A Guide to Qualitative Field Research


Book Description

Thoroughly revised, the Second Edition of A Guide to Field Research is designed to assist undergraduate students and other beginning field researchers in carrying out their first qualitative studies. Its rich examples from classic ethnographies, as well as examples generated by the author herself, help bring alive the abstract principles of field research.




A Guide to Qualitative Field Research


Book Description

A Guide to Qualitative Field Research provides readers with clear, practical, and specific instructions for conducting qualitative research in the field. In the expanded Third Edition, Carol A. Bailey gives increased attention to the early and last stages of field research, often the most difficult: selecting a topic, deciding upon the purpose of your research, and writing the final paper, all in her signature reader-friendly writing style. This edition features research examples from graduate and undergraduate students to make examples meaningful to fellow students; a new “Putting It All Together” feature, with examples of how different parts of the research process interact; and more emphasis on the “nuts and bolts” of research, such as what to include in an informed consent form, a proposal, and the final paper. New to this Edition: Objectives features help students focus on the skills they need to develop and can be used as the basis for evaluating whether the skills have been achieved. Expanded coverage of research in virtual settings ensures that readers get a well-rounded understanding of both in-person and digital research methods. Examples of research conducted by students help students generate ideas for their own research, provides concrete examples of the material discussed in the guide, and illustrates that field research is not just done by advanced scholars.




A Guide to Qualitative Field Research


Book Description

A Guide to Qualitative Field Research provides readers with clear, practical, and specific instructions for conducting qualitative research in the field. In the expanded Third Edition, Carol A. Bailey gives increased attention to the early and last stages of field research, often the most difficult: selecting a topic, deciding upon the purpose of your research, and writing the final paper, all in her signature reader-friendly writing style. This edition features research examples from graduate and undergraduate students to make examples meaningful to fellow students; a new "Putting It All Together" feature, with examples of how different parts of the research process interact; and more emphasis on the "nuts and bolts" of research, such as what to include in an informed consent form, a proposal, and the final paper.




Discovering Qualitative Methods


Book Description

Discovering Qualitative Methods guides students on a journey into the study of social interaction and culture. This highly readable text covers all the major types of qualitative research: field research or ethnography, interviews, documents, and images. Throughout the text, Warren and Karner emphasize the process of social research--from the initial idea to the final paper, journal article, or scholarly monograph. Chapter One situates the development of qualitative research in a historical and theoretical context. Chapter Two discusses ethical, political, and legal issues in qualitative research, including the development and requirements of institutional review boards. Chapters Three, Four, and Five cover field research in all its contexts, from stranger to member and from solo to team ethnography. The reader is introduced to issues of accessibility and cost in choosing a setting, entrée as event and process, and the intersection of the setting with the field researcher. Chapter Four follows these processes into the establishment of roles and relationships within the setting, including intersections of gender, sex, race, and ethnicity. The task of writing fieldnotes is addressed in Chapter Five. Since thick description is the basis of good analytic description, the importance of writing timely and detailed fieldnotes is emphasized. Various technologies that can assist the student with this task are presented, together with examples and critiques of fieldnotes. Qualitative interviewing is the subject of Chapters Six and Seven, beginning with topic selection and moving into the process of developing research and interview questions. Various interview formats, from dyads to focus groups, are discussed, and face-to-face is contrasted with telephone and internet interviewing. Selection of interviewees--how many, what social types, and which individuals--is covered, together with how to deal with problems such as the inability to locate respondents and how to elicit detailed narrative answers. The process and format of the qualitative interview is also considered as a social interaction. Warren and Karner further explore the logistics of transcription, or turning a speech event into text, as well as the epistemology of the interview--how qualitative researchers interpret the interview as a source of data and sociological knowledge. Chapter Eight discusses and analyzes the use of texts and images in qualitative research, including still and moving images, the Internet, and historical documents. The creation of texts and images by the researcher and the respondent are considered methodologically--as is the use of existing documents, photographs, and films. The analysis of qualitative data and the task of writing are developed in Chapters Nine and Ten. By this time in the process of discovering qualitative methods, the researcher has the data: fieldnotes, interview transcripts, copies of texts, or images. The task of analyzing these data is discussed in detail, as are the various techniques and technologies available to facilitate this task. Chapter Ten covers the write-up of the research in the form of class papers, presentations, or publishable articles and books. Step by step, Warren and Karner take the reader through the process of crafting a well-written qualitative analysis. They include discussions and examples of outlines and drafts, titles and authors, abstracts, introductions, methods sections, literature reviews, findings, conclusions, and the relationship between methods, theory, and applied sociology. The Epilogue considers the future of qualitative sociology. Qualitative methods teaching is flourishing both at the undergraduate and graduate levels in sociology, as well as interdisciplinary areas such as education, gerontology, and evaluation research. Interdisciplinary cultural studies continue to expand theoretical research with qualitative methods. The Epilogue also considers various postmodern approaches to, and critiques of, qualitative methods, including feminist and globalist perspectives. An Instructor's Resource Guide is available. It provides essay exam questions and suggested projects for each chapter. Also included are suggested sample learning assignments and a series of PowerPoint lectures to accompany the book.




Participatory Critical Rhetoric


Book Description

Increasingly, rhetorical scholars are using fieldwork and other ethnographic, performance, and qualitative methods to access, document, and analyze forms of everyday in situ rhetoric rather than using already documented texts. In this book, the authors argue that participatory critical rhetoric, as an approach to in situ rhetoric, is a theoretically, methodologically, and praxiologically robust approach to critical rhetorical studies. This book addresses how participatory critical rhetoric furthers understanding of the significant role that rhetoric plays in everyday life through expanding the archive of rhetorical practices and texts, emplacing rhetorical critics in direct conversation with rhetors and audiences at the moment of rhetorical invention, and highlighting marginalized voices that might otherwise go unnoticed. This book organizes the theoretical and methodological foundations of participatory critical rhetoric through four vectors that enhance conventional rhetorical approaches: 1) the political commitments of the critic; 2) rhetorical reflexivity and the role of the embodied critic; 3) emplaced rhetoric and the interplay between the field, text, and context; and 4) multiperspectival judgment that is informed by direct participation with rhetors and audiences. In addition to laying the groundwork and advocating for the approach, Participatory Critical Rhetoric also offers significant contributions to rhetorical theory and criticism more broadly by revisiting the field’s understanding of core topics such as role of the critic, text/context, audience, rhetorical effect, and the purpose of criticism. Further, it enhances theoretical conversations about material rhetoric, place/space, affect, intersectional rhetoric, embodiment, and rhetorical reflexivity.




Routledge International Handbook of Police Ethnography


Book Description

Ethnography has a long history in the humanities and social sciences and has provided the base line in the field of police studies for over 60 years. We have recently witnessed a resurgence in ethnographic practice among police scholars, and this Handbook is a response to that revival. Students and academics are returning to the ethnography arena and the study of police in situ to explain the evocative worlds of the police. The list of ethnographic sites is vast and all have fed the rejuvenation of ethnographic endeavour. Together they suggest innovation, theoretical depth, broad geographical boundaries, multi-site experiments, and multi-disciplinarity, all of which are central to the exploration of police and policing in the twenty-first century. This Handbook encapsulates the revival of police ethnography by exploring its multidisciplinary field and cataloguing the ongoing ethnographic work. It offers an original and international contribution to the field of police studies and research methods, providing a comprehensive and overarching guide to police ethnography. We see the previous classics in every page and still note the influence of the early ethnographers. At the same time, we see the innovative breadth and diversity of these narratives. The aim of this Handbook is to highlight the mosaic that is police ethnography at a point in time and note with pleasure its contribution to the field once more. Ethnography may be messy, difficult, and at times uncooperative, but its results offer a unique insight into the perspectives of people and organisations that can hide in plain sight. An accessible and compelling read, this Handbook will provide a sound and essential reference source for academics, researchers, students, and practitioners engaged in police and criminal justice studies.




The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion


Book Description

This substantially revised second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion remains the only comprehensive survey in English of methods and methodology in the discipline. Designed for non-specialists and upper undergraduate-/graduate-level students, it discusses the range of methods currently available to stimulate interest in unfamiliar methods and enable students and scholars to evaluate methodological issues in research. The Handbook comprises 39 chapters – 21 of which are new, and the rest revised for this edition. A total of 56 contributors from 10 countries cover a broad range of topics divided into three clear parts: • Methodology • Methods • Techniques The first section addresses general methodological issues: including comparison, research design, research ethics, intersectionality, and theorizing/analysis. The second addresses specific methods: including advanced computational methods, autoethnography, computational text analysis, digital ethnography, discourse analysis, experiments, field research, grounded theory, interviewing, reading images, surveys, and videography. The final section addresses specific techniques: including coding, focus groups, photo elicitation, and survey experiments. Each chapter covers practical issues and challenges, theoretical bases, and their use in the study of religion/s, illustrated by case studies. The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion is essential reading for students and researchers in the study of religion/s, as well as for those in related disciplines.




Managing Organizational Culture for Effective Internal Control


Book Description

In times of economic and financial crises, the content of this book rings true. Drawing from interviews with executives, senior managers and/or auditors from renowned companies (eBay, Google, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Levi Strauss & Co., Microsoft, Novartis and many others) and theory from fields of sociology and social psychology, this research study provides an understanding of how "tone at the top" imprints on an organization and why that imprint works. More specifically, it discusses how managers' principles and practices can actively shape an open-minded culture that enhances effective internal control.




Research Methods in Library and Information Science


Book Description

The seventh edition of this frequently adopted textbook features new or expanded sections on social justice research, data analysis software, scholarly identity research, social networking, data science, and data visualization, among other topics. It continues to include discipline experts' voices. The revised seventh edition of this popular text provides instruction and guidance for professionals and students in library and information science who want to conduct research and publish findings, as well as for practicing professionals who want a broad overview of the current literature. Providing a broad introduction to research design, the authors include principles, data collection techniques, and analyses of quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as advantages and limitations of each method and updated bibliographies. Chapters cover the scientific method, sampling, validity, reliability, and ethical concerns along with quantitative and qualitative methods. LIS students and professionals will consult this text not only for instruction on conducting research but also for guidance in critically reading and evaluating research publications, proposals, and reports. As in the previous edition, discipline experts provide advice, tips, and strategies for completing research projects, dissertations, and theses; writing grants; overcoming writer's block; collaborating with colleagues; and working with outside consultants. Journal and book editors discuss how to publish and identify best practices and understudied topics, as well as what they look for in submissions.




Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks in ICT Research


Book Description

Research that is based on appropriate theoretical or conceptual frameworks ensures valid and credible research objectives and the production of relevant results that complement existing literature on a research problem. Innovative and relevant knowledge is produced using appropriate theories and concepts. Despite the importance of theoretical and conceptual frameworks to research, many researchers have difficulties applying them appropriately in their research. Researchers in information systems have limited exposure to theories of societal and human development that should guide them in applying their knowledge of information systems to address real-world problems. Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks in ICT Research presents a collection of practical case applications of theoretical and conceptual frameworks in information systems research. It guides researchers of information systems to explore and use appropriate theoretical frameworks. This book further tests different theories and frameworks and recommends their effectiveness and improvement and identifies context-specific theoretical and conceptual frameworks. Covering topics such as decision electronic health record implementation, institution management, and technology adoption, this premier reference source is an essential resource for policymakers, educators and advanced-level students of higher education, information systems professionals, librarians, researchers, and academicians.