Beginning and well-seasoned researchers alike face significant
challenges in understanding the complexities of research designs arising
from both within and across methodological paradigms, and in applying
them in ways that maximise impact on knowledge, practice, and policy.
This volume engages educational and social researchers in a scholarly
debate offering some crucial re-interpretations of established research
methodologies in light of contemporary conditions and critical
introduction to some contemporary research approaches yet to gain
general recognition. This book is a contemporary vademecum for
researchers, practitioners and graduate students on research
methodologies and designs for educational and social change in today's
world. The chapters chart and analyse the conceptual and practical
complexities of a variety research designs for contemporary educational
and social work research. This anthology, taken overall, provides
readers with the knowledge and understanding needed not only to design
technically sound and coherent research studies, but also to develop
methodologically innovative research projects that cross the boundaries
between different methodological traditions to the benefit of
scholarship, policy, and practice. The chapters cover nine research
approaches: - Design-based research - Action research -
Ethnomethodological research - Negotiated ethnography - Arts-informed
research - Historical analysis and postcolonial scholarship - Policy
analysis - Comparative research - Quantitative modelling of
correlational and multi-level data The book provides a critical
discussion of epistemological questions and methodological frontiers: -
Knowledge and epistemology in scholarship, practice and policy - Digital
knowledge and digital research - Emerging methodological challenges for
educational research - Challenges and futures for social work and social
policy research methods - Methodology and the knowledge industry
