Drawing from authors John Brewer and Albert Hunter's original work published in 1989, when single method research was the standard, this new text offers an explanation of how a planned synthesis of various research techniques such as fieldwork, surveys, experiments, and nonreactive studies can be purposely used to improve social science knowledge. Foundations of Multimethod Research: Synthesizing Styles explores the many aspects of the multimethod research approach, including the formulation of research problems, data collection, sampling and generalization, measurement, reliability and validity, hyposthesis testing and causal analysis, and writing and publicizing results.

The Multimethod Approach and Its Promise

Social research today is highly diverse in nearly every respect, including methodology. Researchers in different social scientific disciplines and subdisciplines now study a myriad of research problems—not only from a number of different theoretical perspectives but also with several quite different types of research methods. This diversity of methods implies rich opportunities for cross-validating and cross-fertilizing research procedures, findings, and theories. However, to exploit these opportunities, we must develop more cosmopolitan research strategies. What is needed are approaches that systematically explore the new avenues of research that methodological diversity affords. Multimethod research is one such approach.

Four Imperfect But Useful Research Methods

The principal methods now employed by social researchers are fieldwork, survey research, experimentation, and nonreactive research. Each of these ...

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