Social Science Research: Principles, Methods and Practices

Reviewed by Brendan Watson, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota on 7/15/14

Comprehensiveness rating: 3

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Content Accuracy rating: 5

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Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

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Clarity rating: 5

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Consistency rating: 5

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Modularity rating: 3

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Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

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Interface rating: 5

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Grammatical Errors rating: 5

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Cultural Relevance rating: 5

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Dr. Bhattacherjee's "Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices," is a comprehensive, but a bare-boned (and generic) introduction to social science research. In this case "generic" is actually a positive attribute: because the text covers social science research broadly, rather than sociology, psychology, etc. specifically, this text can easily be adapted to the needs of basic research methods courses in allied disciplines. (I teach an introductory quantitative research course for master's and Ph.D. students in a School of Journalism & Mass Communication). I describe the text as comprehensive, because if my students got a basic grasp of all of the concepts in the book, they'd be well positioned to continue on to more advanced research courses (though the text is less valuable as a reference than more comprehensive introductory texts). But while Dr. Bhattacherjee's introduction says that the book is bare-boned by design -- "I decided to focus only on essential concepts, and not fill pages with clutter that can divert the students' attention to less relevant or tangential issues" -- some topics deserve more attention. For example, Institutional Review Boards (IRB) receive only two short paragraphs, and there is no mention of the history of why such boards were deemed necessary and play an important role in the research process. I'd consider such knowledge essential for students, and this is the type of information I would like a text to focus on so that I can spend class time reviewing more complicated concepts students might have trouble grasping on their own. (Generally I found the writing to be approachable, and concepts to be well explained, though extensive examples are also part of the "clutter" omitted from this book). Another topic I would have liked to see developed further - and perhaps is especially important to the more digitally-savvy crowd interested in the open textbook movement - is the expanding role of the Internet and digital technologies in the research process itself, particularly in the era of "big data." The text, for example, mentions Internet surveys, but there is no conversation about tools one can use to build an Internet survey; how Internet surveys differ from traditional modes of surveying; or the practice of weighting Internet survey results to make them "representative" of the larger population. That said, I am balancing using this text versus a more comprehensive, but much more expensive, commercially produced text. Another thing that this book is missing are instructional resources that commercial publishers provide, but ultimately by using this text I can contribute to creating greater value for my students. However, it would have to be supplemented heavily with other materials, as well as lectures, which is not without a trade-off cost. It's certainly doable, but ultimately means a greater investment of my time, and I have to weigh investing my time in creating hands-on learning opportunities and providing students with thorough feedback on their work with the time I'd have to invest in using a text that is complete, but needs to be much more heavily supplemented with additional materials. Ideally, several faculty with similar teaching needs would team up to combine and adapt several open texts to their courses' needs. Adapting and supplementing this text for my purposes by myself, however, remains a steep, if not insurmountable task for a tenure-track professor. This text, however, is thorough enough to maintain my interested in trying to find a way to make it work.