With its unique modelling and mapping of social processes, investigative research offers an alternative approach to social research. This book guides you through the theoretical grounding and rules you need to effectively combine the evidence-based explanations of social behaviour and distinctive strategies of data collection associated with investigative research. It helps you answer key investigative questions like: • How are models and maps of social reality crucial to the formulation of research problems and questions? • What are the main phases, challenges, and theories of investigative research? • How does investigative research compare with other research approaches, like surveys, case studies, grounded theory, and mixed methods? • How can you control the quality and validity of your investigative research? With its clear focus on investigative research exploration, description, and explanation, this book gives you the solid building blocks needed to manage and integrate the theoretical and practical issues in your work.

The Arc of Investigative Research

The Arc of Investigative Research

This chapter presents a systematic overview of the investigative research approach and highlights its distinctive features. IR is not designed to be cut entirely adrift from alternative approaches, so as far as possible I press home the importance of convergences and overlaps with other research approaches. By and large, I have sidelined issues around research ethics. This is partly because more specialized and detailed treatments of such issues can be found elsewhere. But emphatically, this is not because they are any less important for IR than for other approaches. In this regard, the following ethical principles are integral to IR, as they are to all other forms of research: ‘informed consent’ (and the varieties thereof); the protection of ...

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