Making Sense of the Social World: Methods of Investigation

Ideal for students who need to understand methodologies and results, but who may never undertake major research projects themselves, this text offers an innovative, accurate introduction to social research with balanced treatment of qualitative and quantitative methods, integration of substantive examples and research techniques, and consistent attention to the goal of validity and the standards of ethical practice. This bestseller features a new chapter on evaluation research, a new chapter on research ethics, revised coverage of qualitative methods and updates throughout the text.

Offering a brief, engaging, and sometimes humorous treatment of social research methods, it covers all essential elements of social research methods including validity, causation, experimental and quasi-experimental design, and techniques of analysis. It offers real data and updated examples that emphasize everyday experiences and current issues, new ethics exercises, and  contemporary coverage of web-based research methods.

This text is intended for courses in Research Methods offered in departments of sociology, criminal justice, social work, communication, media studies, political science, and public administration.

Daniel F. Chambliss is the Christian A. Johnson "Excellence in Teaching" Professor of Sociology, and Chair of the Sociology Department, at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he has taught since 1981. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1982; later that year, his thesis research received the American Sociological Association’s Medical Sociology Dissertation Prize. In 1988, he published the book Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers, which received the Book of the Year Prize of the United States Olympic Committee. In 1989, he received the ASA’s Theory Prize for work on organizational excellence based on his swimming research. Recipient of both Fulbright and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships, Professor Chambliss published his second book Beyond Caring: Hospitals, Nurses and the Social Organization of Ethics, in 1996; for that work, he was awarded the ASA’s Elliot Freidson Prize in Medical Sociology. His research and teaching interests include organizational analysis, higher education, social theory, and comparative research methods. He is currently Director of the Project for Assessment of Liberal Arts Education at Hamilton College, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is a Member of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

Russell K. Schutt, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Lecturer on Sociology in the Department of Psychiatry (Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center) at the Harvard Medical School. He completed his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. (1977) degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University (1977–1979). He has authored and co-authored texts on research methods with Sage Publications and other books on social service issues, including Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness (Harvard University Press, 2011). His recent journal articles and funded research have focused on the organization and effects of innovative public health and social service programs.