How to Do Your Research Project
Höfundur:
Gary Thomas (Útgáfa: 5)
Kaup valmöguleikar
Clear, coherent and readable, this bestselling guide is now in its fifth edition, providing easy to follow advice for anyone undertaking a research project. Covering each stage of the process, from choosing a research question to collecting and analysing data, and finally writing up findings, this book equips students with the essential tools for success.This new edition features:Case studies weaved throughout giving real-life examples of the issues and/or methods being discussed.Practical activities, seminar tasks and checklists.Updated content with the latest research methods and ethical considerations.Details on new AI research tools and how they can be used. Designed for students in the applied social sciences, this book aligns with assessment criteria and provides the essential support you need to complete a research project successfully.
Nánar um bókina
- SAGE Publications, Ltd. (UK)
- 9781036228682
- 9781036215330
- ePub
- 5
- Gary Thomas
- English
- 2025-11-28
- 100
- 30
- 30
Kaflar
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- About the author
- Preface to the 5th edition
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Your Introduction
- Begin at the beginning: The introduction
- Who cares? What is the point of this research?
- Thinking of a research idea
- Research questions
- A thesis statement
- Four kinds of question
- The four kinds of question – and some nutshell-sized studies
- Does your question demand a descriptive or an explanatory answer?
- Is it feasible? Problems with research questions
- Is it precise?
- Is it doable?
- Prima facie questions
- Kinds of evidence and kinds of answer
- Being critical about evidence – thinking critically
- A title
- What research is – and what it isn’t
- Overview
- Further reading
- Checklist
- 2 Project Management, Ethics and Getting Clearance
- Understanding the structure of your dissertation or thesis
- Drawing a timeline
- Just look at those fingernails! Time management
- Make a schedule
- Little and often
- Negotiate time
- Set yourself targets
- Decide on a time period
- If you still can’t find the time
- Stresses in doing research
- Isolation
- Things going wrong
- Access
- Working with your supervisor
- Ethics
- The importance of being ethical
- Getting clearance – ethical review
- Levels of risk
- Risk assessment
- Risk management
- Guides on ethics
- Undergraduate-level ethical clearance
- Postgraduate-level ethical clearance
- What to think about in considering ethics
- Ethics and the use of social media in research
- Care for your participants – and for yourself
- Where do I put discussion about ethics in my dissertation?
- Overview
- Further reading
- Checklist
- 3 The Literature Review, Part 1: Searching
- What are we searching for?
- Primary and secondary sources
- Quality of sources
- Critical awareness: Be questioning about the literature you find
- Why is this lying bastard lying to me?
- Speed reading and taking notes
- Saving and storing with reference managers
- Searching with Google Scholar
- Using Google Scholar to organise your references
- Other ways of using Google Scholar
- Snowballing
- Artificial intelligence (AI) tools
- What are AI tools good (and not so good) for?
- Use your library
- Keywords
- Some useful library portals and platforms
- Specific subject databases
- Other sources of information
- Official statistics
- Theses
- Images and videos
- Inter-library loan
- Understanding how sources are cited: The Harvard and APA referencing systems
- Overview
- Further reading
- Checklist
- 4 The Literature Review, Part 2: Developing a Narrative
- Your literature review should tell a story – it should not be a list
- First, scoping
- Draw a mindmap
- Scaffold your review
- Systematic literature reviews
- How much detail should I use in discussing the literature?
- Reframe your research question (if necessary)
- Your final question
- Overview
- Further reading
- Checklist
- 5 Methodology, Part 1: Deciding on an Approach
- Research design and methodology
- Practical issues concerning research design
- Research approach
- Scientist or spy?
- Frameworks for thinking about the social world: Paradigms
- Positivism
- Interpretivism
- Paradigms and research approach
- What planet are you on?
- Writing about paradigms
- But is it science?
- The Q words: Qualitative and quantitative
- Thinking critically: How the ‘ologies’ help
- Ontology
- Epistemology
- Critical awareness (again)
- From purposes to questions, to approaches, to data gathering
- Designing research: An example
- Overview
- Further reading
- Checklist
- 6 Methodology, Part 2: Designing Your Research
- What is research design?
- Fixed and emergent designs
- Some general issues in design
- Sampling
- Variables
- Reliability
- Validity
- Experimenter effects
- Generalisation and generalisability
- Positionality
- Triangulation
- How to structure and write your methodology chapter
- Overview
- Further reading
- Checklist
- 7 Methodology, Part 3: The Design Frames
- Action research
- Case study
- Choosing a case study subject
- What kind of case study?
- Interpretative phenomenological analysis
- Ethnography
- Taking field notes in ethnography
- Ethnomethodology
- Dramaturgy and narrative research
- Autoethnography
- Evaluation
- Experiment
- Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies – and surveys
- Longitudinal study
- Cross-sectional study
- Survey
- Comparative study
- No design frame
- Can I mix design frames and methods?
- Postmodernism
- Overview
- Further reading
- Action research
- Case study
- Interpretative phenomenological analysis
- Ethnography
- Evaluation
- Experiment
- Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies
- Comparative research
- Mixing methods
- Postmodernism
- Checklist
- 8 Data Gathering
- What are data-gathering tools?
- Be creative
- Data-gathering tools – mainly for use with words
- Interviews
- Accounts
- Diaries
- Keeping a reflective journal
- Group interviews and focus groups
- Document interrogation
- Using social media to gather data and to collaborate with other researchers and participants
- Data-gathering tools – for use with words and/or numbers
- Questionnaires
- Observation
- Gathering image-based data
- Data-gathering tools – mainly for use with numbers
- Measurements and tests
- Official statistics
- Overview
- Further reading
- Interviews and accounts
- Diaries
- Reflective journals
- Focus groups
- Questionnaires
- Observation
- Image-based methods
- Tests
- Official statistics
- Checklist
- 9 How to Analyse and Discuss the Information You Gather
- Analysing words
- Constant comparative method and coding
- Network analysis
- Construct mapping and theme mapping
- Grounded theory
- Thick description
- Discourse and content analysis
- Computers and verbal data analysis
- Sociograms
- In-betweenies: Words to numbers and developing a coding frame
- Analysing numbers
- Kinds of numbers
- Eyeballing
- Using Excel to do your data analysis
- Statistics that describe
- Statistics that help you understand a relationship between two variables
- Statistics that help you to deduce (or infer)
- Reviewing your options on analysis
- Discussing your analysis
- Synthesis (and analysis)
- Theorising
- Organising your discussion – alongside or after the analysis?
- Overview
- Further reading
- Analysing words
- Analysing numbers
- Checklist
- 10 Concluding and Writing Up
- Writing a conclusion
- Writing up
- Writing an abstract and finalising the title
- The final shape
- General points about writing and presentation
- Communicating your findings
- The ‘territory’ of your writing
- Finding your voice
- Writing in the right style
- Considerations about inclusivity in your writing and thinking
- Plagiarism
- AI and plagiarism
- Presentation
- Editing
- What it looks like on the page
- Coda
- Further reading
- Checklist
- Glossary
- References
- Index