Now in its third edition, this market-leading textbook continues to provide students with an excellent explanation and demonstration of the main approaches and techniques in social research methods. The book shows students how to assess the contexts within which different research methods may be used, and how they should be implemented. It covers both quantitative and qualitative research and examines the significance of this very distinction. It also covers mixed methods research, a topic on which the author is an authority. In an accessible and student-friendly manner, the book shows students how to go about doing their own research projects and how to write up their research. In addition to presenting a wide range of features within the text, including up to date empirical research examples, the third edition supports students and lecturers with a full set of online resources. Key features Excellent breadth of coverage of both qualitative research methods Presents a non-technical approach to the range of tools for the analysis and interpret the finings Step by step guides, including screen shots and easy to follow instructions, are provided for analyzing quantitative and qualitative data using the latest versions of SPSs and NVivo Supporting Online Resource Centre with resources for lecturers and students; these include an Excel tutorial guide, case studies, and interactive project guide and real life student experiences Contents Part One 1. Social Research Strategies 2. Research Designs 3. Planning a Research project and Formulating Research questions 4. Getting Started: Reviewing the Literature 5. Ethics and Politics in social research Part Two 6. The nature of quantitative research 7. Sampling 8. Structured interviewing 9. Self completion questionnaires 10. Asking questions 11. structured observation 12. Content Analysis 13. Secondary Analysis and Official Statistics 14. Quantitative Data Analysis 15. Using SPSS of Windows Part Three 16. The Nature of qualitative Research 17. Ethnography and Paticipant observation 18. Interviewing in Qualitative Research 19. Focus Groups 20. Language in Qualitative research 21. Documents as Sources of Data 22. Qualitative Data analysis 23. Computer assisted qualitative data analysis using NVivo Part Four 24. Breaking down the Quantitative/Qualitative Divide 25. Mixed methods Research: Combining quantitative and Qualitative Research 26. E-research: using the internet as object and method of data collection 27. Writing up social research