Striking a balance between specific techniques and the underlying logic of social scientific inquiry. Approaches to Social Research, 4/e, provides a lucid treatment of the four major approaches to research--experimentation, survey research, field research, and the use of available data. While advocating a multiple-methods strategy that treats the approaches as complementary rather than mutually exclusive, it furnishes a detailed account of the advantages and disadvantages of carrying out research with each approach. Completely revised and updated and featuring many new examples, the fourth edition offers an expanded chapter on the nature of science and two reorganized chapters on data analysis.