Summary
Contents
What is qualitative secondary analysis? How can it be most effectively applied in social research? This timely and accomplished book offers readers a well informed, reliable guide to all aspects of qualitative secondary analysis. The book: Defines secondary analysis. Distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative secondary analysis. Maps the main types of qualitative secondary analysis. Covers the key ethical and legal issues. Offers a practical guide to effective research. Sets the agenda for future developments in the subject. Written by an experienced researcher and teacher with a background in sociology, the book is a comprehensive and invaluable introduction to this growing field of social research.
Action Research
Action Research
Action research is research which, identifying a social problem, is primarily designed to provide an empirical test of a possible solution: it contains an innovation to produce the change in policy or procedure, monitored by social research methods.
Section Outline: Action research as social experiment. Understanding versus changing the world. Applied disciplines: practice skills and social research skills. Example: the Community Development Project. Recent models. Tensions between researching and achievement of change. Problems of control and interpretation in social experiments.
There are two main reasons why people do social research. One is because there is an intellectual challenge: we want to fill a gap in our knowledge, or we believe that currently accepted theories should be tested against new evidence. An alternative reason is that ...