Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research

by Russell K. Schutt

The author is a proud sponsor of the 2020 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award—enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop.

In the Ninth Edition of his leading social research text, Russell K. Schutt, an award-winning researcher and teacher, continues to make the field come alive with current, compelling examples of high quality research and the latest innovations in research methodology, along with a clear and comprehensive introduction to the logic and techniques of social science research. Through numerous hands-on exercises that promote learning by doing, Investigating the Social World helps students to understand research methods as an integrated whole. Using examples from research on contemporary social issues, the text underscores the value of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and the need to make ethical research decisions. Investigating the Social World develops the critical skills necessary to evaluate published research, and to carry out one’s own original research.

 

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Genres: Sociology, Research, Nonfiction, Textbooks, College, Academic, School

726 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[April Lowrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Zzzzzzz. Had to read it for school.

[Atınç Gürçay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book for starters.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is decent, but not great.

[Nik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad for a methods textbook!

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for a class. Some of the material is admittedly interesting, but there's just too much fluff. Definitely can do without 40% of the pages. I think in the beginning of the book it tells you about searching through journals online and stuff -- that just is not necessary, not to mention that most readers are likely going to be more tech-savvy than the author himself.

Some people in the class complained that some things were too rigorous in the book or something, but I disagree. They say it's "obvious" or something, and shouldn't have to be tested -- well then why are you still getting a shit grade then? Anyway, every science has to be pedantic and rigorous for it to be taken seriously. If you came into sociology thinking it'd be a walk in the park compared to a harder science like physics, think again -- each domain has its own specific challenges that are, in fact, genuinely challenging. I might even say that the book doesn't reach that level, though it does have a lot of fluff.

That said, it's not dense. It's very readable even by textbook standards. I'd give it 2.5 for that, which would make me round to 3, but the statistician in me (relevant to sociology!) tells me I should round to even. So, 2/5.

It also has a lot of example research, so there's that.

[Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first few chapters of this book were pretty promising and did a good job at engaging me, but by the end he's telling you how to use WinZip. Seriously dude? There's more filler material like that towards the end, information that's basically completely worthless. I would give the first couple to first several chapters 4 stars, and then the later ones like 1 or 0. I read the book cover to cover (well, except for the table of contents and the index) and it seemed to get progressively worse. He just tries to cover so much information. Sometimes he goes into way too much detail and sometimes there is not even close to enough specific information to be useful for actually learning about the concepts or how research is really conducted. Adding to my ire is the fact that the most I'll be able to sell it back for is like $5.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is as good as any for an introduction to sociological methods at the graduate level. The text is not too simple, and the concepts are well-presented. Overall a good entry into the methodologies of the field.

[Elyas Sobhan]

Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to research methods.

[Debby Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was a bit unnecessarily redundant. Required reading for Research Methods.