Comprehensiveness:

This text introduces social science doctoral students to the research process. It
can be used in sociology, political science, education public health, and related
disciplines. The book does an excellent job covering topics that are too often
neglected in research methods classes. Standard texts devote most of their
attention to different modes of data collection (e.g, lab experiments, field
experiments, quasi-experiments, survey research, aggregate data collection,
interpretive and case study methods, etc.). This book covers these materials but
also devotes a lot of time to steps in the research process that precede data
collection. These steps include formulating a research question, concept
definition, theory elaboration, measurement (including reliability and validity)
and sampling. There is also cursory coverage of descriptive statistics and
inferential statistics (a chapter on each) as well as chapter on research ethics. In
terms of coverage, then, the text can be described as comprehensive in terms of
topics. In terms of depth of coverage of the topics, the text takes a minimalist
approach. That is, the fundamentals of each topic are covered, but there is little
discussion beyond the basics. Teachers looking for the perfect text that nails all
the key points should look elsewhere or make heavy use of supplements. For
instance, in the discussion on concepts, constructs, and variables, the text does
not distinguish between latent variables, which are unobservable, and manifest
variables, which are observable, as is common in the structural equation
modeling tradition used in sociology and psychology. This is a minor omission
and there are others one might quibble with. The bottom line is that most key
topics in the research process are covered, but the coverage is not terribly deep.

Accuracy
From what I can tell, the book is accurate in terms of what it covers. There are
some things that should probably be included in subsequent revisions.

Relevance/Longevity
The social science research process is unlikely to change in any signfiicant way
for some time; therefore, I suspect the book will be relevant for years to come.
The key will be ensuring that the latest research
trends/improvements/refinements are added to the book. For instance, internet
sampling techniques have come a long way over the past decade and there are
now pollng firms that can admister online surveys to representative samples of
the broader U.S. population. So long as the author keeps on these develops, this
will serve as a useful introductory text for the foreseable future.

Clarity
This text is extremely and unusually well-written and clear. This is one of the
text's greatest selling points. No complaints on this score.

Consistency
The book is very consistent from what I can see.

Modularity
This book can work in a number of ways. A teacher can sample the germane
chapters and incorporate them without difficulty in any research methods class.

Organization/Structure/Flow
The organization is fine. The book presents all the topics in an appropriate
sequence.

Interface
The interface is fine. I didn't experience any problems.

Grammatical Errors
I didn't see any errors, it looks fine.

Cultural Relevance
The book is not culturally offensive.

Comments
Teachers looking for a text that they can use to introduce students to the
research process and cover the foundational components of the research process
should find this manuscript sufficient for their needs. Simple additions on slides
or class room commentary can easily take care of the various omissions that
pepper the text. Indeed, one could use this text in conjunction with discipline
specific supplements quite effectively. For instance, in chapter 3 on the research
process, the author devotes 5 paragraphs to common mistakes in the research
process, such as pursuing trivial research questions or blind data mining. I can
see how psychologists, sociologists and political scientists could provide
discipline-specific examples to tailor this to their students particular needs. More
generally, I suspect that the text could be used in conjunction with germane
discipline specific materials quite effectively in research methodology classes.
The book is not perfect. I wish there was more discussion on field experiments in
the experiment chapter. Other than a brief mention that these are relatively rare,
there was nothing. These are indeed relatively rare but that seems to be
changing in some fields (e.g. economic, political science), and I think more
discussion of this technique is warranted. The chapter on case study methods
would benefit from discussion on the historical and comparative methods that
are used in various social science disciplines, as well as some discussion on case
selection methods. The statistical coverage is very thin and should not serve as
the primary source material in any class that covers statistics. For instance, the
discussion on the empirical assessment of reliability (for items or scales) does

not discuss in depth the assumptions that underlie the various methods nor the
modifications that need to be made across different levels of measurement. To
take another example, the author presents the formulae for the variance and
standard deviation on p. 122 with the customary n-1 in the denominator.
Students often ask me why we divide the mean squared deviation by n-1 instead
of n, which is what we do for the mean. Professors will need to make sure that
their slides include discussion of the degrees of freedom idea and perhaps some
discussion on unbiasedness as well. In the inferential statistics chapter there's no
discussion on desirable properties of estimators (unbiasedness and efficiency).
This is an unfortunate oversight. These could be added very easily using simple
graphs. One thing that's lacking is a chapter on statistical graphics. The book
makes great use of graphics and other visual aids throughout the chapters, but I
wish there as a standalone chapter that introduces simple plots for univariate
and bivariate data. This can be supplemented easily enough, but the omission
seems odd. Again, this book can serve as an compact introduction in a graduate
research methodology class for students across the social sciences, but it would
work best in conjunction with deeper and more discipline specific materials
prepared by the professor.

Comments:
Dr. Bhattacherjee's "Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices,"
is a comprehensive, but a bare-boned (and generic) introduction to social science
research. In this case "generic" is actually a positive attribute: because the text
covers social science research broadly, rather than sociology, psychology, etc.
specifically, this text can easily be adapted to the needs of basic research
methods courses in allied disciplines. (I teach an introductory quantitative
research course for master's and Ph.D. students in a School of Journalism & Mass
Communication). I describe the text as comprehensive, because if my students
got a basic grasp of all of the concepts in the book, they'd be well positioned to
continue on to more advanced research courses (though the text is less valuable
as a reference than more comprehensive introductory texts). But while Dr.
Bhattacherjee's introduction says that the book is bare-boned by design -- "I
decided to focus only on essential concepts, and not fill pages with clutter that
can divert the students' attention to less relevant or tangential issues" -- some
topics deserve more attention. For example, Institutional Review Boards (IRB)
receive only two short paragraphs, and there is no mention of the history of why
such boards were deemed necessary and play an important role in the research
process. I'd consider such knowledge essential for students, and this is the type
of information I would like a text to focus on so that I can spend class time
reviewing more complicated concepts students might have trouble grasping on
their own. (Generally I found the writing to be approachable, and concepts to be
well explained, though extensive examples are also part of the "clutter" omitted
from this book). Another topic I would have liked to see developed further - and
perhaps is especially important to the more digitally-savvy crowd interested in
the open textbook movement - is the expanding role of the Internet and digital
technologies in the research process itself, particularly in the era of "big data."
The text, for example, mentions Internet surveys, but there is no conversation
about tools one can use to build an Internet survey; how Internet surveys differ
from traditional modes of surveying; or the practice of weighting Internet survey

results to make them "representative" of the larger population. That said, I am

balancing using this text versus a more comprehensive, but much more
expensive, commercially produced text. Another thing that this book is missing
are instructional resources that commercial publishers provide, but ultimately by
using this text I can contribute to creating greater value for my students.
However, it would have to be supplemented heavily with other materials, as well
as lectures, which is not without a trade-off cost. It's certainly doable, but
ultimately means a greater investment of my time, and I have to weigh investing
my time in creating hands-on learning opportunities and providing students with
thorough feedback on their work with the time I'd have to invest in using a text
that is complete, but needs to be much more heavily supplemented with
additional materials. Ideally, several faculty with similar teaching needs would
team up to combine and adapt several open texts to their courses' needs.
Adapting and supplementing this text for my purposes by myself, however,
remains a steep, if not insurmountable task for a tenure-track professor. This
text, however, is thorough enough to maintain my interested in trying to find a
way to make it work.

Comprehensiveness
This text certainly covers all the basic concepts and processes I would expect to
find in an introduction to social sciences research. What I liked in particular is
that the author includes information on the ENTIRE research process, including
critical thinking and research ethics, in addition to the "nuts and bolts" of
research such as operationalization, data collection, and data analysis. I also find
it useful that the author includes sections on both qualitative and quantitative
research, which is great for an introductory level course. In general, readers can
expect to find information on theory- and hypothesis building,
operationalization/measurements, sampling, research design, various data
collection strategies (e.g. surveys, experiments, etc.), as well as data analysis.
The primary reason I did not give this text 5 stars is that the author does not
provide a great amount of detail for a lot of the book's sections. He explains in
the preface that he purposefully chose to reduce the text to the basics in order to
keep the text compact and clutter-free. In general, I tend to agree with this
approach, as so many methodology textbooks seem to get lost in examples and
case studies without clearly illustrating the research process as a whole. However,
as I was reading through this book, I kept thinking that I would need to
supplement multiple areas of this book with more information in order to make it
truly accessible to my students. To be fair, I think that A) anyone who has taught
methods before would be able to use the "bones" of this book to prepare
students sufficiently well for class and then easily fill in the blanks, and B) it
appears that this text was written primarily with graduate students in mind,
whereas I most teach undergraduates. In all, I still think that this is a great free
alternative to many textbooks out there, but if your teaching style depends on
your text including a lot of explanation and examples (or even applications), then
this is likely not the text for you. Finally, this book does NOT include an index or a
glossary. Personally, I did not find this to be a problem, as the outline/table of
contents is very useful, but perhaps students using the text could benefit from an
index that would allow them to quickly look up what they need to know.

Accuracy
I did not detect any errors or any purposeful bias in this textbook! Some readers
might find that the author's choice of terminology does not necessarily match
what I would consider standard practices in the broader social sciences (e.g. the
use of the term "mediating variables" instead of "intervening variables"), but it is
always clear what the book is referring to and it shouldn't be too difficult to
bridge this "terminology gap." Occasionally, I was a bit puzzled by a definition or
an explanation. For instance, the author states that "control variables" are not
pertinent to explaining the dependent variable, but need to be taken into
consideration because they may have "some impact" on it. I'm assuming the
author means that they are not pertinent to the hypothesis being tested (as
opposed to them not being pertinent to the explanation of the dependent
variable). This type of ambiguity does not occur very often in the textbook and it
does not necessarily represent an error. It merely seems to be an issue of
miscommunication. Overall, I very much liked this text for its accuracy.

Relevance/Longevity
Luckily, research methods do not change drastically in a short period of time, so I
expect the longevity of this book to be very high. In my experience, the biggest
factor that can make a research text outdated is the use of up-to-date examples
and case studies. This text includes very few of either, so I think this text could
be used for many years to come.

Clarity
The book is very clear and accessible, probably largely due to its minimalist
approach. Aside from the above-mentioned deviations from broader social
sciences terminology on a few occasions, I did not encounter any problems with
the jargon/technical terminology used. The only minor problem I noted (which
made me I've a ranking of 4 as opposed to 5) was a certain amount of
repetitiveness in the earlier chapters, specifically with regard to positivism/postpositivism and the discussion of theory/hypothesis creation and testing.

Consistency
The book is very consistent. It has a clear outline that matches the natural
research process and the author very consistently adhere to this outline.
Chapters naturally flow from one another and are logical.

Modularity
This book is very well organized and easily accessible due to its division into
logical chapters and sub-sections. In addition, the author highlights important
concepts in bold, making it even easier to follow along. I would have no problem
assigning smaller reading sections throughout the quarter/semester.

Organization/Structure/Flow
As mentioned above, the text is very well organized and flows naturally/logically.
It follows the research process from critical thinking, conceptualization, to
operationalization/measurements, research design, data collection, and data
analysis. Research ethics are discussed in an appendix/addendum.

Interface
There are no major problems with the book's interface. Occasionally, graphs and
tables are not as crisp and visually appealing as they might be in an expensive
textbook, but personally, the ability to assign an open source text to my students
far outweighs any concerns I might have about the visual attractiveness of a
book. This text is easy to read and quite user-friendly.

Grammatical Errors
I detected no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance
The text includes very few examples and it is hard to imagine how research
methods in general could be offensive to anyone (unless it is the practice of
science itself that offends them), but for completeness' sake, allow me to state
that I found no instances of insensitivity or offense in this textbook.

Comments
This text covers all the basics of the research process. It does not contain a lot of
the "bells and whistles" that the expensive traditional textbooks have (e.g. lots of
examples, fancy graphs, text boxes with case studies and applications, etc.), but
it certainly gets the job done. Personally, I appreciate the compact nature of this

text and I would much rather fill in a few gaps on my end, if it means that I can
assign my students an open textbook.