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Acknowledegments | |
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Introduction | |
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Making preparations | |
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Project planning checklist | |
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Preliminaries | |
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Recognizing realities | |
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As a student on a course | |
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If you are by yourself | |
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If you are doing this as part of your job | |
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To everybody | |
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Making it worthwhile | |
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Considering your audience(s) | |
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Individual or group research? | |
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Types of group research | |
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Support groups | |
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Working together successfully | |
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Project milestones | |
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The structure of the book | |
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End-of-chapter tasks | |
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Further reading | |
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tasks | |
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Approaches to research | |
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A concern for truth | |
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Different purposes of research | |
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Description | |
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Exploration | |
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Explanation | |
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Emancipation | |
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Research design | |
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The qualitative/quantitative divide | |
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Fixed and flexible designs | |
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Fixed designs | |
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Flexible designs | |
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Overview of some different research traditions | |
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Action research | |
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Case studies | |
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Documentary analysis | |
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Ethnographic research | |
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Evaluation research | |
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Experiments | |
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Grounded theory studies | |
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Surveys | |
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A note on feminist research | |
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Choosing an approach | |
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Further reading | |
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tasks | |
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Developing your ideas | |
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Selecting a topic | |
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Replication research | |
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From a topic to research questions | |
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From research questions to a research design | |
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Do I really need research questions? | |
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Hypotheses | |
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Developing the design | |
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Finding and using sources | |
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Planning the search for sources | |
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Internet searching | |
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Library searching | |
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Asking the author | |
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Dealing with the sources | |
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Ethical considerations | |
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Ethics committees | |
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Ethics guidelines | |
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Avoiding the unethical | |
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Confirming your choices | |
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Further reading | |
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tasks | |
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Selecting the method(s) of collecting data | |
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Trustworthiness and credibility | |
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Reliability | |
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Validity | |
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Research arguments | |
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Data collection methods | |
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Interviews | |
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Fully structured interviews | |
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Semi-structured interviews | |
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Unstructured interviews | |
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Group interviews | |
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Telephone interviews | |
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Using interviews in your project | |
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Questionnaires and diaries | |
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Questionnaires | |
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Diaries | |
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Using questionnaires or diaries in your project | |
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Tests and scales | |
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Using tests or scales in your project | |
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Observation - structured and participant | |
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Structured observation | |
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Participant observation | |
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Using observation in your project | |
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Using documents and other secondary sources | |
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Library research | |
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Unobtrusive measures | |
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Using documents in your project | |
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Other methods | |
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Using multiple methods | |
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Which method? | |
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Further reading | |
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tasks | |
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Doing it | |
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Practicalities of data collection | |
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Sampling and sample sizes | |
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Representative samples | |
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Non-probability samples | |
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Informed consent | |
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Laboratory research | |
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Gaining access for field research | |
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Formal and informal contracts | |
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Getting on and getting out | |
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Insider research | |
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Pilots | |
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Collecting the data | |
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What to do if you run into difficulties or out of time | |
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Further reading | |
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tasks | |
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Making something of it | |
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Analysing and interpreting your findings | |
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What this chapter tries to do | |
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Preparing for analysis | |
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Quantitative (numerical) data | |
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Categorical variables | |
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Ordered categorical variables | |
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Summarizing and displaying categorical data | |
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Continuous variables | |
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Calculating summary statistics with continuous variables | |
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Calculating variability | |
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Displaying continuous variables | |
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Statistical tests and statistical significance | |
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Effect sizes | |
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Clinical significance | |
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What test do I use? | |
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Qualitative data | |
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Data reduction and organization | |
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An example - the grounded theory approach to analysis | |
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Using specialist computer packages for qualitative data analysis | |
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Summary of qualitative data analysis | |
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Interpretation - what is going on here? | |
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Further reading | |
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6 tasks | |
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Writing the report | |
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Planning and drafting | |
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Research arguments | |
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Claims | |
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Reasons and evidence | |
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Considering your a | |