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• Social Science Research An Overview Questions and Hypotheses Representativeness How Far Can You Generalize? Data Quality Descriptive Statistics Statistical Inference and Correlational Studies Statistical Inference and Experimental Designs Controlling Variables and Drawing Conclusions.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This volume offers students a basic introduction to assessing the meaning and validity of research in the social sciences and related fields. The ability to read published research critically is essential and is different from the skills involved in undertaking research using statistical analysis. Thomas R Black explains in clear and straightforward terms how students can evaluate research, with particular emphasis on research involving some aspect of measurement. The coverage of fundamental concepts is comprehensive and supports topics including research design, data collection and data analysis by addressing the following major issues: Are the questions and hypotheses advanced appropriate and testable? Is the research design sufficient for the hypothesis? Are the data gathered valid, reliable and objective? Are the statistical techniques used to analyze the data appropriate and do they support the conclusions reached?
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part 1 - What is a focus group?
• Chapter 1: Outlining the focus group
• Chapter 2: Dealing with ethical challenges
• Part 2 - Planning and designing
• Chapter 3: Designing a focus group research
• Chapter 4: Mixing the focus group with other techniques
• Chapter 5: Choosing and recruiting the focus group participants
• Chapter 6: Designing focus group tools
• Part 3 - Conducting
• Chapter 7: Moderating the focus group
• Chapter 8: Observing the focus group
• Chapter 9: Running the focus group
• Part 4 - Analysing and writing up
• Chapter 10: Transcribing and analysing the focus group content
• Chapter 11: Analysing the focus group relational and technical dimensions
• Chapter 12: Interpreting and reporting the focus group results Appendix - Tools References.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Drawing on the authors' thirty years of combined experience in the field, this authoritative, step-by-step guide to conducting focus groups features dedicated chapters on all aspects of the research process. Loaded with real world research examples from across the social sciences, and learning features such as 'expert advice' and 'concepts and theories' boxes, as well as end of chapter exercises and further reading, this is the perfect manual for novice researchers who want to conduct a successful focus group. .
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Ethnography in perspective
• ethnography - parody and pastiche
• supervising the text
• urban confessions
• at man's best hospital and the mug'n'muffin
• Goffman's poetics
• the enthnography of a medical setting
• reading health economics.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In recent years, social scientists have - in common with many disciplines - become increasingly interested in the "rhetoric of inquiry". Sociologists and anthropolgists have become preoccupied with the analysis of the texts of their respective disciplines. It is recognized that social scientists construct and interpret representations of the social world. Moreover there is widespread recognition that the characteristics of each discipline are - in part - describable in terms of the distinctive conventions of a given genre. Consequently, the intellectual work of being a social scientist is - in large measure - predicated on conventions of reading and writing. This volume brings together a collection of important essays in the general area of sociological texts, and the conventional practices of reading and writing.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Problems and pitfalls
• "you are here"
• "inside out or outside in?"' the ethics of entry
• validity and invalidity benefits
• checking it out
• seeing through the interview
• research in the technological sense
• seven types of creativity - observation and data analysis
• closely observed training
• administering poison - reporting observations
• tales of future past
• test.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Combining anecdotal accounts, inter-professional experiences, critical debate and practical pointers to being a good observer, this book explores issues surrounding observation in social science-orientated research.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Linking Auditing and Metaevaluation Differentiating Standards, Procedures and Accepted Principles Preparing an Audit Report Constructing an Audit Trail Auditing an Inquiry Developing Other Applications.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The emergence of new evaluation paradigms raises serious questions about how merit can be established and judged. Linking Auditing and Metaevaluation addresses this concern, introducing a strategy by which the quality of inquiry procedures and products can be assured and retrospectively assessed. Based upon the model of fiscal auditing, the technique is applicable to a variety of social scientific investigations and specifically includes non - conventional paradigms such as naturalistic evaluation. Effective regardless of the nature of the inquiry, auditing is also an excellent means of organizing data, thus promoting theorizing and identification of relationships in that data. Each section includes exercises designed both to encourage readers to adapt concepts to their own inquiries and to promote feedback, which leads to the possibility of new insights and theories on metaevaluation.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)