Finding Your Social Science Project (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781009100397)

The most important step in social science research is the first step - finding a topic. Unfortunately, little guidance on this crucial and difficult challenge is available. Methodological studies and courses tend to focus on theory testing rather than theory generation. This book aims to redress that imbalance. The first part of the book offers an overview of the book's central concerns. How do social scientists arrive at ideas for their work? What are the different ways in which a study can contribute to knowledge in a field? The second part of the book offers suggestions about how to think creatively, including general strategies for finding a topic and heuristics for discovery. The third part of the book shows how data exploration may assist in generating theories and hypotheses. The fourth part of the book offers suggestions about how to fashion disparate ideas into a theory.

Author: John Gerring, Jason Seawright
ISBN-10: 1009100394
ISBN-13: 9781009100397
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 10/13/2022
Pages: 354
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.68lbs
Size: 9.61h x 6.69w x 0.81d