Social researchers increasingly find themselves looking beyond conventional methods to address complex research questions. This is the first book to comprehensively examine emergent qualitative and quantitative theories and methods across the social and behavioral sciences. Providing scholars and students with a way to retool their research choices, the volume presents cutting-edge approaches to data collection, analysis, and representation. Leading researchers describe alternative uses of traditional quantitative and qualitative tools; innovative hybrid or mixed methods; and new techniques facilitated by technological advances. Consistently formatted chapters explore the strengths and limitations of each method for studying different types of research questions and offer practical, in-depth examples.
Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber is Professor of Sociology and Director of Women’s Studies at Boston College. She is also the founder and former Executive Director of the National Association for Women in Catholic Higher Education. She has published widely on the impact of sociocultural factors on women’s body image, as well as on feminist and qualitative research methods. She is codeveloper of the software program HyperRESEARCH, a computer-assisted program for analyzing qualitative data, and of the new transcription tool HyperTRANSCRIBE. Her article "Qualitative Approaches to Mixed Methods Practice" was the most downloaded article of 2010 in the journal Qualitative Inquiry.
Patricia Leavy, PhD, is an independent sociologist, novelist, and former Chair of Sociology and Criminology and Founding Director of Gender Studies at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. She is the author, coauthor, or editor of 50 nonfiction and fiction books, which have received numerous awards and have been translated into multiple languages. She has served as the creator and editor of 10 book series and is cofounder of the journal Art/Research International. For her work in the field of research methods, Dr. Leavy has received honors including the Distinguished Service Outside the Profession Award from the National Art Education Association, the New England Sociologist of the Year Award from the New England Sociological Association, the Special Achievement Award from the American Creativity Association, the Significant Contribution to Educational Measurement and Research Methodology Award from Division D of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the Outstanding Achievement in Arts and Learning Award from the Arts and Learning Special Interest Group of the AERA, and the Special Career Award from the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. The School of Fine and Performing Arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz has established the Patricia Leavy Award for Art and Social Justice in her honor. Dr. Leavy delivers invited lectures and keynote addresses at universities and conferences. Her website is www.patricialeavy.com.
