Impactful Social Research : Using Diverse Research Methods to Address Practical Problems / Janice D. Yoder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yoder, Janice D., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sociology--Research--Methodology.

Sociology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

London : SAGE Publications Ltd, 2025.

Summary:

Designing a research project is a complex undertaking that brings together your command of relevant scholarly theory and research as well as your methodologic and ethical competence. The purpose of this How-to Guide is to add another consideration to this mix--practice. My goal is to encourage you to think, upfront, about how to make your social research impactful, that is, relevant to understanding social problems and thus useful to practitioners and everyday people. I drew on the designs of five published exemplars and what the authors reported about the practice implications of their findings. The first two studies used true experimental designs and modeled their materials on real-world examples with real-life implications. The first was traditionally quantitative; the second, creatively open-ended and qualitative. Testing real-world interventions is an obvious way to address practical problems. The third exemplar I selected is instructive because it goes beyond a basic quasi-experimental design to build on an existing intervention and, in so doing, expanded its outcomes. In the fourth example, researchers worked interactively with on-the-ground practitioners and their research participants to design and execute their study. My fifth example cleverly used existing archived survey data to select comparison countries with different family-supportive national policies and then to examine correlations between masculinity and father involvement. Each of my five examples started with a social problem, drew on that problem in its design and execution, and concluded, full circle, by discussing the implications of its findings relevant to that problem.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-03-622270-5

9781036222703

OCLC:

1523168771