About the Book
Clear, comprehensive, and trusted, Bryman's Social Research Methods has guided over a quarter of a million students through their research methods course and student research project. The thoroughly updated sixth edition offers unrivalled coverage of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods with renewed focus and a fresh, modern feel.The authors have worked closely with lecturers and students in thoroughly updating the sixth edition to reflect the current social science landscape, and carefully streamlining content to make it relevant and appealing to today's students. As a result, the text's comprehensive coverage - which includes many new examples and additional material on areas such as social media research and big data - is now even clearer, more focused, and easier to navigate.NEW TO THIS EDITIONThoroughly but sensitively updated by three new authors. Dr Tom Clark, Dr Liam Foster, and Dr Luke Sloan bring specialist expertise and have worked closely with students and lecturers to build on Alan Bryman's impressive legacy.Extensively streamlined to provide even more focused coverage of the key aspects of social research, with adjustments made throughout to improve clarity and aid navigation.A clean, attractive new design makes the material easier than ever to read and use.Coverage - including citations and real research examples - has been broadened to better reflect the concerns and contexts of the book's geographically diverse, multi-disciplinary readership. Discussions of feminist perspectives have also been updated to highlight wider issues relating to marginalised groups and power dynamics in research, and inclusive, ethical practices are consistently endorsed.New material on recent developments within social research, including social media research and big data, has been embedded throughout and the numerous examples of real research have been thoroughly updated.In new 'Learn from experience' boxes, recent social science graduates from across the UK and Europe share their experiences of conducting a student research project. These candid accounts will inspire readers and help them to avoid common pitfalls and emulate successful approaches.Expanded digital resources now include a 'research process in practice' simulation, answers to the end-of-chapter questions, videos from the new 'Learn from experience' graduate panel, and screencast tutorials covering the data analysis software packages SPSS, Nvivo, R, and Stata.This title is available as an eBook. Please contact your Learning Resource Consultant for more information.
Table of Contents:
Part 1: The research process 1: The nature and process of social research 2: Social research strategies: quantitative research and qualitative research 3: Research designs 4: Planning a research project and formulating research questions 5: Reviewing the literature 6: Ethics and politics in social researchPart 2: Quantitative research 7: The nature of quantitative research 8: Sampling in quantitative research 9: Structured interviewing 10: Self-completion questionnaires 11: Asking questions 12: Structured observation 13: Content analysis 14: Using existing data 15: Quantitative data analysisPart 3: Qualitative research 16: The nature of qualitative research 17: Sampling in qualitative research 18: Ethnography and participant observation 19: Interviewing in qualitative research 20: Focus groups 21: Language in qualitative research 22: Documents as sources of data 23: Qualitative data analysisPart 4: Mixed methods research and writing up 24: Combining quantitative and qualitative research 25: Writing up social research
About the Author :
Dr Tom Clark is a Lecturer in Research Methods at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is interested in all aspects of methods and methodology, particularly with respect to learning and teaching. His other interests have variously focussed on the sociology of evil, student experiences of higher education, and football fandom. Tom's work has been published in a wide variety of journals, including Sociology, Qualitative Research, Social Policy and Administration, Teaching in Higher Education, the Journal of Education and Work, and Qualitative Social Work.
Dr Liam Foster is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Sheffield, UK, who specializes in pensions and theories of ageing. Liam also has a longstanding interest in methods and has published widely in this area, including Beginning Statistics for Social Scientists (with Sir Ian Diamond and Dr Julie Jefferies). He has been an invited speaker at the Department for Education, Department for Work and Pensions, the European Parliament in Brussels, the House of Lords, and the UN in New York, as a world leading expert on ageing. Liam is a member of the UK Social Policy Association Executive Committee. He is also the Managing Editor of Social Policy and Society.
Dr Luke Sloan is a Reader, Deputy Director of the Social Data Science Lab, and Co-Director of Cardiff Q-Step at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, UK. Luke's internationally recognised work focuses on exploring how social media data, specifically from Twitter, can be used for social scientific research. He is co-editor of the SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods and has published widely on how Twitter can help us understand social phenomena and the ethics of using this data for research. His work has appeared in journals including Sociology, Social Media + Society, the British Journal of Criminology, Electoral Studies, PLoS ONE, and the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics.
Alan Bryman was Professor of Organizational and Social Research at the University of Leicester from 2005 to 2017. Prior to this he was Professor of Social Research at Loughborough University for 31 years. His main research interests were in leadership, especially in higher education, research methods (particularly mixed methods research), and the 'Disneyization' and 'McDonaldization' of modern society. Alan also co-authored Business Research Methods (Oxford University Press, 2018), helped conceive of How to do your Social Research Project or Dissertation (Oxford University Press, 2019), and contributed to a range of leading journals: he was an extraordinarily well-cited and internationally renowned social scientist.
Review :
The importance of evidence to inform decisions on social phenomena has never been greater; or more widely accepted. This book, which I have loved throughout its successive editions, remains a model of clarity and of balance in choice of research method and strategy to undertake the research. The authors deserve huge credit for modernising this excellent book while losing none of its insight.
