"Roberts is certainly successful in conveying a sense of the rich diversity of biographical research. This is a book based upon a formidably wide-ranging bibliography together with his own, by no means insignificant, contributions to the field...[the]...reader will be left in no doubt as to the central importance of biographical research and of its legitimate position within the social sciences" - David Morgan, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Manchester University (former President, British Sociological Association), Auto/Biography, a BSA Study Group journal, 2002."Brian Roberts' book is a highly accessible introduction to biographical method...The author deftly and confidently addresses the available work in a variety of disciplines ranging from education through oral history, feminism to memory... I warmly recommend this book to any historian interested in biography and what its study can tell them about what they do'. - Alun Munslow, Professor of History, Staffordshire University (Editor, Rethinking History), Rethinking History, 7:3, pp. 451-5, October, 2003* What is biographical research? * Why has it attracted so much interest? * How can biographical research be carried out? Biographical Research reflects a rapid expansion of interest in the study of lives taking place within the social sciences. Life story, oral history, narrative, autobiography, biography and other approaches are being used more and more to explore how individuals interpret experiences and social relationships. This book examines the methodological and theoretical developments associated with research on lives in sociology, oral history, ethnography, biography, and narrative analysis. The author includes numerous examples of biographical research from his own work and other studies, and addresses important areas such as the collection and interpretation of materials, uses of biographical research, oral and written accounts, the interview relationship, the construction of the story, memory, audience, and the researcher's own biography. In conclusion it draws out common themes and emerging concerns. Biographical Research is a comprehensive guide to major issues in the study of lives for students and researchers in the social sciences and related fields.

Statistik ist die Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Kunst der Datenanalyse. Wie die Physik besitzt sie sowohl einen mathematischen Kern als auch eine empirische Fundierung und ihre zumeist quantitativen Argumente verknupfen spezifische Daten mit allgemeinen Theorien. Mit Statistik gekonnt umzugehen bedeutet nicht nur, Daten effizient zu erheben oder problemadaquat zu modellieren. Die Organisation des gesamten Informationsflusses - von der substanziellen Fragestellung zur empirischen Untersuchung und wieder zuruck - ist entscheidend.

Das vorliegende Buch stellt die Statistik im Spannungsfeld von empirischen Wissenschaften, Mathematik, Informatik und Wissenschaftstheorie dar. Geschrieben fur Akademiker aller genannten Gebiete zeigt es Parallelen zwischen vermeintlich isolierten Feldern auf und verdichtet diese zu generellen methodischen Prinzipien. So wird Statistik zur facettenreichen Wissenschaft - omniprasentes Werkzeug im Forschungsprozess, angewandte Mathematik und Philosophie in einem.

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Software is cut-and-dried - every button you press has a predictable effect - but qualitative analysis is open-ended and unfolds in unpredictable ways. This contradiction is best resolved by separating analytic strategies - what you plan to do - from software tactics - how you plan to do it. Expert MAXQDA users have unconsciously learned to do this. The Five-Level QDA (R) method unpacks the process so that you can learn it consciously and efficiently. The first part of the book explains how the contradiction between analytic strategies and software tactics is reconciled by "translating" between them. The second part provides both an in-depth description of how MAXQDA works and comprehensive instruction in the five steps of "translation". These steps are illustrated with examples from a variety of research projects. The third part contains real-world qualitative research projects from a variety of disciplines, methodologies, and kinds of qualitative analysis, all illustrated in MAXQDA using the Five-Level QDA method. The book is accompanied by three sets of video demonstrations on the Companion Website. The functionality and interface design of MAXQDA for Windows and Mac are identical. The Five-Level QDA method learned from this book is therefore the same whether you are working on a Mac or Windows computer. The Five-Level QDA method is based on the authors' combined 40 years of experience teaching MAXQDA and other software packages used as platforms for conducting qualitative analysis. After many years observing their students' challenges they developed the Five-Level QDA method to describe the process that long-time MAXQDA experts unconsciously adopt. The Five-Level QDA method is independent of software program or methodology, and the principles apply to any type of qualitative project. Please see the following URL to access the accompanying materials for this book: https://www.qdaservices.co.uk/five-level-qda

Designed to help students make the leap from learning about research to doing research, this manual provides an easy-to-understand walkthrough of the entire research process, from selecting a topic and conducting a literature review through presenting an APA-style paper or presentation. All of the 15 cross-disciplinary labs included are appropriate for use in the social, behavioral, and health sciences, and follow a consistent format: objective, description of a journal article, canned data, examples of what output should look like, pointers on interpreting the output, and a suggested activity for those who wish to collect their own data.

*Cost analysis essentials--a professional reference and core text for ensuring the continuity, sustainability, and survival of programs. *Helps answer critical questions: is the program more cost-effective than alternatives, how to measure its economic as well as social/health outcomes, and is it worth funding? *Provides tools that can help organizations do more with less. *Useful to a broad audience of evaluators, program administrators, and policymakers.

Could researching experience contribute to creating socio-political change or does it simply open new avenues for post-Fordist self-regulation? This book illustrates the emergence of plural historical actors who disrupt unitary subjectivities, resist univocal integration and refigure the political by remaking everyday experience.

Written by leading experts in language and cognition, this groundbreaking behaviour analysis textbook brings the study of verbal behaviour into the 21st century with cutting-edge research. Students and clinicians in the burgeoning field of applied behaviour analysis will find the theoretical foundation they need to effectively help the increasingly diverse clients seeking their services. The origins of behaviour analysis can be traced to the pioneering work of B.F. Skinner. Skinner's fundamental insights into how human behaviour is shaped, maintained and can be changed were powerful and far-reaching. Some of Skinner's most innovative contributions were in the study of language. Behaviour analytic work in the area of language and cognition did not stop with Skinner, however. Indeed, Skinner's work in this area has inspired considerable expansion, particularly with an eye toward more sophisticated verbal and cognitive repertoires. This important volume provides an overview of the concepts and core behavioural processes involved in language and cognition. You'll find a deeper exploration of complex linguistic and cognitive skills, including generative responding, learning by observation, and perspective taking. Also included are clinically supported interventions based in mindfulness, psychological flexibility, and emotion regulation to help clients improve complex language, social, and academic skills. The future of behaviour analysis is here. With its focus on the importance of language and cognition, this textbook is a must-read for anyone studying or practising in the science of behaviour.

The Psychologist's Companion, 6th edition is written for students, young professionals, and even mid-career scholars. It is the most comprehensive guide available to both written and oral communication processes for academic psychologists. It covers the topics necessary for career success, including planning papers, writing papers, presenting data, evaluating one's papers, writing grant proposals, giving talks, finding a book publisher, doing job interviews, and doing media interviews. Because the book is in its sixth edition, it is market tested for success in reaching and engaging its readers. Two special (new) pedagogical features are 'Experience is the best teacher', which draws on the authors' personal experiences to help make the book more personalized and exciting to readers, and 'What's wrong here', which gives readers an opportunity for active learning while they read the book. The authors have written the book in a personable and often humorous style that will keep readers engaged.

The newly retired are entering a time of life that is virtually uncharted, a time in which they are free from social expectations and, to a large extent, from obligations to others. Life's meanings are no longer provided by work and family. Instead, men and women have the freedom, and the need, to find new activities that they can imbue with meaning. The term, "Third Age" has been given to this time of life during which for most there is relatively good health, financial stability, and reduced family obligations. The problems and possibilities of this "Third Age" serve as the material for this book. How do older people decide how to deploy their continued vitality, now that they are free from the demands of work and children? How do they find meaning in daily life? In this book, scholars from several disciplines consider the way in which meaning can be found in this important stage of later life. They discuss sociological, psychological, and religious determinants of responses to the challenges of finding meaningful activity after retirement.

What should be done about airplane safety and terrorism, global warming, polluted water, nuclear power, and genetically engineered food? Decision-makers often respond to temporary fears, and the result is a situation of hysteria and neglect--and unnecessary illness and death. Risk and Reason explains the sources of these problems and explores what can be done about them. It shows how individual thinking and social interactions lead us in foolish directions. Offering sound proposals for social reform, it explains how a more sensible system of risk regulation, embodied in the idea of a "cost-benefit state," could save many thousands of lives and many billions of dollars too--and protect the environment in the process. Cass R. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Television Broadcasters. His many books include Republic.com (Princeton, 2001) and Designing Democracy (Oxford, 2001). He has worked in the United States Department of Justice and advised on law reform and constitution-making in many nations.

Meeting a key need for qualitative researchers, this practical book presents tools for creating productive partnerships and managing each phase of a collaborative project. The authors provide guidelines for working across disciplines, status differentials (such as professor and student), and geographical locations. Collaboration within particular qualitative traditions--cross-cultural research, duoethnography, participatory action research, arts-based collaborations, and others--is described and illustrated with exemplars of published studies. Readers learn how to build research teams, formulate research questions, gather and analyze data, and assess how collaborations are working. Ethical questions are highlighted throughout: Who owns collaborative research? Who decides what aspects of the findings should be disseminated? How can inequitable power relations be redressed? Within-chapter "Pedagogical Pathways" sections provide practice exercises and opportunities for reflection.

The goal of this book is to present and evaluate the concept of dynamic testing. Unlike "static" tests such as the SAT or IQ tests, it emphasizes learning potential rather than past learning accomplishments. This book is unique in its wide-ranging review of virtually all approaches to dynamic testing. It also suggests alternatives to the typical kinds of tests given in the United States--tests that often seem to stifle rather than encourage the development of human potential.

This book explains how to develop more effective risk communications using the Carnegie Mellon mental-model approach. Such communications are designed to contain, in readily usable form, the information that people need to make informed decisions about risks to health, safety, and the environment. The approach draws together methods from the natural and social sciences, providing a framework for interdisciplinary collaboration. It is demostrated with varied examples including electromagnetic fields, climate change, radon, and sexually transmitted diseases.

The Ozone Layer is an accessible history of stratospheric ozone, from its discovery in the nineteenth century to current investigations of the Antarctic ozone hole. Drawing directly on the scientific literature, Christie uses the story of ozone as a case study for examining fundamental issues relating to the practice of modern science and the conduct of scientific debate. Linking key debates in the philosophy of science to an example of real-world science it is an excellent and thought-provoking introduction to the philosophy of science.

Unrealistic public policies have increasingly concerned clinicians who fear being held responsible for their decisions in a legal climate that expects them to accurately predict the future. Clinical Assessment of Dangerousness provides a forum in which a group of internationally recognized scholars present the major conceptual issues and themes in their areas of violence research. Each chapter includes an issue-based essay that makes the research findings clinically relevant for assessment and prediction of violence. This book provides a reference that outlines key information for conducting more effective risk assessments with different populations.

This timely and applied textbook brings together leading scientists to illustrate how key theories and concepts in social psychology help to predict and explain behavior, and can be successfully applied to benefit social and practical problems. It focuses on robust theories and models known for their successful applications and covers a diverse range of settings-spanning classroom interventions, health behavior, financial decision making, climate change and much more. Each chapter comprises of a theoretical section to define the key concepts and summarize the theory, providing evidence for its reliability and limitations from basic research, as well as an application section that summarizes research in an applied context and provides details about a particular study including the respective application setting. The textbook expertly shows how theory can make meaningful predictions for real world contexts, and isn't afraid to explain the potential hurdles and pitfalls when applying a theory and its underlying set of concepts in a certain context. Crucially, this format moves towards theory testing in applied contexts, enabling a closer examination of why and under what circumstances interventions may be successful in obtaining a desired behavioral or psychological end-state. Among the topics explored: Mindset theory of action phases and if-then planning Quality of motivation in self-determination theory The focus theory of normative conduct Social identity theory and intergroup contact theory Intergroup forgiveness Social Psychology in Action is a critical resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in social and cultural psychology, as well as students of behavioral economics seeking to develop a deeper understanding of major theories and applications of the fields. Practitioners working in the areas of organizational behavior and management, health communication, social work, and educational science and pedagogy will also find the volume pertinent to their work.

This path-breaking book reviews psychological research on practical intelligence and describes its importance in everyday life. The authors reveal the importance of tacit knowledge--what we have learned from our own experience, through action. Although it has been seen as an indispensable element of expertise, intelligence researchers have found it difficult to quantify. Based on years of research, Dr. Sternberg and his colleagues have found that tacit knowledge can be quantified and can be taught. This volume thoroughly examines studies of practical intelligence in the United States and in many other parts of the world as well, and for varied occupations, such as management, military leadership, teaching, research, and sales.

Immer mehr Unternehmen nutzen Online-Assessments, um Potenziale von Bewerbern oder Mitarbeitern via Internet zu testen. Online-Tests sind effizient und mittlerweile auch fur mittelstandische Unternehmen erschwinglich - doch sie haben auch ihre Grenzen. In diesem Buch zeigen erfahrene Personaler, was bei der Planung und dem Einsatz zu beachten ist und in welchen konkreten Bereichen Online-Tests sinnvoll eingesetzt werden konnen: Von der Vorselektion und dem Personalmarketing, uber die Personalauswahl und -entwicklung, bis hin zu besonderen Einsatzgebieten wie Karriereberatung und Erfassung interkultureller Kompetenzen. Diese Darstellung wird eingerahmt von wissenschaftlichen und technischen Grundlagen sowie einem Uberblick uber neueste Entwicklungen und Trends. Fallbeispiele aus fuhrenden Unternehmen, Checklisten zu Erfolgskriterien sowie eine kommentierte Ubersicht uber Anbieter von Online-Tests machen dieses Buch zu einem unverzichtbaren Leitfaden fur alle, die Online-Assessments einsetzen mochten, aber auch fur jene, die sich einen ersten Uberblick uber die Thematik verschaffen wollen."

This path-breaking book reviews psychological research on practical intelligence and describes its importance in everyday life. The authors reveal the importance of tacit knowledge--what we have learned from our own experience, through action. Although it has been seen as an indispensable element of expertise, intelligence researchers have found it difficult to quantify. Based on years of research, Dr. Sternberg and his colleagues have found that tacit knowledge can be quantified and can be taught. This volume thoroughly examines studies of practical intelligence in the United States and in many other parts of the world as well, and for varied occupations, such as management, military leadership, teaching, research, and sales.

Statistics for Psychology is an interactive, highly visual, and accessible guide to the statistical practices you will encounter as a psychology student. Its software-agnostic approach keeps the focus on the core principles, rather than getting bogged down in complicated formulae and jargon. This book is based on the authors' BPS commended programme. It focusses on providing the strong foundational understanding you'll need to use statistics confidently and creatively rather than the software-specific way in which statistics is often taught. This edition includes: new content throughout on being a responsible researcher, a new chapter to support you in presenting your research to a critical audience, carefully designed graphics to explain statistical principles, "your turn" exercises to test your understanding of each chapter. This book is the ideal guide for students approaching statistics and research methods in psychology for the first time. Roger Watt is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Stirling. Elizabeth Collins is a researcher with a PhD in Psychology.

Contrasts are statistical procedures for asking focused questions of data. Researchers, teachers of research methods and graduate students will be familiar with the principles and procedures of contrast analysis included here. But they, for the first time, will also be presented with a series of newly developed concepts, measures, and indices that permit a wider and more useful application of contrast analysis. This volume takes on this new approach by introducing a family of correlational effect size estimates. By returning to these correlations throughout the book, the authors demonstrate special adaptations in a variety of contexts from two group comparison to one way analysis of variance contexts, to factorial designs, to repeated measures designs and to the case of multiple contrasts.

*We've added a comprehensive basic math review to this edition. It will get your students off to a good start in statistics. * In the worksheets, students obtain answers to humorous riddles if their work is correct. If the answer to a riddle does not make sense, they know to check their work. * Easy to coordinate with all major statistics textbooks because each exercise covers only a limited number of statistics. * All major topics are included-from calculating percentages to conducting a one-way ANOVA. * Over 40 humorously illustrated, interactive guides give your students solid advice on study skills covering everything from how to get the most out of a statistics textbook to how to work with a tutor. * The 64-page instructor's answer key shows all the steps in the solutions for the computational problems. This key makes it easy for you to start using the workbook right away. * This book has been a perennial best-seller. Minor adjustments throughout bring you an improved Second Edition for 1999.

This is the first volume in the Counterpoints Series, which explores the issues being debated in psychology, child development, linguistics, and neuroscience. Each volume consists of the presentation of three or four extensive chapters by researchers representing key points of view on the issue. This text examines one of the liveliest areas of debate in psychology today, the relationship between perception and mental imagery. A variety of recent studies have pointed to the existence of a strong relationship between memory and mental representation, while others have shown that images are open to reinterpretation and manipulation, and are therefore not merely static impressions or mental representations of memories. Three core chapters by researchers in the midst of this debate--Maria Brandimonte, Geir Kaufmann, and Dan Reisberg--make up the central portion of this text. The first chapter is a historical overview of the problem as well as a review of the research in psychology and the argument as it has developed in related fields, such as philosophy and artificial intelligence. The last chapter pulls together all of the positions and points to new areas of research which may help uncover an explanation for the apparent contradictions in the research. Students and researchers in psychology and cognitive psychology will benefit from this comprehensive look at this heated debate.