Becoming a Researcher: A Companion to the Research Process

This innovative book combines what most books separate: research as practical activity and research as intellectual engagement. It clarifies and makes explicit the methodological issues that underlie the journey from initial research idea to the finished report and beyond. The text moves the researcher logically through the research process and provides insights into methodology through an in-depth discussion of methods. It presents the research process as an engagement with text. This theme moves through the construction of text in the form of data and the deconstruction of text in analysis. Finally the focus moves to the reconstruction of text through the re-presentation of the research in the report. Following through each of these stages in turn, the chapters consider either a practical issue or a group of methods and interrogate the associated methodological concerns. In addition, the book also addresses the rarely explored issues of the researcher as writer and researcher identity as core elements of the research process. The book provides a range of insights and original perspectives. These successfully combine practical guidance with the invitation to consider the problematic nature of research as social practice. It is an ideal reference for those embarking on research for the first time and provides a new methodological agenda for established researchers.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction What sort of book? Writers' voices Making a Reading Themes Structure Part 1 - Distinguishing Data - Constructing text Chapter 2 The Logic of Enquiry Finding a Place to Stand The Nature of the Social Positivism and Social Values Reflexivity The Logic of Enquiry Chapter 3 Talking with people - Interviewing Introduction The broad schema Interview texts as ' resource' Interviews as social action Power and process in the interview Knowledge and Power Questions and Design Chapter 4 Knowing with Numbers- Questionnaires Introduction Quantification as Scientific Inquiry The Questionnaire as Scientific Apparatus Constructing the Respondent / Reader Theoretical structuring Deconstruction Using Questionnaires Chapter 5 Being There - Observation Introduction Action in the Field From Action to Data From Data to Report Conclusion Part 2-Dicing with data - Deconstructing text Chapter 6 Breaking Down Data - Routes to Interpretation Introduction From Field to Text Dicing with Data Perhaps not...? Complex Realisms Interpretivist Repertoires Reflexivity and Representation Chapter 7 Worrying at Words - Discourse Analysis Introduction Transcripts and Summaries Critical? Uncritical? Reference Outside the Text: Circularity of Argument Thought and Language: More Circularity Generalizing Spotting Features Discourse Analysis and Researcher Identity Chapter 8 Pulverizing Policy - Deconstructing Documents Policy and Process Deconstructing the Text The Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Curriculum Analysing Key Documents The QCA Draft Guidance Part 3 -Data with Destiny - Reconstructing Text Chapter 9 Writing Research - Authoring Text Writing and the Real Art and Science Writing the Real Qualitative Empiricism Epistemology Language and the Real: Writing and Postmodernism Audience Reading Intertextuality Form and Genre Knowledge Chapter 10 The Selfish Text - Research and Identity The Late Modern Self Narrating the Self Postmodern Selves: Agency and Determinism Identity and Social Theory Culture and the Global Perspective The Democratization of Research Chapter 11 Methods and Methodology What is Methodology? Methodology, the Research Process and Identity Methodology and Legitimacy - Identity and Narrative A Way Forward for Social Research? P.S.

About the Author :
Dr Mairead Dunne is Senior Lecturer in Education at Institute of Education, University of Sussex. John Pryor and Paul Yates are also at the University of Sussex.