Book annotation not available for this title.Approaches to Social ResearchSingleton, Royce A., Jr./ Straits, Bruce C.Oxford Univ PrPublication 2009/08/06Number of 654Binding HARDCOVERLibrary of 2009021441
A good guide for research students at graduate level. However it lacked additional information as it relates to more practical guidance and examples for real world situations. Gave a vast wealth of knowledge on theory relating to qualitative and quantitative data collection.
2 Stars for the wealth of information this book contains.
Venting: The missing 3 stars is due to the poor presentation of these details. At times, I thought I was looking at a Matrix while trying to solve the Da Vinci Code. This is saying a lot considering that I love to decipher problems and piece together puzzles. My Cell Physiology text was more helpful in comparison, and that's an anomaly considering that my strength is not in science.
EXAMPLE:
I used to believe that books should never be burned, but I retract that; I would burn this one.
Productive Comments: A new edition would be more useful to accommodate visual learners. Preferably with tables and graphs that didn't look like my 5 year old cousin could have drawn. A textbook on research design shouldn't read like a never ending novel with hardly any distinctions between topics. I was shocked to see it even had a single space between themes. Research textbooks are better understood with clear and detailed diagrams, outlines, and tables, as well as properly constructed/organized sections.
Camaraderie: To my fellow Sociology geeks ... We hate, with passion, any professor who chooses this uninspired text as a required reading and lacks the ability to deliver the information sufficiently to compensate for it.
I was assigned this textbook for a class of Quantitative Methods of the Social Sciences. It's actually a pretty good book for those that want a clearly explained methodology on how to approach thinking about research design. Although some of the concepts seem obvious when they are explained, it is amazing how many studies exist without taking into consideration the many items that are articulated in these chapters.
The book is rich with examples as it explains the why's and hows of proper design. Many different types of analysis are introduced with the pro's and con's of their application.
This was one of my course books for Statistics. Although I don't enjoy the subject, the book was very easy to read and understand - it makes Statistics more sufferable for those of us who don't quite enjoy it :)
All in all, this book is incredibly well-structured and it is a joy to read. It guides the reader step-by-step towards understanding what social research is all about. A great resource for students studying research.