Selecting Research Methods: (Sage Benchmarks in Social Research Methods)

Selecting Research Methods provides advice from prominent social scientists concerning the most crucial steps for planning and undertaking meaningful research: selecting the methods to be used. Contributors to the collection address methodological choices in four stages: design, sampling, coding and measurement, and analysis. The volumes provide an integrated approach to methodological choice in two ways. First, the contributions range from the early decisions about design options through the concluding choices about analyzing, interpreting, and presenting results. Second, the collection is integrated because it addresses the needs of projects that collect qualitative evidence, quantitative data, or both. Volume 1 concerns design choice; the articles focus on selecting designs that are effective for answering research questions and achieving the goals of the researcher. Volume 2 is on sampling and includes, in addition to sampling from populations, advice on choosing methods for recruiting informants for interviews, selecting sites for participant observation, and assigning subjects to control and experimental groups. Volume 3 reviews options for coding and measurement; it emphasizes methodological choices that enable researchers to study concepts in ways that enhance the reliability and validity of the research. Finally, the articles included in Volume 4 review the range of choices available among methods to analyze results and interpret the meanings of evidence.

Table of Contents:
VOLUME 1: SELECTING DESIGNS FOR GATHERING EVIDENCE Epistemological Diversity and Education Research: Much ado about nothing much? The Poverty of Deductivism: A Constructive Realist Model Of Sociological Explanation - H. Siegel A Tale Of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative And Qualitative Research - P.S. Gorski What Good is Polarizing Research into Qualitative and Quantitative? - J. Mahoney and G. Goertz Integrating Survey and Ethnographic Methods for Systematic Anomalous Case Analysis - K. Ercikan and W.M. Roth What Works and Why: Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches in large-scale evaluations - L.D. Pearce Fieldwork, Economic Theory, and Research on Institutions in Developing Countries - I. Plewis and P. Mason The Benefits of Being There: Evidence from the literature on work - C. Udry Mapping the Process: An exemplar of process and challenge in grounded theory analysis - D. Tope, L.J. Chamberlain, M. Crowley and R. Hodson Identity in Focus: The use of focus groups to study the construction of collective identity - B. Harry, K.M. Sturges and J.K. Klinger Rational Choice, Structural Context, and Increasing Returns: A strategy for analytic narrative in historical sociology - J. Munday The Growth and Development of Experimental Research in Political Science - N. Pedriana The Logic of The Survey Experiment Reexamined - J.N. Druckman, Donald P. Green, J.H. Kuklinski and A. Lupia The Role of Randomized Field Trials in Social Science Research - B.J. Gaines, J.H. Kuklinski, and P.J. Quirk Naturally Occurring Preferences and Exogenous Laboratory Experiments: A case study of risk aversion - R.A. Moffitt Understanding Interaction Models: Improving empirical analysis - G.W. Harrison, J.A. List and C. Towe A Potential Outcomes View of Value-Added Assessment in Education - T. Brambor, W.R. Clark and M. Golder What are Value-Added Models Estimating and what does this Imply for Statistical Practice? - D.B. Rubin, E.A. Stuart and E.L. Zanutto VOLUME 2: METHODS TO SAMPLE, RECRUIT, AND ASSIGN CASES - S.W. Raudenbush Recruitment for a Panel Study of Australian Retirees The Difficulty of Identifying Rare Samples to Study: The case of schools divided into schools within schools - Y. Wells, W. Petralia, D. Devaus and H. Kendig In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies - V.E. Lee, D.D. Ready and D.J. Johnson Population Estimation without Censuses or Surveys: A discussion of mark-recapture methods - J. Henrich, R. Boyd, S. Bowles, C. Camerer, E. Fehr, H. Gintis and R. Mcelreath A Different Kind of Snowball: Identifying Key Policymakers - M. Bloor Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling - K. Farquharson Sample Size: More than calculations - M.J. Salganik and D.D. Heckathorn Sample Size Planning for the Standardized Mean Difference: Accuracy in parameter estimation via narrow confidence intervals - R.A. Parker and N.G. Bergman Sufficient Sample Sizes for Multilevel Modeling - K. Kelley and J.R. Rausch Two-Step Hierarchical Estimation: Beyond regression analysis - C.J.M. Maas and J.J. Hox Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Method Strategy for Comparative Research - C.H. Achen When Can History Be Our Guide? The pitfalls of counterfactual inference - E.S. Lieberman The Possibility Principle: Choosing negative cases in comparative research - G. King and L. Zeng Use of Extreme Groups Approach: A critical reexamination and new recommendations - J. Mahoney and G. Goertz The Intervention Selection Bias: An underrecognized confound in intervention research - K.J. Preacher, R.C. Maccallum, D. Rucker and W.A. Nicewander Getting the Most from Archived Qualitative Data: Epistemological, practical, and professional obstacles - R.E. Larzelere, B.R. Kuhn and B. Johnson Whose Data are they Anyway? Practical, legal and ethical issues in archiving qualitative research data - N. Fielding Recording Technologies and the Interview in Sociology, 1920-2000 - O. Parry and N.S. Mauthner Toward An Open-Source Methodology: What we can learn from the blogosphere - R.M. Lee Does Mode Matter for Modeling Political Choice? Evidence from the 2005 british election study - M.M. Blumenthal Reaching Migrants in Survey Research: The use of global position system to reduce coverage bias in China - D. Sanders, H.D. Clarke, M.C. Stewart and P. Whitley VOLUME 3: METHODS FOR CODING & MEASURING DATA - P.E. Landry, and M. Shen Can there be Reliability without "Reliability"? The Meaning and Consequences of "Reliability." - R.J. Mislevy My Current Thoughts on Coefficient Alpha and its Successor Procedures - P.A. Moss Reliability: Arguments for multiple perspectives and potential problems with generalization across studies - L.J. Cronbach Reliability: A Rasch Perspective - D.M. Dimitrov Instructional Program Coherence: What it is and why it should guide school improvement policy - R.E. Schumacker and E.V. Smith Measurement Validity: A shared standard for qualitative and quantitative research - F.M. Newman, B. Smith, E. Allensworth and A.S. Bryk What Good are Statistics that don′t Generalize? - R. Adcock and D. Collier Enhancing the Validity and Cross-Cultural Comparability of Measurement in Survey Research - D.W. Shaffer and R.C. Serlin Death by Survey: Estimating Adult mortality without selection bias from sibling survival data - G. King, C.J.L. Murray, J.A. Salomon and A. Tandon Ratings and Rankings: Reconsidering the structure of values and their measurement - E. Gakidou and G. King A Lot More To Do: The sensitivity of time-series cross-section analyses to simple alternative specifications - S. Ovadia Methods for Testing and Evaluating Survey Questions - S.E. Wilson and D.M. Butler Research Synthesis: The practice of cognitive interviewing - S. Presser, M.P. Couper, J.T. Lessler, E. Martin, J. Martin, J.M. Rothgeb and E. Singer Pretesting Experimental Instructions - P.C. Beatty and G.B. Willis Use of Exploratory Factor Analysis in Published Research: Common errors and some comment on improved practice - L.S. Rashotte, M. Webster and J.M. Whitmeyer Comparing Check-all and Forced-Choice Question Formats in Web Surveys - R.K. Henson and J.K. Roberts Helping Respondents Get it Right the First Time: The influence of words, symbols, and graphics in web surveys - J.D. Smyth, D.A. Dillman, L.M. Christian and M.J. Stern An Assessment of Alternative Measures of Time Use - L.M. Christian, D.A. Dillman and J.D. Smyth Event History Calendars and Question List Surveys: A direct comparison of interviewing methods - F.T. Juster, H. Ono and F.P. Stafford VOLUME 4: METHODS FOR ANALYSING AND REPORTING RESULTS - R.F. Belli, W.L. Shay and F.P. Stafford The Contribution of Computer Software to Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Data Analysis What do Economists Talk About? A linguistic analysis of published writing in economic journals - P. Bazeley Dimension Reduction of Word-Frequency Data as a Substitute for Intersubjective Content Analysis - N. Goldschmidt and B. Szmrecsanyi Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data - A.F. Simon and M. Xenos TCQA: A Technique For Adding Temporality to Qualitative Comparative Analysis - M. Laver, K. Benoit and J. Garry Reducing Complexity in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA): Remote and proximate factors and the consolidation of democracy - N. Caren and A. Panofsky Fuzzy Sets and Social Research - C.O. Schneider and C. Wagemann Causal Complexity and Party Preference - C.C Ragin and P. Pennings Running a Best-Subsets Logistic Regression: An alternative to stepwise methods - G. Grendstad Introduction to the Special Issue on Model Selection - J.E. King Consider Propensity Scores to Compare Treatments - D.L. Weakliem Remarks on the Analysis of Causal Relationships in Population Research - L.M. Rudner and J. Peyton Statistical Inference and Patterns of Inequality in the Global North - R. Moffitt Generalization in Qualitative Research - T.P. Moran The Difference between ′Significant′ and ′Not Significant′ Is Not Itself Statistically Significant - G. Payne and M. Williams Replication with Attention to Numerical Accuracy - A. Gelman and H. Stern Diversity in Everyday Research Practice: The case of data editing - M. Altman and M.P. Mcdonald Why We Need a Structured Abstract in Education Research - E. Leahey, B. Entwisle and P. Einaudi Strengthening Structured Abstracts for Education Research: The need for claim-based structured abstracts - F. Mosteller, B. Nave and and E.J. Miech A History of Effect Size Indices - A.E. Kelly and R.K. Yin

About the Author :
W. Paul Vogt is Emeritus Professor of Research Methods and Evaluation at Illinois State University where he won both teaching and research awards. He specializes in methodological choice and program evaluation and is particularly interested in ways to integrate multiple methods. His other books include: Tolerance & Education: Learning to Live with Diversity and Difference (Sage Publications, 1998); Quantitative Research Methods for Professionals (Allyn & Bacon, 2007); Education Programs for Improving Intergroup Relations (coedited with Walter Stephan, Teachers College Press, 2004). He is also editor of four 4-volume sets in the series, Sage Benchmarks in Social Research Methods: Selecting Research Methods (2008); Data Collection (2010); Quantitative Research Methods (2011); and, with Burke Johnson, Correlation and Regression Analysis (2012).His most recent publications include the coauthored When to Use What Research Design (2012) and Selecting the Right Analyses for Your Data: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (2014).