In Doing Good Qualitative Research, Jennifer Cyr and Sara Wallace Goodman bring together over forty experts to provide one of the first comprehensive introductions to using qualitative methods across the social sciences, from start to finish. Each chapter introduces the theoretical considerations and best practices involved in the application of qualitative data collection and analysis. Additionally, contributors provide first-person accounts of methodology in action, address the expected and unexpected challenges associated with conducting qualitative research, and demonstrate the real-world applications of academic debates.

This volume offers unique perspectives on how to engage in methods of inquiry in Political Science. Applying the debate in the field over the validity of qualitative methods, the authors illustrate how various methodological approaches are both rigorous and empirically rich. Each of the chapters consists of a particular methodological approach that offers useful insight into pressing political problems important for policy and for theory building. Drawing upon both positivist and interpretive approaches, the chapters illustrate how to engage in qualitative research involving case studies, content analysis and ethnography, each outlining the “doing” part of research. The volume is theoretically, thematically and geographically diverse, important for students and scholars across the field.

New to online research? This book will give you the foundation you need to confidently design and conduct a project using internet methods. First providing an overview of online qualitative research, it then provides how-to guidance for studying the ways we use diverse technologies to communicate with words and images. It covers a well-established methods, from document research to online interviews, as well as introducing new turns in qualitative research, such as big data. This second edition: Equips you with the skills to make good decisions about methodologies, methods and technologies at every stage of your project. Dedicates three chapters to being an ethical online researcher, covering vital aspects such as respecting partners in research and researcher positionality. Includes over 30 ‘Research Cameo’ examples showing you how to put theory into practice. Written by a scholar-practitioner in e-learning and online academia with 20 years’ experience, this book will help students and researchers across the social sciences looking to do qualitative research online. Accompanied by online resources including templates, exercises and further reading, this book will develop your digital literacy and enable you to take advantage of the possibilities of Internet research.

This book provides theoretically grounded, real-world advice for students beginning to learn how to conduct qualitative research. Drawing on the authors extensive experience teaching qualitative methods, the text uses students questions and concerns as an organizational framework. Unlike many textbooks, this one provides students with an inside view into the most common dilemmas and challenges they will face as they start doing research. This easy-to-use book addresses the key phases of any ethnographic projectfrom beginning a project and defining its aims, to data collection, analysis, writing, and reporting results. While designed specifically for beginners, seasoned qualitative researchers will find useful insights, helpful tips, and new ways of thinking about qualitative research.

Doing qualitative research for one's thesis requires a conscious, internal awareness within the external structural, political, and human context of higher education. This book is the result of a desire to fill a void that had not yet been addressed in a text format--the needs and confusions of the doctoral student selecting qualitative methodologies for his/her dissertation research. Twenty individuals--from a range of disciplines including communication, sociology, nursing, and education--corresponded with the author about the structure and format of their "qualitative" dissertations. Their reflections describe some of the interactions and sources of ambiguity that are a part of the process of qualitative research and hence of concern to doctoral students choosing such methodologies for their thesis research. Their questions, concerns, and ideas highlight the complexity of the concept of the researcher as the human instrument. Although many "how to" books already exist, this is the first one that explicates the feelings, meanings, and concerns of those who have been through it. Conceptions about the "whole" of a research project, committee-student interaction, and learning by doing are foundational to this volume. Different from other texts about qualitative research in many ways, this volume has the following features: * an informal style, reflecting the personal and personable nature of the research; * data are letters; * an organization beginning with a chapter about "the end," where an amount of certainty and confidence finally emerge for the novice qualitative researcher; and * chapters featuring one or more sets of "questions" meant to serve as a possible guide to decision making and subsequent action for those to whom they may not have occurred.

Qualitative Journeys: Student and Mentor Experiences with Research takes a fresh approach to teaching qualitative research. Authors Victor Minichiello and Jeffrey Kottler share stories of student qualitative research experiences that reveal the struggles, the joys, the discoveries, and the surprises that take place during the qualitative research journey. By studying examples of student research (including obstacles and how they were overcome), readers learn through the real-life experiences of other students. Throughout the textbook, the authors offer pragmatic guidance for what works and what does not work, along with suggested solutions. Features and Benefits Provides the nuts and bolts of qualitative research in Part I Includes a dozen "qualitative journeys," narratives that tell the story of research studies, how they evolved, what was involved, and how they were conceived and conducted Focuses on research from the perspective of student experiences and demonstrates the partnership between students and their mentors Includes domestic and international examples of qualitative studies and real-life stories that convey the excitement and meaning of research Considers the lessons learned and the main themes derived from all the qualitative journeys Qualitative Journeys: Student and Mentor Experiences with Research is appropriate for use as a supplement or core text for courses in Qualitative Research, Counseling Research Methods, or Social Work Research Methods.

`This comprehensive collection of almost 40 chapters - each written by a leading expert in the field - is the essential reference for anyone undertaking or studying qualitative research. It covers a diversity of methods and a variety of perspectives and is a very practical and informative guide for newcomers and experienced researchers alike′ - John Scott, University of Essex `The best ways in which to understand the issues and processes informing qualitative research is to learn from the accounts of its leading practitioners. Here they come together in what is a distinctive and wide-ranging collection that will appeal to postgraduates and social researchers in general′ - Tim May, University of Salford `This excellent guide engages in a dialogue with a wide range of expert qualitative researchers, each of whom considers their own practice in an illuminating and challenging way. Overall, the book constitutes an authoritative survey of current methods of qualitative research data collection and analysis′ - Nigel Gilbert, University of Surrey Learning to do good qualitative research occurs most fortuitously by seeing what researchers actually do in particular projects and by incorporating their procedures and strategies into one′s own research practice. This is one of the most powerful and pragmatic ways of bringing to bear the range of qualitative methodological perspectives available. The chapters in this important new volume are written by leading, internationally distinguished qualitative researchers who recount and reflect on their own research experiences as well as others, past and present, from whom they have learned. It demonstrates the benefits of using particular methods from the viewpoint of real-life experience. From the outside, good research seems to be produced through practitioners learning and following standard theoretical, empirical and procedural formats. But from the inside we learn that qualitative research (like other forms of scientific endeavour) is also a biographical engagement, rendering its scholarly and practical contributions in its own terms. Standards take on practical meaning as the distinct activities of qualitative research resonate throughout the enterprise, complicating its accountability to itself and to others. In an authoritative yet accessible manner, Qualitative Research Practice reveals the special features of this engagement, teaching us that qualitative research is as much a craft and practice as it is a way of knowing. Presenting a comprehensive examination of contemporary and traditional varieties of qualitative research practice, Qualitative Research Practice will be an invaluable resource for advanced students and researchers in any discipline. It is an essential and definitive guide to the major forms of qualitative methods in use today, written by leaders in the relevant fields of research practice.

Now in its fourth edition, this popular book provides clear, step-by-step guidance for new and experienced interviewers to develop, shape, and reflect on interviewing as a qualitative research process. Using concrete examples of interviewing techniques to illustrate the issues under discussion, this classic text helps readers to understand the complexities of interviewing and its connections to broader issues of qualitative research. The text includes principles and methods that can be adapted to a range of interviewing approaches. Appropriate for individual and classroom use, the new edition has been expanded to include: clarification of important phenomenological assumptions that underlie the interviewing approach presented in the book; new sections on Long-Distance Interviewing and its implications for the relationship between interviewers and their participants; a new section on the pros and cons of Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software; The Ethics of Doing Good Work, is a new chapter which discusses the interplay between ethical issues in interviewing and how interviewers carry out their work as researchers.

The author takes readers on a journey of a large number of issues in designing actual studies of knowing and learning in the classroom, exploring actual data, and putting readers face to face with problems that he actually or possibly encountered, and what he has done or possibly could have done. The reader subsequently sees the results of data collection in the different analyses provided. The author shows how one writes very different studies using the same data sources but very different theoretical assumptions and analytic technique. The author brings his publication experience in very different disciplines-including science education, mathematics education, teacher education, curriculum, applied cognitive science, linguistics, social studies of science, and epistemology-into play to provide readers with way of experiencing research as praxis. The book is organized around six major themes (sections), in the course of which it develops the practical problems an educational researcher might face in a large variety of settings. In Part A, Collecting Data, the author introduces design experiments and ethnographic designs; in Part B, Analyzing Data, finding the right zoom level and focus, cognitive phenomenology, discourse analysis, and conversation analysis constitute the organizing themes. For each theme, the author uses one of his extensive databases to draw on examples, problems, decisions, solutions, and so on. The book was written to be used by upper undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in research design; because of its practical approach, it is highly suitable for those contexts where research methods courses do not exist. The audience also includes professors, who want to have a reference on design and methodology, and those who have not yet had the opportunity to employ a particular method.