Factor analysis is one of the success stories of statistics in the social sciences. The reason for its wide appeal is that it provides a way to investigate latent variables, the fundamental traits and concepts in the study of individual differences. Because of its importance, a recent conference was held to mark the centennial of the publication of Charles Spearman's seminal 1904 article which introduced the major elements of this invaluable statistical tool. This new book evolved from that conference. It provides a retrospective look at major issues and developments as well as a prospective view of future directions in factor analysis and related methods. In so doing, it demonstrates how and why factor analysis is considered to be one of the methodological pillars of behavioral research.
Featuring an outstanding collection of contributors, this volume offers unique insights on factor analysis and its related methods. Several chapters have a clear historical perspective, while others present new ideas along with historical summaries. In addition, the book reviews some of the extensions of factor analysis to such techniques as latent growth curve models, models for categorical data, and structural equation models.
"Factor Analysis at 100" will appeal to graduate students and researchers in the behavioral, social, health, and biological sciences that use this technique in their research. A basic knowledge of factor analysis is required and a working knowledge of linear algebra is helpful.

Tests of significance have been a key tool in the research kit of behavioral scientists for nearly fifty years, but their widespread and uncritical use has recently led to a rising volume of controversy about their usefulness. This book gathers the central papers in this continuing debate, brings the issues into clear focus, points out practical problems and philosophical pitfalls involved in using the tests, and provides a benchmark from which further analysis can proceed. The papers deal with some of the basic philosophy of science, mathematical and statistical assumptions connected with significance tests and the problems of the interpretation of test results, but the work is essentially non-technical in its emphasis. The collection succeeds in raising a variety of questions about the value of the tests; taken together, the questions present a strong case for vital reform in test use, if not for their total abandonment in research. The book is designed for practicing researchers-those not extensively trained in mathematics and statistics that must nevertheless regularly decide if and how tests of significance are to be used-and for those training for research. While controversy has been centered in sociology and psychology, and the book will be especially useful to researchers and students in those fields, its importance is great across the spectrum of the scientific disciplines in which statistical procedures are essential-notably political science, economics, and the other social sciences, education, and many biological fields as well. "Denton E. Morrison" is professor, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University. "Ramon E. Henkel" is associate professor emeritus, Department of Sociology University of Maryland. He teaches as part of the graduate faculty.

Gender, class, and culture merge in the lived experiences of women on strike in the South. This book examines women unionistsa (TM) life histories through the lens of narrative analysis, interpreting their multiple perspectives as four coherent discourse communities: social activists, union feminists, women martyrs, and women whose identities are defined by their work in non-traditional fields.

This book is intended for psychology majors and graduate students who are conducting experiments for the first time and are faced with the task of making sense out of their data. This much needed "how-to-do-it" text illustrates the application of statistical methods to the data from small samples. It also serves as a handbook, with twenty-two tables presented at the end of the text that will allow the student to carry out virtually every computation necessary in analyzing his data. Almost all of the examples and illustrations are drawn from actual experiments so that the student can see how professional scientists examine their data. The book also shows students the kinds of data that are encountered in psychological research, the kinds of questions investigators seek to answer, and how these questions are approached.

The author asserts that statistics is not an abstract discipline but a tool in research. However, the book also imparts a philosophy of data analysis and its meaning, a concern for questions of the function of data analysis and the interpretations that legitimately can be drawn from data. In brief, Data Analysis asks: What kinds of data are met in psychological research? What can we do with these data? What can we conclude as a result of this doing?

The book will be invaluable for students who, even though they may have taken a previous statistics course, are still unsure of what statistical techniques should be used in interpreting their data.

This distinctive collection offers a unique set of meta-analyses covering the breadth of media effects research. Editor Raymond W. Preiss and his colleagues bring together an all-star list of contributors. Organized by theories, outcomes, and mass media campaigns, the chapters included here offer important insights on what current social science research reveals about effects, addressing such topics as the effects of advertising on children and adolescents; the effects of pornography; violent video games and aggression; and media use and political involvement.
The final section features thought-provoking commentary from leading theorists. Making a significant and singular contribution to the current media effects literature, "Mass Media Effects Research "is an essential resource volume for scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media effects, media psychology, and mass communication and society.

This distinctive collection offers a unique set of meta-analyses, covering the breadth of media effects research. Editor Ray Preiss and his colleagues brought together an all-star list of contributors for this collection. Organized by theories, outcomes, and mass media campaigns, the chapters included here offer important insights on what current social science research reveals about effects, addressing such topics as: the effects of advertising on children and adolescents; the effects of pornography; violent video games and aggression; and media use and political involvement. The final section features thought-provoking commentary from leading theorists. Making a significant and singular contribution to the current media effects literature, Mass Media Effects Research is an essential resource volume for students, researchers, and graduate students in media effects, media psychology, and mass communication and society.

A comprehensive collection of contemporary and classical readings on sociological method, this book provides students with systematic analyses of each of the major strategies employed in sociological research. It may be used as a supplement or as the basic set of readings for all courses in methods.

The book contains thirteen sections dealing with theory and its development; issues of sampling units; problems of developing new measurement techniques; difficulties surrounding the interview (with special emphasis on interviewing deviant, hostile, and silent respondents); the nature of causation; and a review of the major methods of proof available to the sociologist. Actual research studies, focusing in turn on the experiment, the survey, participant observation, life-histories, and unobtrusive analysis, are also included.

Each section is preceded by an introduction, that defines the major issues in each paper, offers a discussion of problems not covered explicitly in the readings, and in general shows how each paper contributes to a view of interactional research processes. Because of its interactional approach, its use of classic articles, its anticipation of problems not yet formulated clearly in the literature, its illustrations of how social organizations may be studied, its inclusion of articles relevant to the social psychology of experiments, and its new statements on the ethics of research, this book will be invaluable in methods courses.

Especially when used in conjunction with its companion text, The Research Act, the book provides perhaps the most original and most useful compendium available to students today.

Presenting the work of a highly innovative partnership between the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education and eight secondary schools, this book explores this networked learning community which has helped to define the use and production of educational knowledge and research within and between various partners.

This book examines the central questions and gives examples of the outcomes of the development that will assist any researchers, especially teachers undertaking research, to develop school-university partnerships. Stories and examples from practitioners and others who worked directly in and with schools are presented throughout the book. It will appeal to a wide audience of practitioners and academics, and to all who are interested in how research and enquiry can be used to support the development of practice in schools.

The field of design research has been gaining momentum over the last five years, particularly in educational studies. As papers and articles have grown in number, definition of the domain is now beginning to standardise. This book fulfils a growing need by providing a synthesised assessment of the use of development research in education. It looks at four main elements:

• background information including origins, definitions of development research, description of applications and benefits and risks associated with studies of this kind
• how the approach can serve the design of learning environments and educational technology
• quality assurance - how to safeguard academic rigor while conducting design and development studies
• a synthesis and overview of the topic along with relevant reflections.

Social science researchers have become increasing attentive to the role of numbers in contemporary life. Issues around big data, national test results, and output and performance statistics are now routinely reported and debated in the media. Numbers are a powerful resource for governments as a means to manage and 'improve' their populations, and we are increasingly represented, organized and driven by an economy of numbers, which inserts itself into more and more aspects of our lives. This book critically addresses some of the ways in which numbers are deployed in educational governance and practice, and some of the consequences of this deployment for what it means to be educated, to teach, and to learn. Recognising that numbers do not simply represent, but that they change things and have real effects, allows us to move beyond a system where difficult and important issues about what we want from education and from teachers are side-stepped in the push to 'improve our numbers'. This collection offers a set of starting points from which we might speak back to numbers, drawing on research to explore how numbers change the way we think about ourselves and what we do. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education Policy.

This unique volume addresses the inadequacies of basic statistical methods that standard textbooks tend to ignore. The author introduces new procedures with accompanying tables that illustrate the practicality of the methods. Concentrating on basic experimental designs that are central to research in the social sciences, Wilcox describes new nonparametric techniques, two-way ANOVA designs, and new results related to the analysis of covariance and repeated measure design. This book serves as the ideal reference and supplement to standard texts by making the statistical advances of the last thirty years accessible to graduate students and researchers.

Research on ethnicity is of relevance to a wide variety of health, economic and social issues in modern societies. This is reflected in the growing body of research with a focus on ethnicity. Despite this, there are no ready sources of information on the methodological issues facing such research. This volume aims to fill that gap.
Straightforward in its approach and accessible to those who are not specialists in studies of ethnicity, "Health and Social Research in Multicultural Societies" provides essential and clear guidance on appropriate methods. Topics covered include:
- Approaches to conceptualizing ethnicity and understanding the context of ethnicity in modern societies
- Ethical issues and the political context within which ethnicity research is conducted
- Engagement with researched communities, and with users more broadly
- Cultural competence in research
- Practical issues faced by both qualitative and quantitative research
- Use of secondary and administrative data sources for research
Using a combination of critical analysis and case studies to illustrate the benefits and pitfalls of particular approaches, this volume provides access to core issues relevant to research with ethnic minority groups. It is a vital resource for those carrying out and using what is a considerable body of research, including students, academics, researchers, and research commissioners.

Issues of ethnic diversity are increasingly important in modern society and reducing inequalities in service provision is a key target of government agencies. Despite this, little has been written highlighting issues relating to health and social research in multicultural societies such as social and political contexts. Accessible and straightforward in its approach, Health and Social Research in Multiracial Societies provides an essential guide to good practice in conducting health and social research in modern multiracial societies. Topics covered include: conceptions of ethnicity; the context of ethnicity in modern societies; the ethical issues and complex political agendas that exist in research and user communities; strategies for engaging communities and users in research; cultural competence in research key methods used in health with ethnic minority groups; how to conduct research and evaluate the quality of that research. Using comprehensive case studies to illustrate the benefits and pitfalls of particular approaches, James Nazroo provides access to core issues relevant to research on ethnic minority groups. considerable and growing body of research including students, academics, researchers and research commissioners in health and social care.

In the age of data-driven problem-solving, applying sophisticated computational tools for explaining substantive phenomena is a valuable skill. Yet, application of methods assumes an understanding of the data, structure, and patterns that influence the broader research program. This Element offers researchers and teachers an introduction to clustering, which is a prominent class of unsupervised machine learning for exploring and understanding latent, non-random structure in data. A suite of widely used clustering techniques is covered in this Element, in addition to R code and real data to facilitate interaction with the concepts. Upon setting the stage for clustering, the following algorithms are detailed: agglomerative hierarchical clustering, k-means clustering, Gaussian mixture models, and at a higher-level, fuzzy C-means clustering, DBSCAN, and partitioning around medoids (k-medoids) clustering.

Proud sponsor of the 2019 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award-enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop. Essentials of Social Statistics for a Diverse Society, Third Edition, is a more streamlined, less expensive version of the successful Social Statistics for a Diverse Society. As in the parent text, the Essentials version does more than introduce students to the statistical techniques used by social scientists. It is distinct for the use of real data from contemporary social issues, illustrating the interplay between social concerns and methods of inquiry, and for a strong emphasis on race, class, gender, and other statuses to show how statistics can be a tool for understanding the richness of social differences within society. With a wide range of examples and exercises taken from current events and published research, frequent illustrations, and a focus on student learning, this book continues to be an accessible and engaging resource for students. "I think this textbook is incredibly readable. It presents statistics in a manner that is easy to grasp and comprehend but is still rigorous in terms of the content covered." -Amy Lucas, University of Houston-Clear Lake A Complete Teaching & Learning Package SAGE edge FREE online resources for students that make learning easier. See how your students benefit. IBM SPSS Statistics (c) version 23 Students receive SPSS for only $19 when ordered using bundle ISBN: 978-1-5443-2330-5

Kreuzer offers guidance to scholars looking to comparative historical analysis (CHA) for the tools to analyze macro-historical questions. Like history, CHA uses the past to formulate research questions, describe social transformations, and generate inductive insights. Like social science, CHA compares those patterns to explicate generalizable and testable theories. It operates in two different worlds-one constantly changing and full of cultural particularities and another static and full of orderly uniformities. CHA draws attention to the ontological constructions of these worlds; how scholars background historical and geographic particularities to create a social reality orderly enough for theorizing, while others foreground those particularities to re-complexify it to generate new inductive insights. CHA engages in ontological triage, dialogue between exploration and confirmation, and conversation in how to translate test results into genuine answers. This book is supplemented by online materials including introductory videos, diagnostic quizzes, advanced exercises, and annotated bibliographies.

Text is everywhere, and it is a fantastic resource for social scientists. However, because it is so abundant, and because language is so variable, it is often difficult to extract the information we want. There is a whole subfield of AI concerned with text analysis (natural language processing). Many of the basic analysis methods developed are now readily available as Python implementations. This Element will teach you when to use which method, the mathematical background of how it works, and the Python code to implement it.

A practical overview for health students and health professionals embarking on an applied research project using a qualitative approach.Successful Qualitative Health Research offers a thorough introduction to the field, written in a very clear and concise fashion. Emphasising the rigorous approach required in health research, it provides a step by step guide to designing a research project using qualitative methods, and to collecting, analysing and presenting different types of data.Hansen provides essential insights into the ideas and arguments underpinning different qualitative methods, and highlights the links between theory and practice. She also explains the importance of choosing the most appropriate form of data analysis. Each chapter features real life examples from experienced researchers from a wide range of health fields. These examples show how researchers have overcome common problems and offer inspiration and guidance. Applied qualitative research is increasingly being used to explore a range of issues in health, both on its own and as an adjunct to quantitative research. This book offers a clear, no-nonsense approach that will be invaluable to students and professionals in nursing, medicine, allied health and public health.'I strongly recommend this book to all those looking to undertake ethical and rigorous qualitative research in the field of health and health care.' - Dr Jon Adams, Director, Qualitative Research Laboratory, Faculty of Health, University of Newcastle'From thinking about theory to writing for publication, this text covers a massive amount of ground in a fresh and dynamic way. It will enthuse the beginner and refresh the old hand ...' - Associate Professor Jane Gunn, Research Director, Department of General Practice, University of Melbourne

The volume covers issues related to poverty, inequality, inclusiveness development, role of institutions, and socio-political perspectives on development in India with a special focus on North-East India. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Demographics has become a critical dimension of the work of many journalists, marketing, management and human resource professionals in business, and government analysts and managers. Despite its increasing familiarity, however, it is often difficult for those who are not professional demographers to locate and effectively use demographics. How does one find data on workforce characteristics or on the number of persons with specific levels of consumer expenditures? What is the basic body of knowledge necessary to effectively use such data? What are the most effective ways to communicate and graphically illustrate such information? Written by authors with more than 90 years of combined experience, this text provides a single-volume reference that is readily understandable by those who are not professional demographers. It describes and demonstrates how students and working professionals can obtain demographic information and use and communicate it effectively. concepts, definitions and methods; sources of demographic and economic data; effectively and accurately using demographic and economic data; and examples of data use and communication. It is an ideal supplementary text for courses in journalism, social science research methods, and business management and marketing.

"Politics of Social Research" addresses itself to the question of the behavior appropriate for social scientists conducting research sponsored by or otherwise involving government agencies--our own and those of other countries. The simple patriotism that suggests that social scientists, like other citizens, should not hesitate to put their skills at the service of their government is questioned here and by practitioners. This is partly because of outright disagreement with government policies and partly because of the threat to independence posed by massive government funding. As this book plainly shows, the problems are especially acute for social scientists working abroad, where they are viewed as "de facto" representatives of American policy while at the same time they must accommodate to the policies of foreign governments.
Beals begins by describing specific and precipitating problems--Project Camelot and other research undertakings that met with difficulties--and a general review of the kinds of problems people engaged in social research encounter (concealment and misrepresentation, nationalism and colonialism, protection of subjects, etc.) These problems are then placed in historical and ideological perspective. This reveals differing views of the relationship between social scientists and government and the meanings and uses of various kinds of research.
The book also contains a survey of the particular problems encountered by research social scientists in each of the major areas outside the United States. First published in 1969, and here reissued with a new introduction, this volume remains essential reading for all who are concerned with improving the responsible use of social research by governments, while safeguarding the freedom and integrity of the research and the researcher.
"Ralph L. Beals" was chairman of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Alan Woolfolk" is director, core curriculum at Oglethorpe University, Atlanta.

This book presents an intensive cross-national analysis of social structure and personality, testing the generality of the thesis that position in the larger social structure affects (and is affected by) personality largely because of the linkages between social-structural position with proximate conditions of life, and of proximate conditions of life with personality. Kohn and his collaborators have focused their research on two basic dimensions of social structure (class and stratification), the proximate conditions of life most directly related to class and stratification (job conditions), and three fundamental aspects of personality (intellectual flexibility, self-directedness of orientation, and feelings of well-being or distress). Their findings for the United States, then-socialist Poland, and Japan demonstrate remarkable cross-national similarities across cultures and economic systems, along with an intriguing cross-national difference between socialist Poland and the capitalist U.S. and Japan, in the relationships of class and stratification with job conditions and thus with personality during times of apparent social stability. Kohn then asks whether the cross-nationally consistent relationships could possibly survive the conditions of radical social change entailed in the transition of Poland and Ukraine from socialism to nascent capitalism, and whether the one major difference between socialist Poland and the capitalist countries would persist when Poland and Ukraine were no longer socialist. The cross-national similarities endure, despite social instability and, in Ukraine, even despite personality itself becoming astonishingly unstable; and the cross-national differencehas disappeared with the transition from socialism to nascent capitalism.

Contemporary society encounters profound economical, socio-ecological and political crises challenging the democratic foundation of our societies. This book addresses the potentials and challenges for Action Research supporting democratic alternatives. It offers a broad spectrum of examples from Scandinavian Action Research showing different openings towards democratic development. The book's first part contributes with a wide range of examples such as Action Research in relation to the Triple Helix/Mode II contexts, to design as a democratic process, to renewal of welfare work and public institutions, to innovation policies combining Action Research with gender science. In the second part of the book epistemological and ontological dimensions of Action Research are discussed addressing questions of validity criteria related to Action Research, the transformation of knowledge institutions and the specific character of creativity in Action Research. The book offers a basis for theoretical as well as practical oriented discussions and critical reflections within the field of Action Research and related research orientations, involving a wide range of actors.

This book focuses on the meaning of statistical inference and estimation. Statistical inference is concerned with the problems of estimation of population parameters and testing hypotheses. Primarily aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students of statistics, the book is also useful to professionals and researchers in statistical, medical, social and other disciplines. It discusses current methodological techniques used in statistics and related interdisciplinary areas. Every concept is supported with relevant research examples to help readers to find the most suitable application. Statistical tools have been presented by using real-life examples, removing the "fear factor" usually associated with this complex subject. The book will help readers to discover diverse perspectives of statistical theory followed by relevant worked-out examples. Keeping in mind the needs of readers, as well as constantly changing scenarios, the material is presented in an easy-to-understand form.

First published in 1998, this volume examines a major function of research which is to strengthen the knowledge base of health professions and so enhance patient care. The rapid growth has unfortunately led to it being seen by many as an elitist activity full of jargon, carried out by academics. This to some degree has led to a theory practice gap with some professionals not recognising their important role within the research process. It is important to dispel the myth that all practitioner should carry out research, though they should use elements of the research process to develop a questioning and evaluative approach to care. This book will enable reader to demystify and enhance their understanding of terminology used in research and contains almost 300 terms. It offers readers a unique approach to explanations for each term by offering its Everyday use; its Research use; an Example and Related terms.