Search Results
Research doesn’t exist in a bubble but co-exists with a multitude of other tasks and commitments, yet there is more need for people to save time than ever before.
Brilliantly attuned to the demands placed on researchers, this book considers how students, academics and professionals alike can save time and stress without compromising the quality of their research or its outcomes. This third edition:
- is fully revised with new chapters on research and evaluation ethics, creative methods of collecting data and how research can make a positive difference;
-includes illustrative case studies throughout the book and each chapter concludes with exercises, discussion questions and a debate topic;
- is accompanied by a fully updated companion website.
This supportive book is designed for any student or practitioner who wants to know how to do research on top of their main job and still have a life.
Introduction There has been much attention given to the relationship between early life socio-economic disadvantage and poorer health outcomes and disability in population health research. This association has been demonstrated across various objective and subjective measures, in both adults and children ( Nikiéma et al, 2012 ; Nobles et al, 2013 ; Darin-Mattsson et al, 2017 ; Doebler and Glasgow, 2017 ; Kivimäki et al, 2020 ). It is only recently that researchers have begun to focus on the impact on adolescent health, recognising the long
in public and semi-public areas of the internet It may be difficult or impossible to obtain full informed consent from all potential participants in public or semi-public areas of the internet Interviews can be conducted online, via Facebook, Twitter, in chat rooms, etc Participants recruited online often use pseudonyms that may conceal their gender, ethnicity, disability, etc – and there is no way to assess the credibility of the data collected Interviews can be conducted by telephone worldwide, with software and apps that let you make calls over the
-binary people to its science and technology courses. d. A brand of herbal tea needs to increase its market share (but only has a small marketing budget, so cannot afford to pay for much advertising). e. A home for adults with severe learning disabilities needs to improve the satisfaction levels of its residents’ families. The residents are happy, but the families are particularly dissatisfied with the communication they receive from the home. Discussion questions 1. Why is adding to the body of human knowledge not enough for most research to do? 2. Why isn’t all
participation in arts activities beneficial for young people with learning disabilities? • Is there a difference in access to legal services for people of different ethnic origins? Realist methodologies Realist methodologies use theory, recognise complexity and acknowledge context. They look for the ‘How?’ and ‘Why?’ in research or evaluation findings as well as the ‘What?’ When realist methodology is used in academic research, the theory used is often ‘grand’ or overarching (Wright Mills, 1959), such as Marx’s theory of social class, Foucault’s theory of power or
Expenditure and Food Survey, and three other large- scale surveys. • Labour Force Survey: biennial from 1973, quarterly from 1992, covering employment and earnings. • Life Opportunities Survey: a longitudinal survey, started in June 2009, exploring disability in terms of social barriers. • Living Costs and Food Survey (formerly the Expenditure and Food Survey, which included the National Food Survey set up in 1940): annual since 1957, covering family incomes and domestic spending. Part of the Integrated Household Survey since 2008. • National Travel Survey: carried out
yourself about, and comply with, the data protection laws that affect your research. Some research projects focus on vulnerable groups such as those with mental health problems, people with learning disabilities, bereaved people, children or homeless people. In these cases even more care needs to be taken to ensure that potential and actual participants are not harmed in the course of the research. Participants should be reassured that they can end their participation at any time if they wish, or withdraw their data at a later stage. You need to specify when they
justice system. Or you might use other criteria such as time (for example, including only texts from the last five years, unless they are key texts) or research method (for example, including only texts based on interview data, if you are planning a series of interviews yourself). You are the only person who can decide what your selection criteria should be, and these examples should help you to do that piece of thinking. On the other hand, if you are researching a narrower or newer topic, such as a recently identified illness or disability, there will be less
research is becoming more and more common. Even research that is essentially quantitative, such as drug trials, is now likely to include a qualitative element, such as patients’ self-reports of possible side effects. And even research that is mostly qualitative, such as an investigation of users’ and carers’ views of a service for people with learning disabilities, will include a quantitative element, such as the number of people who use the service. TIP Primary data collection: conventional methods 137 It may be that you need to collect only a little quantitative
, 2013 ; Nicolaisen and Thorsen, 2014 ; Durcan and Bell, 2015 ; Griffiths, 2017 ; ONS, 2018a ), as is disability. Yet disability is itself strongly associated with socio-economic disadvantage ( Priestley, 2001 ; Jenkins and Rigg, 2004 ; Maroto et al, 2019 ); and it can be a consequence as well as a driver of reduced social contacts ( Lund et al, 2010 ). Much work on social support in general and on the influence of social relationships on (disabled) people’s outcomes focuses on later life ( Berkman, 2000 ; Dykstra, 2009 ; Durcan and Bell, 2015 ; Burholt et al
