Subject: BHA: Research Methods Texts
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 17:31:28 -0400


Hi,

I'm teaching a course on research methods and using two textbooks. One,
_Social Research Methods_ by Lawrence Neuman is fairly standard although far
less dogmatic than most that I've seen. The other, _Explaining Society_ by
Danermark, et al. is explicitly based in CR. At one point we covered the
logic of research. Neuman discusses inductive and deductive reasoning;
Danermark discuses both of these as well as abductive and retroductive
reasoning. One of the students asked what I thought was a very good
question. Why doesn't Neuman cover these other modes of reasoning as well? I
explained that Neuman is updating a text (now in its 5th edition) that
originally didn't have to deal with CR and there's a certain path-dependence
for the textbook that makes incorporating such concepts now very difficult.
In effect, the entire text would have to be reorganized.

I'm not entirely satisfied with this answer. Why do you think this stuff
hasn't become more common in methods textbooks? Do you know of any that do a
better job with this?

	Marsh Feldman



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