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| Qualitative Research: A Personal Skills Approach
Paperback
Edition: 1st
Author: Gary D. Shank
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Release Date: 2001-05-11
ISBN-10: 0130209872
ISBN-13: 9780130209870
List Price: $33.35
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
This up-to-date book is the first of its kind to build upon the basic skills needed to do qualitative research. Skills, such as observing, conversing, participating, and interpreting are introduced through exercises and then developed based on the current understandings in the field. Comprehensive and user-friendly, this book incorporates hands-on learning into the overall process with ten exercises associated with the basic skills. Topics include: Being a Skilled Qualitative Researcher; Observing; Conversing; Participating; Interpreting; Conceptualizing; Reasoning; Analyzing; Narrating; Writing; The Seven Deadly Sins of Qualitative Research; Once and Future Qualitative Research. For qualitative researchers.
A Breath of Fresh Air
| Customer Rating: | I've spent more than 10 years doing consumer research in advertising industry before deciding to do a ph.d. in sociology. Professor Shank's book was a required reading in my qualitative research course.
I can speak from both the practitioner's point of view and from the student's point of view that this book is really a breath of fresh air! As someone who has done most of the hands-on experience myself, Professor Shank's book clearly rings the bell. It is very obvious he knows what he is doing and he can tell his story very well, too.
From a student point of view, I need a brief yet solid theoretical framework. This book could take me from point A to B in the most effective manner. Very business like and no-nonsense. I could follow his flow of thoughts with no problem whatsoever and really appreciate the way he put in his efforts to try to give examples to illustrate his points. I couldn't have asked for a better book!
The choice of photo on the cover sort of says something about your state of mind after you read this book, actually. You sort of see some hope, some ray of light shining through after perhaps having spending sometimes struggling with a more complicated textbook!
Highly recommended for students and business people alike. All you need to be a good qualitative researcher, I feel, after reading this book, is your own common sense! |
A terrible textbook--don't waste your time.
| Customer Rating: | | I am an undergraduate sociology major, and this book was the primary textbook for our field methods course. I was shocked when I discovered a little way into the course that we were actually intended to take this book seriously. The author is perpetually talking down to his readers, assuming that they do not understand even the simplest concepts, though he occasionally throws in a technical term as if to say "look how smart I am!" The concepts of the mirror, window, and lantern are an overly simplistic way to look at the art of field research. The exercises, particularly those found in the "ourselves" section after we have been told more about "Carol" and Albert" and their respective research projects, are something I would expect to find (and ignore anyway) in a high school textbook, but by college I had hoped to be beyond such things. The book also feels very dogmatic in terms of different types of research such as "qualitative science" and "qualitative inquiry" and yet despite this, I am still not entirely sure what is meant by these terms. Rather than waste your time with this book, I would recommend that you read Earl Babbie's "The Basics of Social Research" and the appendices to any number of quality pieces of fieldwork. You will learn far more from those than you ever will from Shank's book. |
A real good read!
| Customer Rating: | | I used to malign textbooks, calling them none-books. But I am not at all surprised that Gary Shank defies this altogether, for his textbook reads like a "real" book, a great read to boot, and a lot of fun, though no less useful (in fact, more useful)as an educational tool as a result. He and I were colleagues once - though in different departments - back in the 1980s. I have then had several opportunities to observe his teaching. He was as marvelous in the classroom as he is as a "narrator" of this book. I have also heard him read papers at various professional conferences. He gave enviable stellar performances in that arena, too. So, again, I am not at all surprised that he wrote such a wonderful textbook. If more textbooks were of this calbiber, more students would love to read and learn. I am very happy to see this book out there. May all educational psychology departments adapt it! |
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