Designing Qualitative Research

With expanded coverage of ethics, analysis processes and approaches, the authors have updated their bestselling text to reflect recent advances and challenges. Features in the Fourth Edition include: - Recent thinking on 'the researcher in the research setting' - Consideration of the current political climate - Updated references and Further Reading sections - Postscripts at the end of each chapter that consist of a dialogue between a student and an advisor, illustrating design dilemmas in real time - A step-by-step guide to crafting a research project from start to finish.

Table of Contents:
Preface 1. Introduction Qualitative Research Genres The Challenges Developing an Argument Overview of the Book Dialogues Between Learners Further Reading 2. The "What" of the Study: Building the Conceptual Framework Sections of the Proposal Building the Conceptual Framework: Topic, Purpose, and Significance Posing Research Questions Limitations of the Study Review of Related Literature Dialogues Between Learners Further Reading 3. The "How" of the Study: Building the Research Design Meeting the Challenge Justifying Qualitative Research The Qualitative Genre and Overall Approach The Setting, Site, Population, or Phenomenon Selecting a Sample of People, Actions, Events, and/or Processes The Researcher's Role: Issues of Entry, Reciprocity, Personal Biography, and Ethics Dialogues Between Learners Further Reading 4. Data Collection Methods Primary Methods Secondary and Specialized Methods Combining Data Collection Methods General Principles for Designing Data Collection Strategies Dialogues Between Learners Further Reading 5. Managing, Analyzing, and Interpreting Data Recording and Managing Data Generic Data Analysis Strategies Analytic Procedures Dialogues Between Learners Further Reading 6. Planning Time and Resources Planning Resources for a Large Study Planning Dissertation Research Dialogues Between Learners Further Reading 7. Articulating the Value and Logic of Qualitative Research Criteria of Soundness Demonstrating the Essential Qualitativeness of the Questions Demonstrating Precedents A Final Word Dialogues Between Learners References

About the Author :
Catherine Marshall is Professor in the Department of Educa-tional Leadership at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Once a teacher in Rhode Island, studies and career moves include doctoral studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles, and faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University before moving in 1991 to Chapel Hill. The ongoing goal of her teaching and re-search has been to use an interdisciplinary approach to ana-lyze cultures-of schools, state policy systems, and the professional development of adults working in organizations. She has published extensively about the politics of education, qualitative methodology, and women's access to careers as well as about the socialization, language, and values in educa-tional leadership. She is the author of Reframing Educational Politics for Social Justice, Leadership for Social Justice: Making Revolutions in Education, Culture and Education Policy in the American States and Designing Qualitative Research, and other books, as well as numerous articles on the administrative career, es-pecially the entrant, the assistant principal. Gretchen B. Rossman is a Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She received her Ph.D. in education from the University of Pennsylvania with a specialization in higher education administration. She has served as Visiting Professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Prior to coming to the University of Massachusetts, she was a Senior Research Associate at Research for Better Schools in Philadelphia. Her research has focused on local impact of changes in federal, state, and local policy. In addition to her teaching and research responsibilities, she consults regularly on restructuring in schools and serves as a qualitative evaluation specialist to several educational organizations.

Review :
"The book is just fabulous, straight-forward, not lofty-but still elegant, grounded. I searched carefully for a text to support my methods, and was disappointed by many. I enjoy that the text contains relatively little jargon, clear definitions of terms in common use and the vignettes are practical." -- Karen Sue Rolph 20070716