Description: Now available in paperback: This book brings together the most innovative contemporary ideas in method and methodology from global experts
Brief description:
Malcolm Williams is Professor and Director of the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. Prior to joining Cardiff in 2010, he was Professor of Social Research Methodology and Head of the School of Psychosocial Sciences at the University of Plymouth where he taught for 16 years.
Malcolm has designed and taught modules in the philosophy of social research for 18 years at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. In these he has introduced a number of innovative pedagogic techniques, such as Problem Based Learning and 'Concept Speed Dating', in which students take a key idea and move from table to table attempting to build conceptual links between ideas.
Additionally he has taught many modules and short courses in social theory, research design, questionnaire design, scaling, sampling, scientific method and history of science.
Williams has an extensive publishing record in philosophy of social research, including: Introduction to Philosophy of Social Research (with Tim May, Routledge, 1996), Knowing the Social World (with Tim May, OUP, 1998), Science and Social Science (Routledge, 2000), Making Sense of Social Research (SAGE, 2003), Philosophical Foundations of Social Research (SAGE, 2006), Teaching Quantitative Methods (with Geoff Payne, SAGE, 2011) Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research (with Gayle Letherby and John Scott, SAGE, 2012) and The SAGE Handbook of Innovations in Social Research (with W Paul Voght, SAGE, 2014).
Review Quotes: This book speaks to researchers across the social sciences, irrespective of their methodological persuasion. It brings fresh new perspectives to some of the core concerns of social science research methods; it challenges conventions and accepted wisdoms and provides pointers to an exciting future. The editors have produced a collection of papers that bring together some of the most original and innovative thinking about research methods. The chapters run the gamut of the research process whilst moving seamlessly across methodological boundaries. The book provides new ways of thinking about research and new ways of doing research, providing the reader with valuable pointers to their own research.--Angela Dale