Basic Research Strategies for the Social Sciences: Research Methods

Sage Research Methods Online (SRMO). SRMO provides access to information about research methods compiled from a variety of Sage publications, including books/handbooks, articles, and the “Little Green Book” series, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences.  SRMO is searchable and browsable by author, and it includes a methods map, as well as video tutorials.  Results can be refined to focus on specific academic disciplines of interest.

Great resource for learning more about what comprises a specific research method, with a view into how that method was applied within actual published scholarly literature.

• analysis of variance (ANOVA)
• ethnography
• focus groups
• interviews
• mixed methods
• narrative analysis
• qualitative research
• quantitative data analysis
• regression
• sampling
• social network analysis
• structural equation modeling
• surveys
• time-series analysis
• visual representations
• ...and more

There are a variety of methods you can adopt for your research strategy, depending on your subject area or the outcome of your research.  Research methodology will differ depending on whether:

• you are doing an empirical study, using quantitative data or qualitative information, or mixed methods approach
• If you are seeking very current sources, or
• historical research
• critical analysis

Your strategies will be different as will the type of information sources you will seek and find.

See some databases below that offer examples of research methods, datasets or cases:

QDR selects, ingests, curates, archives, manages, durably preserves, and provides access to digital data used in qualitative and multi-method social inquiry.