PART I: FOUNDATIONS FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
CHAPTER 1: SCIENCE, SOCIETY, AND SOCIAL RESEARCH
Learning About the Social World
Avoiding Errors in Reasoning About the Social World
Research in the News: Why Doesn't the Internet Reach Everyone?
Science and Social Science
Alternative Research Orientations
Strengths and Limitations of Social Research
CHAPTER 2: THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Social Research Questions
Social Research Foundations
Theoretical Perspectives for Social Research
Social Research Strategies
Research in the News: Investigating Child Abuse Doesn't Reduce It
Social Research Standards
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHIES
The Institutional Review Board
Research in the News: What Would an IRB Say?
Social Research Proposals
Case Study: Evaluating a Public Health Program
PART II: FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
CHAPTER 4: CONCEPTUALIZATION AND MEASUREMENT
Research in the News: What is Your Race?
CHAPTER 5: SAMPLING
Research in the News: What Are Best Practices for Sampling Vulnerable Populations?
CHAPTER 6: RESEARCH DESIGN AND CAUSATION
Research Design Alternatives
Research in the News: How to Reduce Crime?
Criteria and Cautions for Nomothetic Causal Explanations
Comparing Research Designs
PART III: BASIC SOCIAL RESEARCH DESIGNS
CHAPTER 7: EXPERIMENTS
History of Experimentation
Research in the News: Where Did You Hear That?
Ethical Issues in Experimental Research
CHAPTER 8: SURVEY RESEARCH
Survey Research in the Social Sciences
Combining Questions in Indexes
Research in the News: What Can Surveys Uncover?
Ethical Issues in Survey Research
CHAPTER 9: QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
Case Study: The Likelihood of Voting
Preparing Data for Analysis
Displaying Univariate Distributions
Summarizing Univariate Distributions
Research in the News: General Social Survey Shows Infidelity on the Rise
Analyzing Data Ethically: How Not to Lie With Statistics
Cross-Tabulating Variables
Analyzing Data Ethically: How Not to Lie About Relationships
CHAPTER 10: QUALITATIVE METHODS: OBSERVING, PARTICIPATING, LISTENING
Fundamentals of Qualitative Methods
Research in the News: Can Taping Interviews Capture a Trend?
Intensive (In-Depth) Interviewing
Generalizability in Qualitative Research
Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research
CHAPTER 11: QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
Features of Qualitative Data Analysis
Techniques of Qualitative Data Analysis
Alternatives in Qualitative Data Analysis
Research in the News: What’s in a Message?
Participatory Action Research
Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis
Ethics in Qualitative Data Analysis
PART IV: ADVANCED SOCIAL RESEARCH DESIGNS
CHAPTER 12: EVALUATION AND POLICY RESEARCH
History of Evaluation Research
Questions for Evaluation Research
Research in the News: What Motivates Policy Shifts?
CHAPTER 13: HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE RESEARCH AND CONTENT ANALYSIS
Overview of Unobtrusive Methods for Historical and Comparative Research
Historical Social Science Methods
Comparative Social Science Methods
Research in the News: Across the globe can we compare ____?
Ethical Issues in Historical and Comparative Research and Content Analysis
CHAPTER 14: SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS AND BIG DATA
Research in the News: Long-term impact; how can research make the connection?
Challenges for Secondary Data Analyses
Ethical Issues in Secondary Data Analysis and Big Data
CHAPTER 15: MIXED METHODS
Philosophy of Mixed Methods
Strengths and Limitations of Mixed Methods
Research in the News: What Came First, the Alleged Cause or the Effect?
CHAPTER 16: SUMMARIZING AND REPORTING RESEARCH
Research in the News: How Much Should Social Scientists Report?
Case Study: Broken Homes and Delinquency
Ethics, Politics, and Research Reports
Bibliography
Glossary