"I would highly recommend this text to any instructor teaching a communication specific research methods
course. I think it provides a strong foundation for introductory students and covers each of the areas of qualitative
and quantitative methodologies appropriately. Additionally it does an effective job of incorporating existing communication
research from a variety of fields into each of the chapters. This provides a much needed connection for communication
students to better understand the application of various methodologies to their discipline."
-- Paul Turman, University of Northern Iowa
"This textbook frames research as a common sense, everyday activity that students already know something about,
although not necessarily something that they always do well. It balances attention between both quantitative and
qualitative methodologies and helps students think about how to make choice in doing research."
-- April Trees, University of Colorado, Boulder
"Its organization introduces students to the breadth of perspective in communication research early in the
book. Students are introduced to the basics of both quantitative and qualitative designs in separate chapters-rather
than a single chapter that suggests that there is "one" way to create a research design. This pluralistic
approach is extremely helpful in avoiding the creation of strong positivistic biases early in the semester. This
helps students to be aware of the many ways of approaching research and the values of each approach."
-- Melissa Aleman, James Madison University
Thomson Publishing Web Site, September, 2003
Summary
Combining the time tested classical work of Earl Babbie with the insights of one of the most recognized and
respected names in speech communication research, The Basics of Communication Research is the book for the Communication
research methods course. With the authors' collective experience teaching research methods and as active researchers
themselves you will find this text to be the authoritative text for your course. The authors frame research as
a way of knowing, and provide balanced treatment to both quantitative and qualitative research traditions in communication
research and present it in a student friendly and engaging format. It provides in-depth treatment of the role of
reasoning in the research enterprise and how this reasoning process plays itself out in planning and writing a
research proposal and report.
Benefits:
The student gains an understanding of the complete method tool kit available in studying communication--both
quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative and qualitative approaches to communication received balanced treatment in the text.
The student learns how to plan, produce and write up research and how to critically evaluate others' research
about communication.
The student is encouraged to view research as an extension of normal, everyday reasoning.
The student is provided with user-friendly prose and examples drawn from communication to facilitate his/her
understanding of important concepts.
Table of Contents
Part One: INTRODUCTION TO SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY ABOUT COMMUNICATION.
1. Human Inquiry and Scientific Inquiry about Communication.
2. Basic Building Blocks in Conducting Communication Research.
3. Paradigms of Knowing in Communication Research.
4. Logic Systems and Theory in Communication Research.
5. The Ethics of Communication Research.
Part Two: QUANTITATIVE COMMUNICATION RESEARCH.
6. Conceptualization and Operationalization.
7. The Logic of Sampling.
8. Survey Research.
9. Experiments.
10. Quantitative Text Analysis.
11. The Basics of Quantitative Data Analysis.
12. Inferential Statistics in Quantitative Data Analysis.
Part Three: QUALITATIVE COMMUNICATION RESEARCH.
13. Participant Observation.
14. Qualitative Interviewing.
15. Social Text Analysis.
16. Qualitative Data Analysis.
