Book Title: The Craft of Sociological Research

Book Description

The Craft of Sociological Research: Principles and Methods of Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Social Science Data was developed with the goal of developing an open educational resource (OER) that makes well-written and engaging methods-training materials available for free to students. The manuscript was written by a team of authors at Virginia Commonwealth University who are all researchers as well as teachers of undergraduate methods courses. Some portions of the text were adapted from existing OER social scientific methods textbooks, and others are original. Our aim is to provide broad but sound coverage of widely used methodologies, giving students the background they need to both evaluate and conduct research. While targeted at undergraduates, the textbook includes optional sections that provide more advanced methodological training. It also features Q&As with prominent sociologists and sidebars on topical issues that social scientific research has helped illuminate. We hope the text is accessible to students with a variety of backgrounds and interests, and to that end we have tried to make the writing lively and clear throughout and provide supplemental online and multimedia resources when possible.

This project was funded with the generous support of the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), a program of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), and VCU Libraries’ Open and Affordable Course Content Initiative.