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Bryman: Social Research Methods: 3e

Chapter 02

http://socialresearchmethods.net
This is a comprehensive and detailed online 'knowledge base’ about research methods, written by William Trochim at Cornell University. It is a useful resource for planning your research strategy if you are interested in quantitative techniques, as it contains detailed information about formulating research questions, experimental designs, levels of measurement and statistical analysis.

http://www.psychologie.unizh.ch/sowi/Ulf/Lab/WebExpPsyLab.html
This is a great site to visit if you want to see the experimental design in action! Run by Ulf Reips at the University of Zurich, this is a collection of ongoing psychological experiments that you can read about and participate in. The author claims that Internet-based experiments have the potential to reach a wider sample and so may be more ecologically valid.

http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/
Social Research Update is published quarterly by the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. If you are beginning to design your own project, this could be an extremely helpful resource. Packed with informative articles about various research methods and techniques, the site will assist you in choosing between research designs and justifying your decisions when writing up. The site is a widely respected source of information.

http://www.norc.org/projects/gensoc1.asp
Here is an example of a cross-sectional research design: the social survey. This American survey is carried out nationally every two years, and contains questions about demographic variables, attitudes and social behaviour (drinking and drug use, crime, race-relations and so on). You might compare this survey to the General Household Survey carried out in the UK.

http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/ulsc/bhps/
This web site tells you all about the British Household Panel Survey, which uses a longitudinal design to monitor social change in the UK. There is lots of information about the project, and academic researchers can access previous years’ findings free of charge from the UK Data Archive.