Congratulations to esteemed author Russell Schutt, 2007 recipient of University of Massachusetts, Boston′s Chancellor′s Award for Distinguished Service!
Note: This is NOT the SPSS version. To get the version with SPSS Student Version 14.0, order ISBN: 978-14129-2737-6.
The most successful social research text to have been published in a generation has been updated and revised in this new Fifth Edition! This innovative, up-to-date, and popular text makes research come alive through research stories that illustrate the methods presented in each chapter, with hands-on exercises to help students learn by doing. Author Russell K. Schutt helps readers connect technique and substance, understand research methods as an integrated whole, appreciate the value of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and make ethical research decisions.
New to the Fifth Edition:
- Updates and Revisions: Research examples have been updated throughout the text, with many that have been added from international researchers. All end-of-chapter exercise sets have been updated. Techniques for searching and reviewing the literature and Web sites have been updated and more guidance is provided on writing the literature review. In addition, many chapters have been streamlined and reorganized for greater clarity, including those on measurement and causation and research design.
- Secondary Data Analysis and Content Analysis: A new chapter introduces the logic and limitations of secondary data analysis, available data sources, procedures for using ICPSR datasets, the Human Relations Area Files, and more information on content analysis.
- Qualitative Data Analysis: New sections have been added on conversation analysis, ethnomethodology, case-oriented understanding, and visual sociology. A special section on computer-assisted qualitative data analysis introduces the HyperRESEARCH software that accompanies the text.
- Theories and Philosophies for Research: A revised and streamlined chapter uses international research on immigration and ethnic conflict to illustrate functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism and to contrast positivist and interpretivist research philosophies. Unique among methods texts, this chapter emphasizes the importance of social theory and research philosophy as a foundation for social research.
- Research Ethics: New sections have been added in some chapters and the discussion of the role of the IRB in the third chapter has been expanded.
Accompanied by High-Quality Ancillaries!
- Instructors′ Resource CD-ROM: provides test questions, PowerPoint slides for lectures, suggested assignments, and a review of course organization options.
- Student Study Site at www.pineforge.com/isw5: includes journal articles, flash cards for practicing terminology, online quizzes, and much more!
- Now with interactive exercises on the study site (from the student CD) - for easier access and use by students
- Student Resources CD: bundled with the book, contains wide-ranging data sets and interactive exercises to help students master concepts and techniques.
- HyperRESEARCH software: includes software for qualitative data analysis.
IRCDs are available for qualified instructors only. To request an IRCD for this book please contact Customer Care at 1.800.818.7243 (6 am – 5 pm Pacific Time) or by emailing info@sagepub.com with course name and enrollment and your university mailing address to expedite the process.
Click on ′Sample Materials and Chapters′ at left to access the GSS Mini Data Files. You need access to the Student SPSS program to use these data sets. These GSS Mini Data Files replaces the data set currently found on the Student Resource CD.
Intended Audience:
Written in a lively and personal style, this is an engaging, accessible introductory text for research methods courses in Sociology, Criminal Justice, Social Work, Communication and Journalism, Political Science, and Public Administration.
Russell K. Schutt, PhD, is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he received the 2007 Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service and taught from 1979 to 2022. He is also a Clinical Research Scientist I at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a Lecturer (part-time) in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. He completed his BA, MA, and PhD degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University (where he met Dan). In addition to ten editions of Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research and one of Understanding the Social World, as well as coauthored versions for the fields of social work, criminal justice, psychology, and education, his other books include Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness (2011), Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society (coedited, 2015), and Organization in a Changing Environment (1986). He has authored and coauthored more than 65 peer reviewed journal articles, as well as book chapters and research reports on homelessness, mental health, organizations, law, and teaching research methods. His currently a Dual Principal Investigator (with Matcheri Keshavan, MD) in randomized comparative effectiveness trial of two socially-oriented interventions to improve community functioning among persons diagnosed with serious mental illness, funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). His other recently concluded research includes co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded study of the social impact of the pandemic in Boston, and co-investigator on a Veterans Health Administration-funded study of peer support. His earlier research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Veterans Health Administration, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Fetzer Institute, and state agencies. Details are available at https://blogs.umb.edu/russellkschutt/.
