that we journey to, and interview or participate with people in, have to embrace the complexity of life. We do not simply live, work, and play in one specific place. Furthermore, for Hine (2020), this includes the online spaces where we meet, talk, socialise, plan and so on in our everyday lives. Her work intends to get researchers thinking about how the life is embodied and experienced every day in both real and virtual worlds. Consider for instance if we were seeking to research the study patterns of students taking this subject. If we conducted an ethnography where we observed them in the library, we would only capture so much information. However, if we embrace the fluidity of modern life, we might find online social forums where students meet together to share tips and hints, as well as organise study groups face to face. Hine (2020) encourages us to realise that the internet is here, and it is embedded in our everyday lives seamlessly, and in our research, we need to incorporate it.

This chapter introduces you to the foundations of social research methods, while also preparing you for advanced studies in both qualitative and quantitative research into the future. Main points to take away here are as follows:

Sociology has a long history of research methods stemming back from the classical period of Durkheim and Comte.
Positivism and post-positivism are based on the assumptions that the best way to attain data is through quantitative research – usually statistics and based on the scientific method.
Interpretivism and constructivism on the other hand argue that life is far more complicated to be understood statistically, and as such propose alternative approaches to obtain the best data which is normally qualitative research.
Pragmatism, however, argues that the best approach to answering a research problem is to use whatever data sources are available and not get swamped by philosophical differences in method.
Quantitative research entails a range of statistical measures and depends largely on the idea of the normal distribution (bell curve).
Qualitative research is far wider in scope and includes everything from interviews through to digital ethnography.
Indigenous world-views however criticise the approaches in social research as delegitimising the validity of other knowledge.

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge . Penguin.

Blaikie, N., & Priest, J. (2019). Designing social research: The logic of anticipation . John Wiley & Sons.

Bourdeau, M., & Pickering, M. (2018). Love, order, and progress: The science, philosophy, and politics of Auguste Comte . University of Pittsburgh Press.

Buckle, C. (2020). Touching, scrolling and swooping: Performing and representing migrant stories through geospatial technologies. Geoforum , 111 , 83-93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.03.004

Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches (4th ed.). Sage Publications.

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative & mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Sage Publications.

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2008). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Strategies of qualitative inquiry (pp. 1–43). Sage Publications.

De Vaus, D. (2013). Surveys in social research . Routledge.

Duffy, M., Waitt, G., & Harada, T. (2016). Making sense of sound: Visceral sonic mapping as a research tool. Emotion, Space and Society , 20 , 49-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2016.06.006

Durkheim, E. (2014). The rules of sociological method: And selected texts on sociology and its method . Simon and Schuster. (Original work published 1895)

Evans, J., & Jones, P. (2011). The walking interview: Methodology, mobility and place. Applied Geography , 31 (2), 849-858. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.09.005

Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality . Penguin.

Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays . Basic Books.

Graham, M. (2008). Some thoughts about the philosophical underpinnings of Aboriginal worldviews. Australian Humanities Review, 45 https://australianhumanitiesreview.org/2008/11/01/some-thoughts-about-the-philosophical-underpinnings-of-aboriginal-worldviews/

Hammersley, M. (2012). What is qualitative research? Bloomsbury Academic.

Harper, D. (2002). Talking about pictures: A case for photo elicitation. Visual Studies , 17 (1), 13-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725860220137345

Harrington, A. (2004). Modern social theory: An introduction . Oxford University Press.

Hine, C. (2020). Ethnography for the internet: Embedded, embodied and everyday . Routledge.

Hoey, B. (2014). A simple introduction to the practice of ethnography and guide to ethnographic fieldnotes. Marshall Digital Scholar . https://www.cedarnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Wasserfall-Intro-to-ethnography.pdf

Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography: Redefined . Sage.

Meyer, S. B., & Lunnay, B. (2013). The application of abductive and retroductive inference for the design and analysis of theory-driven sociological research. Sociological Research Online , 18 (1), 86-96. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.2819

Panhwar, A. H., Ansari, S., & Shah, A. A. (2017). Post-positivism: An effective paradigm for social and educational research. International Research Journal of Arts and Humanities , 45 (45), 253-259.

Pickering, M. (2011). Auguste Comte. In G. Ritzer & J. Stepnisky (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell companion to major social theorists (Vol 1, pp. 30-60). Blackwell Publishing.

Rigney, L-I. (1999). Internationalization of an Indigenous anticolonial cultural critique of research methodologies: A guide to Indigenist research methodology and its principles. Wicazo Sa Review, 14 (2), 109-121. https://doi.org/10.2307/1409555

Smith, L.T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples . (2nd ed.). Zed Books.

Thille, P., Chartrand, L., & Brown, C. (2022). Diary-interview studies: Longitudinal, flexible qualitative research design. Family Practice , 39 (5), 996-999. https://doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmac039

Todd, D. D. (1993). The Plato cult and other philosophical follies. Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , 32 (2), 402-405. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217300014566

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Quantitative research in social sciences tends to emphasise data as numerical or statistical and utilises methods such as survey research and demographic data. It utilises sophisticated mathematical analyses to test hypotheses and develop conclusions accordingly.

Qualitative social science research tends to focus on the meaning of social life by seeking to understand how people think, feel and interpret their experiences. Qualitative research therefore gathers data that is textual, including interviews, ethnography, document analysis, and other approaches. Unlike quantitative research, it analyses this data in a more open approach that does not rely on mathematics

A philosophical approach to understanding truth that focuses on logic and science and rejects alternative approaches such as metaphysics.

An approach within social science theories that argues the social world cannot be understood through natural sciences. Rather, society is messy and complex and research can only obtain an understanding of how people interpret or perceive the world around them.

Social constructivism argues that the world is constantly made and remade through interactions with people and non-humans. It argues that our contemporary understanding of things as they currently are is largely dependent on processes of sharing meaning that is unique to our time, place and context.

A branch of philosophy that deals with abstract concepts such as life, time, space and identity which stand outside of the material world.

A term developed by Emile Durkheim which refers to all the rites, customs, norms and morals that exist within a society that act to constrain individuals. For instance, these could include things such as manners on one hand, and larger norms that become criminal law on the other.

An approach to research that involves making hypotheses or predictions, and then testing these via empirical work mostly via statistics, which then either prove or disprove the hypothesis.

A critique of positivism that emphasises the potential bias that a researcher might have in their work, while also acknowledging that no 'truth' can be unequivocally universal and as such we need to be careful with our declarations of such especially in social science.

Roughly translated into an understanding of human behaviour.

The development of theory from the ground up – which involves the researcher entering the field, gathering data and allowing understanding to emerge through the subsequent data analysis.

Involves theory testing - where the researchers start with a theory or hypothesis on what we might predict will be the result of the research. Once data is gathered and analysed, the theory is either proven, disproven or refined.

Refers to the increasing amount of data, variety of data, and velocity through which data is accumulated in the online space. Instead of small datasets being held such as in the past (as in a university study), massive data sets are being recorded and stored fed by our interactions in the online environment.

The term given to randomly selecting members of a population to conduct research with, that will allow us to generalise to the whole population we are studying.

Refers to the difference between mean values of the sample a researcher has collected and that of the mean values of the total population that the sample comes from.

The confidence interval refers to a set of values between which we are confident the true population average exists. This is often expressed as a percentage where the true value of the population average lies between an upper and lower range.

Refers to a concept, element, characteristic or other category that can be measured and compared across other variables. For instance, variables can include categories such as sex, location, income, education, relationship status, age, and employment.

The style of analysis where you focus on one variable only.

The style of analysis that examines two variables and their relationship to one another. For instance, the relationship of income to happiness or education to income

The style of analysis where you investigate multiple variables and their relationship with each other. For instance, you might be interested in whether income AND education produce higher scores in happiness combined.

Refers to the process through which a researcher consistently reflects on their position in the research and their ability to potentially influence results via their own preconceived ideas, worldviews and theories.

A social scientific research methodology that seeks to understand culture by observing people in their natural surrounds.

A cognate discipline to sociology that seeks to understand culture within societies including artefacts, rituals, behaviours, actions, etc.

A research methodology based in ethnography that involves the researcher participating in the everyday life of the people that they are studying and making observations as they go.

A research method within qualitative research that seeks to understand the views of people by talking one-on-one or in group settings with research participants.

A cognate discipline to sociology that focuses on understanding how social, political, economic and environmental surrounds impact how people live in places.

A style of research in qualitative methods where the researcher facilitates a conversation among a group of people to elicit data on a range of issues.

An approach to research based on pragmatism, that aims to solve the research problem at hand using all available research data that will assist.

Exploring Sociology in the Antipodes: Introduction to Sociology – 1st Australian Edition Copyright © 2023 by Nick Osbaldiston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Research Methods: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

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Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research ... - Sociology Institute
Qualitative research focuses on understanding the qualities or nature of social phenomena, using methods like interviews and observations for deeper insights. Quantitative research relies on numerical data and statistical analysis to understand phenomena, suitable for measurable variables.
Research Methods in Sociology – An Introduction
An introduction to research methods in Sociology covering quantitative, qualitative, primary and secondary data and defining the basic types of research method including social surveys, experiments, interviews, participant observation, ethnography and longitudinal studies.
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Together, Amy Blackstone's experiences as a student, researcher, and teacher shape the three overriding objectives of Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Relevance, Balance, and Accessibility.
Qualitative Methods in Sociological Research - Sociology ...
Today, qualitative sociology encompasses a variety of specific procedures for collecting data, ranging from life history interviews to direct observation of social interaction to embedded participant observation.
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When collecting and analyzing data, quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings. Both are important for gaining different kinds of knowledge.
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Sociologists use a range of quantitative and qualitative, primary and secondary social research methods to collect data about society. The main types of research method are: Social surveys (questionnaires and structured interviews) Experiments (Lab and Field) Unstructured interviews. Partipant Observation. Secondary qualitative data.
Quantitative Methods in Sociological Research - Sociology ...
Because many sociologists in the United States receive foundational training in multivariate linear regression, this entry focuses on developments that go beyond this topic, including categorical data analysis, structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, longitudinal data analysis, causal inference, and even network analysis.
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The current edition is divided into five parts—foundations of research; planning and preparation for research; quantitative research methods—collection and analysis of data; qualitative research—methods of collecting data and analysis; and lastly “communicating the results of research with others.”
Understanding Social Research Methods and Perspectives in ...
explain the differences between quantitative and qualitative research. examine the different approaches to methodology that exist in sociology. consider the critiques of social science research via Indigenous worldviews. Overview.
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Quantitative Methods in Sociological Research by Erin Leahey LAST REVIEWED: 27 July 2011 LAST MODIFIED: 27 July 2011 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0044

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