How to Do Your Research Project

Höfundur: Gary Thomas (Útgáfa: 5)
How to Do Your Research Project

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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.

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Útgefandi
SAGE Publications, Ltd. (UK)
ISBN
9781036228682
Print ISBN
9781036215330
Format
ePub
Útgáfa
5
Höfundar
Gary Thomas
Tungumál
English
Útgefið
2025-11-28
Prent takmörkun á líftíma
100
Prent takmörkun
30
Afritunar takmörkun
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