Methods and Techniques of Social Research

Contents: Preface. I. Empirical research and its structure: 1. Introduction. 2. The research problem. 3. Measurement and operationalization. 4. Sampling methods. II. Methods of collecting observations: 5. Experiments. 6. Field research. 7. Content analysis and analysis of secondary data. 8. Survey research. III. Processing and analysis of data: 9. Data processing. 10. Univariate analysis. 11. Bivariate analysis: nominal and ordinal variables. 12. Multivariate analysis: nominal and ordinal variables. 13. Bivariate regression. 14. Multiple regression. 15. Logistic regression. 16. Analysis of variance and covariance. 17. Discriminant analysis. Appendixes. Bibliography. Additional readings. Author index. Subject index.

"This is a text on the methods and techniques of research that crosscuts a wide array of disciplines and has been designed for masters and doctoral students in any branch of social science. It is unique in that it covers both methods for collecting observations, and techniques for analyzing them, not characteristic of most of the available texts on research methods. Efforts have been made to present the materials in such a way that the readers may easily choose, depending on the data structure, the most appropriate technique to analyze their data, from among the many available.

"It contains such standard topics as development of research problem, measurement and operationalization of variables, sampling methods, experiments, field research, content analysis, survey research, bivariate and multivariate analysis of nominal, and ordinal variables, bivariate and multiple regression, logistic regression, analysis of variance and covariance, and discriminant analysis. Although the book is intended for social researchers, its approach is so general that researchers from many other fields, such as, medical and biological science, public health, business, planning, agriculture, environment and behaviour would also find many parts of the book, useful.

"Although some knowledge of basic algebra, geometry, and probability would be of great help, nonmathematically oriented readers can use the book without difficulty since every technique of data analysis has been illustrated with simple examples." (jacket)

[Abu Jafar Mohammad Sufian is currently a Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia.]