Designing Social Research: A Guide for the Bewildered

Using everyday jargon-free language, Designing Social Research guides you through the jungle of setting up a research study. Ian Greener provides guidance on how to practically plan your research and helps you to understand the underpinning methodological principles that should inform your decisions about the methods you plan to use.

This is the perfect book for beginner students and new researchers looking to design a research project and make sense of and justify the many decisions that go into the research design process. It will help you to assess the appropriateness of a range of methods and to understand the strengths and limitations of different approaches to research.

Greener highlights key debates in the field, both philosophical and practical, and presents them in such a way that they remain constantly relevant to research practice of his readers. Coverage includes:

• Framing an effective research question/problem;
• Examining the jargon of social research;
• The links between theory, methodology and method;
• The role of literature reviewing in research design;
• Managing and planning the research process;
• Sampling;
• Qualitative designs;
• Quantitative designs;
• Mixed methods designs;
• Data analysis.

Designing Social Research will be ideal first reading for undergraduates planning significant research projects for their dissertations. It will also be invaluable to first year PhD students considering how they will go about their research projects.