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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Communication studies > Research methods
Research collaboration in the form of networks, projects and centers has become one of the dominant modes of engaging in research, especially funded research, across all academic domains. However, there has been little research on the processes of such collaborations, particularly their affective dimensions. These, as this volume demonstrates and as researchers know well, are highly important, yet mostly not directly engaged with when scientists work together, even though they are experienced by everybody involved. This volume is the first to consider questions such as how the naming of projects impacts on their accompanying "affect-scapes," the policing or disciplining of emotions in research collaborations, their accompanying tensions and how these might be managed, and the challenges to trust between scientists that such collaborations present. Drawing on theories of affect and literature on collaboration, as well as on the contributors' experiences of being involved in large-scale research projects, the volume also importantly deals directly with some of the key emotions that occur during research collaborations such as blame, elation, frustration, alienation and belonging, and suggests some ways in which one might engage productively with the affective dimensions of research collaboration.
The past two decades have seen an increasing emphasis on large and interdisciplinary research configurations such as research networks, and centers of excellence including those in Social Sciences and Humanities research. Little research has been undertaken, however, to understand how these new large research structures that are being called forth by research funders and research/higher education institutions alike function socially, and what the impact of operating within such structures is on those working within, and those working with, them. Past writers have discussed the "intra-agentic" operations of human researchers and the material laboratory environment in its broadest sense. This volume is concerned with the social politics of research collaboration in relation to six key positions: leaders of large research formations, leaders of sub-projects within large collaborations, participant researchers, junior and early career researchers, advisory board members, and those who look in from the outside such as researchers who are un-funded. It explores the mostly unacknowledged but critical aspect of social structures in research, discussing issues such as struggles over leadership styles, the marginalization of researchers working cross-disciplinarily, power hierarchies and intellectual ownership, and the silencing of dissent in research.
Given the tendency of books on disasters to predominantly focus on strong geophysical or descriptive perspectives and in-depth accounts of particular catastrophes, Disaster Research provides a much-needed multidisciplinary perspective of the area. This book is is structured thematically around key approaches to disaster research from a range of different, but often complementary academic disciplines. Each chapter presents distinct approaches to disaster research that is anchored in a particular discipline; ranging from the law of disasters and disaster historiography to disaster politics and anthropology of disaster. The methodological and theoretical contributions underlining a specific approach to disasters are discussed and illustrative empirical cases are examined that support and further inform the proposed approach to disaster research. The book thus provides unique insights into fourteen state-of-the-art disciplinary approaches to the understanding of disasters. The theoretical discussions as well as the diverse range of disaster cases should be of interest to both postgraduate and undergraduate students, as well as academics, researchers and policymakers.
1. This book offers the first practical introduction to the principles and methods of Evidence-Based Policing. While there is a growing literature on the topic, most existing books are written at a high level. 2. Pedagogical features include tables, figures and short vignettes and summaries in each chapter. Further resources will be included on the author's website, including his Podcast, Reducing Crime. 3. This book has an international market and will appeal to both students studying practical policing courses and police professionals.
Useful introductory textbook for MRes or MA courses combining history and philosophy of research with practical guidance on starting a research project. Includes extensive material on research ethics. Written by a very experienced senior scholar and tutor in research methods; developed and tested for MRes intro course at Bath University.
Advancing the notion of connected autonomy, and highlighting the importance of interdisciplinary research in the development of this novel concept, this volume explores the possibility of maintaining the freedom to make one's own decisions in later life, while also remaining connected to others - as well as to things, services, places and events. Through a series of case studies, the book examines the importance of preserving self-determination as health, environmental and social circumstances render autonomy more difficult, showing that innovations in social interaction and technology have the capacity to enhance older persons' connectedness to their environment, while at the same time, offering opportunities for self-governance. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in ageing and the life course, the sociology of science and technology and research methods.
Perspectivism: A Contribution to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences advances the philosophy of perspectivism, showing how its capacity to assess competing views of a particular concept by approaching them as different 'sides' of a multi-dimensional object supports a concept of 'adequate' rather than 'absolute' truth. Presenting four case studies - of the social scientific concepts of power, equality, crime, and sex and gender - Smith demonstrates the manner in which the perspectivist approach does not take all differing views of a concept to be equally good, but views all perspectives taken together as contributing towards the best that we can know about any given concept at the present time. An exposition and analysis of the means by which perspectivism allows for truth and objectivity in the social sciences, this volume will appeal to scholars of philosophy and across the social sciences with interests in questions of epistemology and research methodology.
How to be a Researcher provides a strategic guide to the conduct of a successful research career within a university environment. Based on the author's extensive personal experience, it offers down-to-earth advice, philosophical guidance, and discussions of the political context of academic research. This is not a research methods book, and the topics it covers are rarely discussed elsewhere. The bulk of the book provides practical advice on the development of essential skills and strategic approaches, covering questions such as: how to decide which topics to work on how to read and review literature how to develop theory how to integrate research and teaching activity how to approach research design how to obtain and manage research funding how to collaborate and supervise effectively how to write up your research, and how to secure the best sources of publication. The final part of the book considers the philosophy and psychology of research work and includes an exploration of the cognitive biases which may affect researchers. How to be a Researcher will be particularly useful for masters and doctoral students in the behavioral and social sciences, and also for early career academics developing research within a university career.
Winner of The University of Alabama 2017 President's Faculty Research Award What does it mean to be a responsible methodologist? Certainly it is more than being a research middle-manager who ensures that the tools used in a thesis or dissertation are of the right gauge. In The Responsible Methodologist, leading education scholar Aaron Kuntz uses the latest movements in social theory to challenge qualitative researchers to reconceptualize their work away from the technocratic toward an intervention, an ethical disruption of the norm, an activist stance toward progressive social change. Inviting creativity and vision, he insists that the responsible methodologist become a force leading the discourse toward social justice. His book-challenges the technocratic role given to qualitative methodologists in university settings;-urges them to become a force for change through Foucault's parrhesia, risky truth-telling;-includes research projects that have incorporated this vision. http://amkuntz.people.ua.edu/
A Guide to Doing Statistics in Second Language Research Using SPSS and R, Second Edition is the only text available that demonstrates how to use SPSS and R as specifically related to applied linguistics and SLA research. This new edition is up-to-date with the most recent version of the SPSS software and now also includes coverage of R, a software program increasingly used by researchers in this field. Supported by a number of pedagogical features, including tip boxes and practice activities, and a wealth of screenshots, this book takes readers through each step of performing and understanding statistical research, covering the most commonly used tests in second language research, including t-tests, correlation, and ANOVA. A robust accompanying website covers additional tests of interest to students and researchers, taking them step-by-step through carrying out these tests themselves. In this comprehensive and hands-on volume, Jenifer Larson-Hall equips readers with a thorough understanding and the practical skills necessary to conducting and interpreting statisical research effectively using SPSS and R, ideal for graduate students and researchers in SLA, social sciences, and applied lingustics. For more information and materials, please visit www.routledge.com/cw/larson-hall.
The Handbook of Brand Management Scales is a concise, clear and easy-to-use collection of scales in brand management. Scales are a critical tool for researchers measuring consumer insights, emotions and responses. Existing handbooks of marketing scales do not include (or include very few) scales related to brand management constructs. This book is the first to meet this need. Sample scales include brand personality, brand authenticity, consumer-brand relationships and brand equity. Each scale is included with a clear definition of the construct it is designed to benchmark, a description of the scale itself, how to use it and examples of possible applications in managerial and academic contexts. A much-needed reference point, this is a unique, vital and convenient volume that should be within reach of every marketing scholar's and manager's desk.
Winner of The University of Alabama 2017 President's Faculty Research Award What does it mean to be a responsible methodologist? Certainly it is more than being a research middle-manager who ensures that the tools used in a thesis or dissertation are of the right gauge. In The Responsible Methodologist, leading education scholar Aaron Kuntz uses the latest movements in social theory to challenge qualitative researchers to reconceptualize their work away from the technocratic toward an intervention, an ethical disruption of the norm, an activist stance toward progressive social change. Inviting creativity and vision, he insists that the responsible methodologist become a force leading the discourse toward social justice. His book-challenges the technocratic role given to qualitative methodologists in university settings;-urges them to become a force for change through Foucault's parrhesia, risky truth-telling;-includes research projects that have incorporated this vision. http://amkuntz.people.ua.edu/
This book presents practical guidelines for university research and administration. It uses a project management framework within a systems perspective to provide strategies for planning, scheduling, allocating resources, tracking, reporting, and controlling university-based research projects and programs. Project Management for Scholarly Researchers: Systems, Innovation, and Technologies covers the technical and human aspects of research management. It discusses federal requirements and compliance issues, in addition to offering advice on proper research lab management and faculty mentoring. It explains the hierarchy of needs of researchers to help readers identify their own needs for their research enterprises. This book provides rigorous treatment and guidance for all engineering fields and related business disciplines, as well as all management and humanities fields.
Now in its third edition, Cost-Benefit Analysis has been updated, offering readers the perfect introduction to project, programme and policy appraisal using basic tools of financial and economic analysis. The key economic questions of any social cost-benefit analysis are: do the benefits of the project or policy exceed the costs, no matter how widely costs and benefits are spread, and irrespective of whether or not project impacts, such as environmental effects, are reflected in market prices? And which group or groups of individuals receive the benefits and which bear the costs? This book addresses these questions with an emphasis on putting the theory presented in the book into practice. This third edition has several attractive features: Readers are encouraged to develop their own skills by applying the tools and techniques of cost-benefit analysis to case studies and examples, including an analysis of a project which is developed throughout the book. The book emphasizes the use of spreadsheets which are invaluable in providing a framework for the cost-benefit analysis. A dedicated chapter provides guidance for writing up a report which summarises the analysis which has been undertaken. New pedagogical features, including Technical Notes and Examples, have been added as an aid to readers throughout the text. An appendix provides 14 additional case studies which can be developed in class or as assignment projects. Additional material for instructors and students is provided through Support Material maintained by Routledge. This updated edition is an ideal text for a course on cost-benefit analysis where the emphasis is on practical application of principles and equipping students to conduct appraisals. It is also a useful handbook for professionals looking for a logical framework in which to undertake their cost-benefit analysis work.
Ethnography has become an important method for researching and interpreting the social world, not least in the field of sport and exercise studies. Ethnographies in Sport and Exercise Research is the first book to provide a contemporary overview of the current state of ethnographic research and its application within sport and exercise, introducing and explaining a range of well-established and emerging ethnographic approaches. Featuring a heavyweight line-up of sport and exercise researchers, the book is divided into three parts. The first considers the methodological and theoretical aspects of ethnographic research, including: a history of ethnography in sport and exercise research the definition of the ethnographic field methods of gathering ethnographic data methods of representing ethnographic research. In the second part of the book, a series of chapter-length case studies, spanning sports from boxing to fell running and themes from gender to fandom, demonstrate the challenges and rewards of ethnographic research in the context of sport and exercise, helping students and researchers to develop a solid understanding of qualitative research at both a theoretical and a practical level. The final part of the book considers future directions for ethnographic research, including an evaluation of its place in the expanding field of study in sport management. A comprehensive assessment of the statement of ethnographic research in sport, Ethnographies in Sport and Exercise Research is invaluable reading for any research methods course taken as part of a degree programme in sport and exercise, and a useful reference for all active researchers.
This edited collection explores issues that arise when researching "hard-to-reach" groups and those who remain socially excluded and marginalized in society, such as access, the use of gatekeepers, ethical dilemmas, "voice," and how such research contributes to issues of inclusion and social justice. The book uses a wide range of empirical and theoretical approaches to examine the difficulties, dilemmas and complexities surrounding research methodologies with particular groups. It emphasizes the importance of national and international perspectives in such discussions, and suggests innovative methodological procedures.
Statistical Analysis of Questionnaires: A Unified Approach Based on R and Stata presents special statistical methods for analyzing data collected by questionnaires. The book takes an applied approach to testing and measurement tasks, mirroring the growing use of statistical methods and software in education, psychology, sociology, and other fields. It is suitable for graduate students in applied statistics and psychometrics and practitioners in education, health, and marketing. The book covers the foundations of classical test theory (CTT), test reliability, validity, and scaling as well as item response theory (IRT) fundamentals and IRT for dichotomous and polytomous items. The authors explore the latest IRT extensions, such as IRT models with covariates, multidimensional IRT models, IRT models for hierarchical and longitudinal data, and latent class IRT models. They also describe estimation methods and diagnostics, including graphical diagnostic tools, parametric and nonparametric tests, and differential item functioning. Stata and R software codes are included for each method. To enhance comprehension, the book employs real datasets in the examples and illustrates the software outputs in detail. The datasets are available on the authors' web page.
Factor Analysis and Dimension Reduction in R provides coverage, with worked examples, of a large number of dimension reduction procedures along with model performance metrics to compare them. Factor analysis in the form of principal components analysis (PCA) or principal factor analysis (PFA) is familiar to most social scientists. However, what is less familiar is understanding that factor analysis is a subset of the more general statistical family of dimension reduction methods. The social scientist's toolkit for factor analysis problems can be expanded to include the range of solutions this book presents. In addition to covering FA and PCA with orthogonal and oblique rotation, this book's coverage includes higher-order factor models, bifactor models, models based on binary and ordinal data, models based on mixed data, generalized low-rank models, cluster analysis with GLRM, models involving supplemental variables or observations, Bayesian factor analysis, regularized factor analysis, testing for unidimensionality, and prediction with factor scores. The second half of the book deals with other procedures for dimension reduction. These include coverage of kernel PCA, factor analysis with multidimensional scaling, locally linear embedding models, Laplacian eigenmaps, diffusion maps, force directed methods, t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding, independent component analysis (ICA), dimensionality reduction via regression (DRR), non-negative matrix factorization (NNMF), Isomap, Autoencoder, uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) models, neural network models, and longitudinal factor analysis models. In addition, a special chapter covers metrics for comparing model performance. Features of this book include: Numerous worked examples with replicable R code Explicit comprehensive coverage of data assumptions Adaptation of factor methods to binary, ordinal, and categorical data Residual and outlier analysis Visualization of factor results Final chapters that treat integration of factor analysis with neural network and time series methods Presented in color with R code and introduction to R and RStudio, this book will be suitable for graduate-level and optional module courses for social scientists, and on quantitative methods and multivariate statistics courses.
Research Methods for Forensic Psychologists is an accessible and comprehensive textbook that introduces students to the research process in forensic psychology. Adopting a problem-based learning approach, this book offers a 'how-to' guide to the whole research process and empowers readers to develop their own programme of research, from initial vague ideas, to developing a research question, to carrying out a methodologically rigorous research project, to disseminating the findings. The text is centred on five case studies, sufficiently different in nature to address the most common research methodologies. Each case study is linked with a specific research question that will be used to illustrate the research process throughout the rest of the book. Topics covered in the book include: Design and Planning, including a literature search, a discussion of different sorts of data, practical and feasibility issues, research ethics and developing a research proposal. Conducting research, including the submission of ethics proposals and responding to feedback, collecting data and dealing with the problems and challenges of analysing data. Dissemination of findings, an overview of the different types of papers, with examples listed and other methods of disseminating findings discussed, such as conference presentations and the use of social media. Throughout, issues of common difficulty or confusion are highlighted and activities are provided for readers to consider and apply the information discussed further. Additional reading sections and summaries are also provided at the end of each chapter. This book is essential reading for advanced students in Forensic Psychology, as well as trainees and practitioners within relevant forensic psychology organisations.
Doing Sociolinguistics: A practical guide to data collection and analysis provides an accessible introduction and guide to the methods of data collection and analysis in the field of sociolinguistics. It offers students the opportunity to engage directly with some of the foundational and more innovative work being done in the quantitative or variationist paradigm. Divided into sixteen short chapters, Doing Sociolinguistics: can be used as a core text in class or as an easy reference whilst undertaking research walks readers through the different phases of a sociolinguistic project, providing all the knowledge and skills students will need to conduct their own analyses of language features excerpts from key research articles; exercises with real data from the authors' own research; sample answers to the exercises; and further reading is supported by the Routledge Sociolinguistics Companion website (www.routledge.com/textbooks/meyerhoff) which features further online exercises with sound files. Designed to function as both a core text for methods classes in sociolinguistics and as a companion to the Routledge textbook Introducing Sociolinguistics, this book will be essential reading for all students studying and researching in this area.
While there have been many sociological and psychological studies of humor, few can claim to be funny. Humor may be regarded as a legitimate topic for social scientists, but in general, they present their research rather seriously. In academia, humor tends to be trivialized and dismissed. This is more than just a missed opportunity for otherwise fun-loving academics. In literature, it is readily accepted that comedy is integral to the human condition. To ignore humor is to reject a potentially insightful methodological approach, as the humorous worldview presents unique opportunities for investigating the social. This book constitutes a unique resource, presenting chapters on irony, satire and parody as tools for analysis and means of representation, as well as considering humor in the conduct of research, and offering guidance on getting published. Through presenting examples from across the social sciences, the book seeks to persuade and inspire rather than to prescribe an approach - a closure which would (ironically) be inimical to the multiplicity and ambiguity which characterizes humorous research and lends it its distinctive edge.
Once a synonym for death, cancer is now a prognosis of multiple probabilities and produces a world of uncertainty for carers. Drawing on rich, in-depth interview data and employing interactionist theories, Towards a Sociology of Cancer Caregiving explores carers' lived experiences, paying close attention to the ways in which spouse carers manage the ambiguity that pervades their orientations to the future, their responsibilities and their emotions. A detailed exploration of the temporal and emotional journeys of spouse carers of cancer patients, this volume raises and responds to new questions about how to conceptualise informal caregiving, offering a fresh theorisation of the uncertainty that now characterises cancer. As such, it will appeal to scholars of the sociologies of emotion, time and identity, and all those interested in the question of how to support informal carers.
A multidisciplinary approach to performance management, demonstrating how the four disciplines of strategic management, organizational behaviour, organizational theory, and management accounting work in concert to produce an organization's desired employee motivation and performance through cases New edition discusses ethics and corporate governance in performance management and as well as business transformation in the context of digital age Instructor eResources (NEW): The second edition also comes with detailed analysis of textbook case studies for lecturers and instructors to structure student discussions.
This edited volume uses an interdisciplinary approach to art and design that not only reframes but also repositions agendas and actions to address fragmented global systems. Contributors explore the pluriverse of art and design through epistemological and methodological considerations. What kinds of sustainable ways are there for knowledge transfer, supporting plural agendas, finding novel ways for unsettling conversations, unlearning and learning and challenging power structures with marginalised groups and contexts through art and design? The main themes of the book are art and design methods, epistemologies and practices that provide critical, interdisciplinary, pluriversal and decolonial considerations. The book challenges the domination of the white logic of art and design and shifts away from the Anglo-European one-world system towards the pluriverse. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual studies, arts-based research, and design studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. |
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