General resources
This page provides a list of general resources on research methods.Gorman,G. E. & Clayton, P (2004) Qualitative Research for the Information Professional: a Practical Handbook. 2nd ed. London: Facet. ISBN 1-85604-472-6.
Moore, N. (2000) How to do Research: The complete guide to designing and managing research projects 3rd ed. London: Facet. ISBN -85604-358-4
Note: Also aimed at library and information researchers.
Robson, C. (2002) Real world research. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Note: This is a chunky book on social science research methods, but it covers a lot of ground and the “real world” focus is very relevant to information literacy research. “The purpose of this book is to give assistance, ideas and confidence to those who, for good and honourable reasons, wish to carry out some kind of investigation involving people in ‘real life’ situations; to draw attention to some of the issues and complexities involved; and to generate a degree of informed enthusiasm for a particularly challenging and important area of work.” The book covers all stages of the research process well. There is a sample chapter on the publisher’s website.
Trochim, W. (2004) Research methods knowledge base.Ithaca: Cornell University. Note: This free online textbook by a US academic has been around for a number of years. It “addresses all of the topics in a typical introductory undergraduate or graduate course in social research methods.” It is very useful in giving short readable introductions to basic concepts (at least, certainly readable compared with some research methods texts!) and highlighting important issues: for example thinking about the research question you aim to answer. There are some good brief explanations and advice concerning basic data gathering techniques (surveys etc.), and also quantitative analysis. It is not good at covering qualitative data analysis (e.g. analysing interview transcripts), though.
Wilson, T.D. (2006) Electronic Resources for Information Research Methods.
Note: This is a database of links to relevant resources, which you search by predefined topic (e.g. to find items dealing with interviewing). Some of the links are broken, but a lot of them still work.
This page was compiled by Sheila Webber in 2005.