Bryman's Social Research Methods

Dr Tom Clark is a Lecturer in Research Methods at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is interested in all aspects of methods and methodology, particularly with respect to learning and teaching. He is the co-author of How to do your Social Research Project or Dissertation (Oxford University Press, 2019), with Liam Foster and Alan Bryman. His other interests have variously focused on the sociology of evil, the sociology of the paranormal, student experiences of higher education, and football fandom. Tom's work has been published in a wide variety of journals, including Sociology, Qualitative Research, Social Policy and Administration, Teaching in Higher Education, Journal of Education and Work, and Qualitative Social Work. He is a project co-ordinator for Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA).Dr Liam Foster is a Professor in Social Policy, and Co-Director of CIRCLE (Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities) at the University of Sheffield, UK, who specializes in theories of ageing, pensions, extending working lives, care and social inequalities. Liam also has a longstanding interest in methods and has co-authored several books in this area, including Beginning Statistics for Social Scientists (Sage, 2015),How to do your Social Research Project or Dissertation (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Teaching Research Methods in Sociology (Edward Elgar, forthcoming). He was awarded the Social Policy Association Outstanding Contribution to Teaching Award in 2021. Liam's work has appeared in journals including Ageing and Society, Critical Social Policy, The Gerontologist, Journal of Social Policy, Policy and Politics, and Social Policy and Administration.Dr Luke Sloan is a Professor and Head of the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, UK. Luke's internationally recognized work focuses on exploring how social media data can be used for social-scientific research. He is co-editor of the SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods: 2nd Ed.(Sage, 2022), with Anabel Quan-Haase, and has published widely on how Twitter can help us understand social phenomena and the ethics of using this data for research. He recently completed an ESRC funded project on linking Survey and Twitter data (ES/S015175/1) in collaboration with colleagues at NatCen and the Institute of Social Economic Research (University of Essex). His work has appeared in journals including Sociology, Social Media + Society, British Journal of Criminology, , PLoS ONE, Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, npj Mental Health, EPJ Data Science and Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics.Dr Charlotte Brookfield is a Reader in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, UK. Her research and teaching focus on quantitative research methods, with a particular interest in students' attitudes towards numbers and strategies for making statistical content more accessible and engaging in the social sciences. Charlotte was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2025. Charlotte has authored and co-authored several student-focused research methods texts, including Using Microsoft Excel for Social Research (SAGE, 2021), Plan Your Dissertation (with Jamie Lewis, SAGE, 2022), and Completing Your Research Project (with Jamie Lewis, SAGE, 2025). Charlotte's work has appeared in journals including Sociological Research Online, Numeracy, and the European Journal of Social Work.Alan Bryman was Professor of Organizational and Social Research at the University of Leicester from 2005 to 2017. Prior to this he was Professor of Social Research at Loughborough University for 31 years. His main research interests were in leadership, especially in higher education, research methods (particularly mixed methods research), and the 'Disneyization' and 'McDonaldization' of modern society. Alan also co-authored Business Research Methods (Oxford University Press, 2018), helped conceive of How to do your Social Research Project or Dissertation (Oxford University Press, 2019), and contributed to a range of leading journals: he was an extraordinarily well-cited and internationally renowned social scientist.

It is a great book for introducing students to concepts in social research methods and how they should be applied in practice. It gives the students the confidence they can be social researchers.

• Part 1: The research process 1: The nature and process of social research 2: Social research strategies: quantitative research and qualitative research 3: Research designs 4: Planning a research project and formulating research questions 5: Reviewing the literature 6: Ethics and politics in social research Part 2: Quantitative research 7: The nature of quantitative research 8: Sampling in quantitative research 9: Structured interviewing 10: Self-completion questionnaires 11: Asking questions 12: Structured observation 13: Content analysis 14: Using existing data 15: Quantitative data analysis Part 3: Qualitative research 16: The nature of qualitative research 17: Sampling in qualitative research 18: Ethnography and participant observation 19: Interviewing in qualitative research 20: Focus groups 21: Language in qualitative research 22: Documents as sources of data 23: Creative research methods 24: Qualitative data analysis Part 4: Mixed methods research and writing up 25: Combining quantitative and qualitative research 26: Writing up social research