Customer Reviews

Approaches to Qualitative Research: A Reader on Theory and Practice

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We used this book in a senior undergraduate field research course within sociology. It was a fantastic learning aid, very comprehensive and well written. The entire scope of the various possible research types are here, from grounded research to image data to focus groups to feminist methods to Foucauldian knowledge inquiries. There is even a chapter that deals with conducting research on race issues by showing how even the seemingly straightforward racial categorization of "white" needs to be challenged. It really forced the class to come to terms with their own assumptions.

My favourite chapers were:
- Prior's chapter on text and research, "Following in Foucault's Footsteps",
- Miller & Crabtree's chapter on "Depth Interviewing"
- Guba & Lincoln's chapter on how a researcher's personal ontology affects their methodology in "Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues".
- Charmaz' chapter on "Grounded Theory"

The only quibble I have with the work in here is the chapter on online methods. It is rather outdated and based on old assumptions about the Internet. For example, when dealing with how to do research using email, it tells the budding researcher that they need to learn HTML in order to properly format their emails in an attractive manner and makes no mention of the online web-based survey tools widely available for online questionnaires. This small quibble aside, the book is great and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is starting to explore qualitative methods or to someone who is looking to expand their repertoire of research methods but doesn't want to have to take an entire course.