Book picks similar to
Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences by Bruce L. Berg
non-fiction
research
research-methods
sociology
The Interpretation of Cultures
Clifford Geertz - 1973
This groundbreaking book, winner of the 1974 Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association, helped define for an entire generation of anthropologists what their field is ultimately about.
What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy
James Paul Gee - 2003
James Paul Gee begins his new book with 'I want to talk about vide games- yes, even violent video games - and say some positive things about them'. With this simple but explosive beginning, one of America's most well-respected professors of education looks seriously at the good that can come from playing video games. Gee is interested in the cognitive development that can occur when someone is trying to escape a maze, find a hidden treasure and, even, blasting away an enemy with a high-powered rifle. Talking about his own video-gaming experience learning and using games as diverse as Lara Croft and Arcanum, Gee looks at major specific cognitive activities: How individuals develop a sense of identity; How one grasps meaning; How one evaluates and follows a command; How one picks a role model; How one perceives the world.
Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Approaches
R. Burke Johnson - 2003
Readers will develop an understanding of the multiple research methods and strategies used in education and related fields, the ability to read and critically evaluate published research, and the ability to write a proposal, construct a questionnaire, and conduct an empirical research study on their own.
Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences
Geoffrey C. Bowker - 1999
Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis.The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.
Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way Into the Graduate School at Your Choice
Donald Asher - 1991
The 50 sample essays-selected from thousands of candidates-showcase the best of the best, while the Essay Hall of Shame identifies common pitfalls to avoid. Sample letters of recommendation and essays for scholarships, residencies, fellowships, and postgraduate and postdoctoral applications cover all stages of the application process. Teaches how to craft a winning essay with 50 state-of-the-art samples to inspire, instruct, and all but guarantee a top-of-the-pile application. Updated third edition includes an entirely new chapter dedicated to online applications and how they're managed, processed, and considered. Previous editions have sold 100,000 copies.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities
Gregory M. Colon Semenza - 2005
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the attrition rate for American Ph.D. programs is at an all-time high, between 40% and 50% (higher for women and minorities). Of those who finish, only one in three will secure tenure-track jobs. These statistics highlight waste: of millions of dollars by universities and of time and energy by students. Rather than teaching graduate students how to be graduate students, then, the guide prepares them for what they really seek: a successful academic career.
Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter
George D. Kuh - 2005
This book clearly shows the benefits of student learning and educational effectiveness that can be realized when these conditions are present. Based on the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, this book provides concrete examples from twenty institutions that other colleges and universities can learn from and adapt to help create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment.
The Research Methods Knowledge Base
William Trochim - 1999
It can be used in a variety of disciplines and is ideal for an introductory comprehensive undergraduate or graduate level course. Through its conversational, informal style it makes material that is often challenging for students both accessible and understandable. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 3e covers everything from the development of a research question to the writing of a final report, describing both practical and technical issues of sampling, measurement, design and analysis.
Evaluating Research in Academic Journals: A Practical Guide to Realistic Evaluation
Fred Pyrczak - 1999
For each question, there is a concise explanation of how to apply it in the evaluation of research reports.Numerous examples from journals in the social and behavioral sciences illustrate the application of the evaluation questions. Students see actual examples of strong and weak features of published reports.Commonsense models for evaluation combined with a lack of jargon make it possible for students to start evaluating research articles the first week of class.The structure of this book enables students to work with confidence while evaluating articles for homework.Avoids oversimplification in the evaluation process by describing the nuances that may make an article publishable even though it has serious methodological flaws. Students learn when and why certain types of flaws may be tolerated. They learn why evaluation should not be performed mechanically.This book received very high student evaluations when field-tested with students just beginning their study of research methods.Contains more than 60 new examples from recently published research. In addition, minor changes have been made throughout for consistency with the latest edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association."
Mail and Internet Surveys
Don A. Dillman - 1978
Now thoroughly updated and revised with information about all aspects of survey research?grounded in the most current research?the new edition provides practical ?how-to? guidelines on optimally using the Internet, mail, and phone channels to your advantage.
Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology
Hugh Coolican - 1990
The book assumes no prior knowledge, taking the student through every stage of their research project in manageable steps. Advice on planning and conducting studies, analyzing data, and writing up practical reports is given, and examples are provided, as well as advice on how to report results in conventional (APA) style. Unlike other introductory texts, there is practical guidance on qualitative research, as well as discussion of issues of bias, interpretation, and variance. Content on qualitative methods has been expanded for the fifth edition and now includes additional material on widely used methods, such as grounded theory, thematic analysis, interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), and discourse analysis. The book provides clear coverage of statistical procedures, and includes everything needed at an undergraduate level from nominal level tests, to multi-factorial ANOVA designs, multiple regression, and log linear analysis. In addition, the book provides detailed and illustrated SPSS textbook. Each chapter contains a self-test glossary, key terms, and exercises, ensuring that key concepts have been understood. Students are further supported. Students are further supported by an accompanying website that provides additional exercises, revision flash cards, links to further reading, and data for use with SPSS. The website will also include updated coverage of SPSS should a new version be launched. The bestselling research methods text for over a decade, Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology remains an invaluable resource for students of psychology throughout their studies.
How to Write a Thesis
Umberto Eco - 1977
Some years before that, in 1977, Eco published a little book for his students, "How to Write a Thesis," in which he offered useful advice on all the steps involved in researching and writing a thesis -- from choosing a topic to organizing a work schedule to writing the final draft. Now in its twenty-third edition in Italy and translated into seventeen languages, "How to Write a Thesis "has become a classic. Remarkably, this is its first, long overdue publication in English.Eco's approach is anything but dry and academic. He not only offers practical advice but also considers larger questions about the value of the thesis-writing exercise. "How to Write a Thesis" is unlike any other writing manual. It reads like a novel. It is opinionated. It is frequently irreverent, sometimes polemical, and often hilarious. Eco advises students how to avoid "thesis neurosis" and he answers the important question "Must You Read Books?" He reminds students "You are not Proust" and "Write everything that comes into your head, but only in the first draft." Of course, there was no Internet in 1977, but Eco's index card research system offers important lessons about critical thinking and information curating for students of today who may be burdened by Big Data."How to Write a Thesis" belongs on the bookshelves of students, teachers, writers, and Eco fans everywhere. Already a classic, it would fit nicely between two other classics: "Strunk and White" and "The Name of the Rose."This MIT Press edition will be available in three different cover colors.ContentsThe Definition and Purpose of a ThesisChoosing the TopicConducting ResearchThe Work Plan and the Index CardsWriting the ThesisThe Final Draft
Methodology of the Oppressed
Chela Sandoval - 2000
Third World feminism" into the narrative in a way that thoroughly alters our perspective on contemporary culture and subjectivity.What Sandoval has identified is a language, a rhetoric of resistance to postmodern cultural conditions. U.S liberation movements of the post-World War II era generated specific modes of oppositional consciousness. Out of these emerged a new activity of consciousness and language Sandoval calls the "methodology of the oppressed". This methodology -- born of the strains of the cultural and identity struggles that currently mark global exchange -- holds out the possibility of a new historical moment, a new citizen-subject, and a new form of alliance consciousness and politics.Utilizing semiotics and U.S. Third World feminist criticism, Sandoval demonstrates how this methodology mobilizes love as a category of critical analysis. Rendering this approach in all its specifics, Methodology of the Oppressed gives rise to an alternative mode of criticism opening new perspectives on a theoretical, literary, aesthetic, social movement, or psychic expression.
How to Get a PhD: A Handbook for Students and Their Supervisors
Estelle M. Phillips - 1987
students, providing a practical, realistic understanding of the processes of doing research for a doctorate.New to this edition: a section on increasingly popular professional doctorates such as Ed.D., D.B.A., and D.Eng; material for supervisors of overseas, part-time, and mature students; and a diagnostic questionnaire for students to monitor progress.
Foundations of Behavioral Research
Fred N. Kerlinger - 1973
This edition includes new information about computer statistical software, multivariate statistics, research ethics, and writing research reports in APA style. This book is ideal for graduate students in that it covers statistics, research methodology, and measurement all in one volume. This is a book that graduate students will keep as a reference throughout their careers.