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| Preface | |
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| Acknowledgements | |
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| Planning your research project | |
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| So you're going to do a research project | |
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| The dominance of research findings in our lives | |
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| Becoming a researcher | |
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| The basic rules | |
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| Qualitative and quantitative research methods | |
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| Are you ready to be a good project manager? | |
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| Ten steps to get you off to a good start | |
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| Are you on message? | |
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| The nature of research | |
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| Exercise | |
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| Let's make a start | |
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| Choosing a topic and turning it into a question | |
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| Practicalities | |
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| Selecting your methodology | |
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| Fourteen ways of 'doing research' | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Drawing up your personal project road map | |
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| Clarify your own ideas | |
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| Make time for an exploratory stage | |
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| Find out how people will react to your method | |
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| Do a literature review | |
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| Give thought to five additional issues | |
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| Prepare a final draft of your research instrument | |
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| Carry out a pilot study | |
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| Put it all together in a timed road map | |
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| Timed road map | |
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| Quantitative research | |
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| The principles of sampling | |
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| Types of sample | |
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| Probability samples | |
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| Non-probability samples | |
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| In defence of the convenience sample | |
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| Representativeness - and bias | |
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| The basic rules of sampling in a learning context | |
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| When you come to write your report... | |
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| A note about experiments | |
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| Carrying out your survey | |
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| Twenty quality questions for carrying out a successful survey | |
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| An exercise | |
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| An investigation into gender differences in the division of labour within married/cohabiting couples | |
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| Now it's your turn | |
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| Jo Kensit's project results | |
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| Questionnaires | |
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| Questionnaires are driven by the researcher's own agenda | |
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| The researcher has a professional obligation to maintain high standards | |
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| Rating the performance of job candidates | |
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| Twelve more things for you to think about | |
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| The art and science of survey interviewing | |
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| The initial encounter | |
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| Interviews should give respondents freedom to use their own words | |
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| The principles of good practice | |
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| The design of interview schedules | |
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| Examples drawn from six classes of interview data | |
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| Exercise | |
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| Preparing your interview schedule | |
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| Finally | |
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| Exercise | |
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| Analysing your survey data | |
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| Think design, think analysis | |
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| Living with your data | |
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| Data entry using SPSS | |
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| Don't despise your frequency distributions | |
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| At this point, life gets more complicated | |
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| Cross-tabulations | |
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| Third variable analysis | |
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| Comparing numerical values - measures of central tendency | |
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| Comparing numerical values - correlations and rank order | |
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| Probability | |
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| Dealing with open-ended questions | |
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| Drawing your analysis to a close | |
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| A note on inferential statistics | |
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| Qualitative research | |
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| Studying a small sample | |
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| Why study a small sample? | |
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| Identifying your research question | |
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| Qualitative research is dynamic and interactive | |
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| Strategic sampling | |
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| A hypothetical example of strategic sampling | |
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| Exercise | |
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| Gathering your core sample | |
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| What factors to take into account in gathering your sample | |
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| Majorities and minorities are equally important | |
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| The strategic approach to research planning | |
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| Exercise | |
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| Qualitative research interviewing | |
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| Introduction | |
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| How will you present yourself? | |
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| Having a base | |
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| Unstructured or semi-structured interviewing with a small sample | |
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| The impact of the research interviewer | |
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| Ten rules for running your interview | |
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| What kinds of questions are suitable for use with a small sample? | |
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| Exercise | |
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| The meaning of words | |
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| Recording your interview | |
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| Some of the ideas on offer | |
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| There is more to qualitative research than interviewing | |
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| Ethnography and the anthropological tradition | |
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| Participant observation | |
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| Insider research | |
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| Non-participant observation | |
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| Exercise | |
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| Learning a lesson from the novelist | |
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| Focus groups | |
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| The art of successful focus group management | |
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| Content analysis | |
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| Case studies | |
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| N = 1 explorations | |
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| Analysing qualitative data | |
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| Content analysis of the answers to open-ended questions | |
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| Interpretive content analysis of complete interviews | |
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| Being an only child | |
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| Sexual infidelity | |
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| A cautionary note | |
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| Observation | |
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| Observing behavioural dominance in children | |
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| Focus groups | |
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| Case studies | |
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| Triangulation and multiple (or mixed) methods | |
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| NUD*ist, NVivo and computer analyses | |
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| The last lap | |
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| Writing your report | |
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| How to produce a successful report | |
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| A note on word length | |
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| Presenting your findings in a quantitative research study | |
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| Presenting percentages | |
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| Producing a bar chart by using MS Excel | |
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| Presenting your findings in a qualitative research study | |
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| Postscript: Over to you... | |
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| Into more complex territory | |
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| A qualitative researcher's briefing sheet | |
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| Ten golden rules in qualitative research | |
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| The language of qualitative research | |
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| A concise glossary | |
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| A cautionary view | |
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| Testing for statistical significance | |
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| Eight useful ways of testing for statistical significance | |
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| Testing for significance in cross-tabs | |
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| Exercise | |
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| Comparing differences between means | |
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| When to use the Mann-Whitney test | |
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| When to use the t-test for unmatched or independent samples | |
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| When to use the t-test for paired or related samples | |
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| Comparing pairs of scores in matched samples | |
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| When to use the Wilcoxon test | |
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| When to use the sign test | |
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| Testing for significance in correlations | |
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| When to use Spearman's rho | |
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| When to use Pearson's product moment correlation | |
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| Some terms you need to know and understand | |
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| Bibliography | |
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| Index | |