Social research methods Alan Bryman

Part One
ch. 1 The nature and process of social research
Introduction
What is meant by `social research'?
Why do social research?
The context of social research methods
Elements of the process of social research
Literature review
Concepts and theories
Research questions
Sampling cases
Data collection
Data analysis
Writing up
The messiness of social research
Key points
Questions for review

ch. 2 Social research strategies
Theory and research
What type of theory?
Deductive and inductive theory
Epistemological considerations
A natural science epistemology: positivism
Interpretivism
Ontological considerations
Objectivism
Constructionism
Relationship to social research
Research strategy: quantitative and qualitative research
Influences on the conduct of social research
Values
Practical considerations

ch. 3 Research designs
Criteria in social research
Reliability
Replication
Validity
Relationship with research strategy
Research designs
Experimental design
Cross-sectional design
Longitudinal design(s)
Case study design
Comparative design
Bringing research strategy and research design together

ch. 4 Planning a research project and formulating research questions
Getting to know what is expected of you by your institution
Thinking about your research area
Using your supervisor
Managing time and resources
Formulating suitable research questions
Criteria for evaluating research questions
Writing your research proposal
Preparing for your research
Doing your research and analysing your results
Checklist

ch. 5 Getting started: reviewing the literature
Contents note continued: Reviewing the existing literature
Getting the most from your reading
Systematic review
Narrative review
Searching the existing literature
Electronic databases
Keywords and defining search parameters
Referencing your work
The role of the bibliography
Avoiding plagiarism

ch. 6 Ethics and politics in social research
Ethical principles
Harm to participants
Lack of informed consent
Invasion of privacy
Deception
Ethics and the issue of quality
The difficulties of ethical decision-making
New media and difficult decisions
Politics in social research

Part Two
ch. 7 The nature of quantitative research
The main steps in quantitative research
Concepts and their measurement
What is a concept?
Why measure?
Indicators
Using multiple-indicator measures
Contents note continued: Dimensions of concepts
Reliability and validity
Reflections on reliability and validity
The main preoccupations of quantitative researchers
Measurement
Causality
Generalization
The critique of quantitative research
Criticisms of quantitative research
Is it always like this?
Reverse operationism
Reliability and validity testing
Sampling

ch. 8 Sampling
Introduction to survey research
Introduction to sampling
Sampling error
Types of probability sample
Simple random sample
Systematic sample
Stratified random sampling
Multi-stage cluster sampling
The qualities of a probability sample
Sample size
Absolute and relative sample size
Time and cost
Non-response
Heterogeneity of the population
Kind of analysis
Types of non-probability sampling
Convenience sampling
Snowball sampling
Contents note continued: Quota sampling
Limits to generalization
Error in survey research

ch. 9 Structured interviewing
The structured interview
Reducing error due to interviewer variability
Accuracy and ease of data processing
Other types of interview
Interview contexts
More than one interviewee
More than one interviewer
In person or by telephone?
Computer-assisted interviewing
Conducting interviews
Know the schedule
Introducing the research
Rapport
Asking questions
Recording answers
Clear instructions
Question order
Probing
Prompting
Leaving the interview
Training and supervision
Problems with structured interviewing
Characteristics of interviewers
Response sets
The problem of meaning
The feminist critique

ch. 10 Self-completion questionnaires
Contents note continued: Self-completion questionnaire or postal questionnaire?
Evaluating the self-completion questionnaire in relation to the structured interview
Advantages of the self-completion questionnaire over the structured interview
Disadvantages of the self-completion questionnaire in comparison with the structured interview
Steps to improve response rates to postal questionnaires
Designing the self-completion questionnaire
Do not cramp the presentation
Clear presentation
Vertical or horizontal closed answers?
Clear instructions about how to respond
Keep question and answers together
Diaries as a form of self-completion questionnaire
Advantages and disadvantages of the diary as a method of data collection

ch. 11 Asking questions
Open or closed questions?
Open questions
Closed questions
Types of questions
Rules for designing questions
General rules of thumb
Contents note continued: Specific rules when designing questions
Vignette questions
Piloting and pre-testing questions
Using existing questions

ch. 12 Structured observation
Problems with survey research on social behaviour
So why not observe behaviour?
The observation schedule
Strategies for observing behaviour
Sampling people
Sampling in terms of time
Further sampling considerations
Issues of reliability and validity
Field stimulations as a form of structured observation
Criticisms of structured observation
On the other hand...

ch. 13 Content analysis
What are the research questions?
Selecting a sample
Sampling media
Sampling dates
What is to be counted?
Significant actors
Words
Subjects and themes
Dispositions
Coding
Contents note continued: Coding schedule
Coding manual
Potential pitfalls in devising coding schemes
Advantages of content analysis
Disadvantages of content analysis

ch. 14 Secondary analysis and official statistics
Other researchers' data
Advantages of secondary analysis
Limitations of secondary analysis
Accessing the Data Archive
Official statistics
Condemning and resurrecting official statistics
Official statistics as a form of unobtrusive method

ch. 15 Quantitative data analysis
A small research project
Missing data
Types of variable
Univariate analysis
Frequency tables
Diagrams
Measures of central tendency
Measures of dispersion
Bivariate analysis
Relationships not causality
Contingency tables
Pearson's r
Spearman's rho
Phi and Cramer's V
Contents note continued: Comparing means and eta
Multivariate analysis
Could the relationship be spurious?
Could there be an intervening variable?
Could a third variable moderate the relationship?
Statistical significance
The chi-square test
Correlation and statistical significance
Comparing means and statistical significance

ch. 16 Using IBM SPSS for Windows
Getting started in SPSS
Beginning SPSS
Entering data in the Data Viewer
Defining variables: variable names, missing values, variable labels, and value labels
Recoding variables
Computing a new variable
Data analysis with SPSS
Generating a frequency table
Generating a bar chart
Generating a pie chart
Generating a histogram
Generating the arithmetic mean, median, standard deviation, the range, and boxplots
Generating a contingency table, chi-square, and Cramer's V
Contents note continued: Generating Pearson's r and Spearman's rho
Generating scatter diagrams
Comparing means and eta
Generating a contingency table with three variables
Further operations in SPSS
Saving your data
Retrieving your data
Printing output

Part Three
ch. 17 The nature of qualitative research
The main steps in qualitative research
Concepts in qualitative research
Reliability and validity in qualitative research
Adapting reliability and validity for qualitative research
Alternative criteria for evaluating qualitative research
Recent discussions about quality criteria for qualitative research
Between quantitative and qualitative research criteria
Overview of the issue of criteria
The main preoccupations of qualitative researchers
Seeing through the eyes of the people being studied
Description and the emphasis on context
Contents note continued: Emphasis on process
Flexibility and limited structure
Concepts and theory grounded in data
The critique of qualitative research
Qualitative research is too subjective
Difficult to replicate
Problems of generalization
Lack of transparency
Some contrasts between quantitative and qualitative research
Some similarities between quantitative and qualitative research
Feminism and qualitative research

ch. 18 Sampling in qualitative research
Levels of sampling
Purposive sampling
Theoretical sampling
Generic purposive sampling
Not just people
Using more than one sampling approach

ch. 19 Ethnography and participant observation
Access
Overt versus covert ethnography
Access to closed settings
Access to open/public settings
Contents note continued: Ongoing access
Key informants
Roles for ethnographers
Active or passive?
Field notes
Types of field notes
Bringing ethnographic research to an end
Can there be a feminist ethnography?
The rise of visual ethnography
Writing ethnography
The changing nature of ethnography

ch. 20 Interviewing in qualitative research
Differences between the structured interview and the qualitative interview
Asking questions in the qualitative interview
Preparing an interview guide
Kinds of questions
Recording and transcription
Telephone interviewing
Life history and oral history interviewing
Feminist research and interviewing in qualitative research
Qualitative interviewing versus participant observation
Advantages of participant observation in comparison to qualitative interviewing
Contents note continued: Advantages of qualitative interviewing in comparison to participant observation
Overview

ch. 21 Focus groups
Uses of focus groups
Conducting focus groups
How many groups?
Size of groups
Level of moderator involvement
Selecting participants
Beginning and finishing
Group interaction in focus group sessions
Limitations of focus groups

ch. 22 Language in qualitative research
Conversation analysis
Assumptions of conversation analysis
Transcription and attention to detail
Some basic tools of conversation analysis
Discourse analysis
Uncovering interpretative repertoires
Producing facts
Critical discourse analysis

ch. 23 Documents as sources of data
Contents note continued: Introduction
Personal documents
Diaries, letters, and autobiographies
Visual objects
Official documents deriving from the state
Official documents deriving from private sources
Mass-media outputs
Virtual documents
The reality of documents
Interpreting documents
Qualitative content analysis
Semiotics
Hermeneutics

ch. 24 Qualitative data analysis
General strategies of qualitative data analysis
Analytic induction
Grounded theory
Basic operations in qualitative data analysis
Steps and considerations in coding
Turning data into fragments
Problems with coding
Thematic analysis
Narrative analysis
Secondary analysis of qualitative data

ch. 25 Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis: using NVivo
Is CAQDAS like quantitative data analysis software?
Contents note continued: No industry leader
Lack of universal agreement about the utility of CAQDAS
Learning NVivo
Searching text
Memos
Saving an NVivo project
Opening an existing NVivo project
Final thoughts

Part Four
ch. 26 Breaking down the quantitative/qualitative divide
The natural science model and qualitative research
Quantitative research and interpretivism
Quantitative research and constructionism
Research methods and epistemological and ontological considerations
Problems with the quantitative/qualitative contrast
Behaviour versus meaning
Theory and concepts tested in research versus theory and concepts emergent from data
Numbers versus words
Artificial versus natural
The mutual analysis of quantitative and qualitative research
A qualitative research approach to quantitative research
A quantitative research approach to qualitative research
Contents note continued: Quantification in qualitative research
Quasi-quantification in qualitative research
Combating anecdotalism through limited quantification

ch. 27 Mixed methods research: combining quantitative and qualitative research
The argument against mixed methods research
The embedded methods argument
The paradigm argument
Two versions of the debate about quantitative and qualitative research
Approaches to mixed methods research
A content analysis of articles based on mixed methods research
Approaches to combining quantitative and qualitative research in mixed methods research
Reflections on mixed methods research

ch. 28 E-research: Internet research methods
The Internet as object of analysis
Using the Internet to collect data from individuals
Online ethnography
Contents note continued: Qualitative research using online focus groups
Qualitative research using online personal interviews
Online social surveys
Email surveys
Web surveys
Mixing modes of survey administration
Sampling issues
Ethical considerations in Internet research
The state of e-research

ch. 29 Writing up social research
Writing up your research
Start early
Be persuasive
Get feedback
Avoid sexist, racist, and disablist language
Structure your writing
Writing up quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research
Writing up quantitative research
Writing up qualitative research
Writing up mixed methods research
Academic writing
Questions for review.

Includes bibliographical references and index