Qualitative research methods for the social sciences

Included Index.

1. Introduction --
2. Designing qualitative research --
3. Ethical issues --
4. A dramaturgical look at interviewing --
5. Focus group interviewing --
6. Ethnographic field strategies --
7. Action research --
8. Unobtrusive measures in research --
9. Historiography and oral traditions --
10. Case studies --
11. An introduction to content analysis --
12. Writing research papers: sorting the noodles from the soup.

This book offers the most comprehensive coverage of qualitative techniques of any book on the market today and does it in a way that is easy to read and follow. The author's central purpose remains a desire to instruct inexperienced researchers in ways of effectively collecting, organizing, and making sense of qualitative data, while stressing the importance of ethics in research and in taking the time to properly design and think through any research endeavor. After reading this book, fledgling researchers should be able to design, collect, and analyze data and then present their results to the scientific community. Considers seven different data collection strategies in detail. Describes focus group interviewing, one of the fastest growing styles of data collection, in detail (Ch. 5), including a new Moderator's Guide that provides the inexperienced focus group facilitator with a step-by-step guide to how the interview should be conducted. Maintains the emphasis on ethics in research (Ch. 3) including a new section on the President's apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. For anyone in the social sciences who needs to develop research methodology.