PREFACE

The first edition of this book was based on material I developed as leader of a course programme in social research and evaluation at the University of Huddersfield. I was seeking to provide something appropriate to the ideals of an innovative Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences, which I headed when it was a polytechnic. It was a multidisciplinary book, covering several social sciences, primarily psychology and sociology, and also interdisciplinary, in that the course units themselves combined material from more than one discipline. I was influenced by the experience of leading a series of applied social science research projects, mainly in the field of special educational needs. When I couldn't find a suitable textbook for the new course, I wrote a comprehensive set of handouts for the job, paying even-handed attention to research methods that dealt with quantitative and qualitative data.

This fifth edition remains a course book, among other things. However, the world has changed in many ways since those heady days in the 1970s. I feel strongly that there is an even greater need - and opportunity - for real-world research. By that I mean not only for this book, in which I have, naturally, a vested interest, but also for the approach that is central to it. There are threats to the tendency to seek answers to society's ills by getting the best evidence possible. Fake news is a tool for achieving power and influence. Experts are derided for putting forward evidence-based proposals that go against deep-rooted prejudices.

The central purpose of this book has remained essentially unchanged over the various iterations: to give advice and support to those who wish to carry out a real-world research project - that is, a project that looks for answers to the problems we face in areas such as healthcare, education, business and management, and other people-related fields rather than being primarily concerned with advancing an academic discipline. The focus is mainly on projects for which social research methods are used for collecting and analysing new data. But the change introduced in the last edition, where greater attention was given to 'desk-based' projects that rest solely on existing research, has been retained and developed. Such projects are common in some fields of research. This is partly because the real world, in the shape of the various agencies that are willing to provide funding for research, calls more and more for this type of research - not least because it is quicker and cheaper than empirical projects of collecting new data. Another reason is that, in some disciplines and fields of study, the norm has always been for students to do desk-based research, while in others students are now restricted to it for a variety of reasons - for example financial restrictions when resources are limited and ethical concerns when safeguarding the people who participate in the research and the students themselves is important.

As well as taking note of the real world on behalf of students, the book seeks to address the needs of researchers, both new and established. Their real world is increasingly challenging. Pressures on those who work in universities intensify when their ability to obtain funding for research and complete projects with measurable impact becomes crucial not only for their personal careers but also for the future of their department, or even of the institution itself.

Other changes in the context of carrying out research projects come thick and fast. They include:

• an increased emphasis on ethical considerations when carrying out research with people;
• the need to come to terms with ethical committees;
• the mighty bandwagon of evidence-based everything; and
• the all-pervading Internet.

The present edition attempts an even-handed approach to these changes, recognizing their existence and importance while pointing out the problems they pose.

Discussions with colleagues and students directly involved in this kind of research and feedback from users (and non-users) of earlier editions have all helped to provide an agenda for changes and development in this new edition. It has also proved very instructive to review the citations of 'real-world research' in books, journal articles, conference papers, theses, and other publications. Findings about how social researchers actually go about their research, as opposed to how research methods textbooks say they should (e.g. Bryman, 2006), have reinforced my perception that jobbing researchers who get published often seem to get on quite adequately without worrying about philosophical matters such as epistemology and ontology. I have tried to restrict these matters, putting them on a 'need to know' footing. This is not a Luddite crusade against all things theoretical; it is just an attempt to have their explanatory value demonstrated. Advocacy of a realist approach, which featured in previous editions, is continued because I believe that it has that kind of value. The compromise is that the treatment is very much 'realism lite'. Increased interest in social research methods and their teaching in UK universities continues, fostered by the Economic and Social Research Council's highly successful Research Methods Initiative. The various workshops, reviews, and briefing papers produced under the aegis of the initiative and their highlighting of methodological challenges for the twenty-first century are invaluable, as will be seen from numerous references in the text. This mention of a UK initiative prompts me to make it clear that, while I am UK-based and no doubt to some extent UK-biased in the selection of materials, I have made a conscious effort to cast the net wide in both journal and book references. There appears to be a degree of unhelpful chauvinism in the research methods literature (this attitude takes extreme form in some books from the United States). Appreciating other countries' different approaches and traditions is yet another example of the value of the anthropologists' advice to spend some time in the neighbouring village.

The distinction between 'fixed design' and 'flexible design', introduced in earlier editions, is retained in preference to the more commonly used 'quantitative design' and 'qualitative design'. Also, I have now settled on the term 'mixed design' rather than the widely used 'mixed-methods design'. There are good arguments for these deviations from accepted usage, and they are presented in the appropriate place.

I have, as a matter of principle, retained the same basic structure of the text as in previous editions. I've tried to front-load some material, particularly on ethical issues, providing overviews on a wide range of social research methods as well as on the different approaches to social research that seem to be particularly relevant to real-world research. Matters about the importance of collaboration and cooperation with others and about the value of the active participation of all those concerned, when one tries to do research that makes a difference, are also highlighted. In similar vein, I've given early prominence to the implications of that elephant in many rooms, the Internet. Ignore it at your peril.

The references have been updated where appropriate. 'Golden oldies' have been retained whenever the older material seems to make a point better than more recent efforts. The chapters themselves and the website material attached to them are heavily referenced, so that readers can follow up topics and issues that interest them or look likely to be relevant to their research. I believe that principles and issues are often more easily grasped through examples than through lengthy explanations. My preface to previous editions ended with the following credo:

I hold two diametrically opposed views about many aspects of life. On the one hand, I consider doing research, including real world research, as pretty straightforward and simple. Approached with integrity, and some forethought, anyone should be able to carry out a worthwhile project. On the other hand, it is enticingly complex, to the extent that some very bright people, who have devoted their working lives to the task, continue to dispute how it should be done.

The book seeks to reflect both these views. I have tried to signpost a way through the minefield, so that someone with little background can feel empowered to produce a competent piece of work relevant to a problem or issue of concern. I have also attempted to give an indication of what Baranov (2004, p. 8) refers to as 'issues and debates below the surface of social research methods', and there are sufficient leads for the interested reader to follow these up with some discussions of interesting but more peripheral matters. As may be evident, there are aspects of current practices and conventions in social research that I view as misguided, for example the heavy reliance on significance testing in statistical analysis, and I have tried to give a voice to sceptics and dissenters. I remain convinced of the centrality of research questions to the process of conducting real-world research. Working out a good set of related research questions helps you to get your ideas sorted out. Working out how you get answers to these questions shapes the design of the research. The answers are the key part of your findings.

As you...