Social Research Methods - baixardoc

Social Research Methods

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Social Research Methods

Alan Bryman

Fourth edition

1

3Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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© Alan Bryman 2012

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011938966

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ISBN 978–0–19–958805–3

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For Sophie and Daniel


edition were developed in conjunction with her. I also

wish to thank Alan Radley, Darrin Hodgetts, and Andrea

Cullen for their permission to include two photographs

from their study of images of homelessness and to

Sarah Pink for her permission to use an image from her

research on women and bullfi ghting. I also wish to thank

the Nottingham Evening Post for their kind permission to

reproduce two newspaper articles in Chapter 13. The

photograph in Plate 19.5 is Copyright DaimlerChrysler

Corporation and is used with permission. I wish to thank

the students who completed the questionnaires that were

used for preparing the ‘Student experience’ features of

this new edition. I also wish to thank the reviewers who

prepared helpful comments on the previous editions for

Oxford University Press. Finally, I would like to thank Sue

for all the hard work she has put into proof-reading this

and earlier editions of the book. I rely very much on her

attention to detail.

As usual, Sue, Sarah, and Darren have supported me

in many ways and put up with my anxieties and with my

sudden disappearances to my study. When Sarah became

a university student herself, she gave me many insights

into a consumer’s perspective on a book like this, for

which I am grateful. Everyone except me is, of course,

absolved of any responsibility for any of the book’s sub-

stantive defi ciencies.

Acknowledgements

Many people have helped me with this book, many

of them unwittingly. Generations of research methods

students at Loughborough University and the University

of Leicester have plied me with ideas through their ques-

tioning of what I have said to them. I wish to thank

several people at or connected with OUP: Tim Barton for

suggesting to me in the fi rst place that I might like to

think about writing a book like this; Angela Griffi n for

her editorial help during the passage of the fi rst edition

of this book; Patrick Brindle and Katie Allan for their help

and suggestions during the preparation of this revised

edition; Angela Adams for her constant support and

encouragement with the revised and third edition; Kirsty

Reade for copious support and suggestions in the course

of preparing the fourth edition; Hilary Walford for her

attention to detail when copy-editing the typescript;

Philippa Hendry for steering the production of the book;

and Sarah Brett and Lucy Hyde for help with earlier

editions. I also wish to thank Alan Beardsworth for his

helpful and always constructive comments on drafts of

the fi rst edition of the book and Michael Billig for valu-

able comments on part of the fi rst edition. I would like to

say a big thank you to Emma Bell who worked with me on

the fi rst, revised, and third editions of the business school

adaptation of this book, Business Research Methods. Many

of the changes that have been incorporated in the present


Brief contents

Detailed contents xi

About the author xxiv

Introducing the students xxv

Guide to the book xxxi

Guided tour of textbook features xxxvi

Guided tour of the ORC: lecturer resources xxxviii

Guided tour of the ORC: student resources xxxix

Abbreviations xl

Part One 1

1 The nature and process of social research 3

2 Social research strategies 18

3 Research designs 44

4 Planning a research project and formulating research questions 79

5 Getting started: reviewing the literature 97

6 Ethics and politics in social research 129

Part Two 157

7 The nature of quantitative research 159

8 Sampling 183

9 Structured interviewing 208

10 Self-completion questionnaires 231

11 Asking questions 245

12 Structured observation 269

13 Content analysis 288

14 Secondary analysis and offi cial statistics 310

15 Quantitative data analysis 329

16 Using IBM SPSS for Windows 353

Part Three 377

17 The nature of qualitative research 379

18 Sampling in qualitative research 415

19 Ethnography and participant observation 430

20 Interviewing in qualitative research 468

21 Focus groups 500

22 Language in qualitative research 521

23 Documents as sources of data 542

24 Qualitative data analysis 564

25 Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis: using NVivo 590