6th Edition. — Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017. — 728 p.
H. Russell Bernard's
Research Methods in Anthropology, Sixth Edition, is the standard for learning about the range of methods for collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data about human thought and human behavior.
In the first section of the book, students learn the elements of research design, including how to choose a research topic, how to develop research questions and hypotheses, and how to choose an appropriate sample for their research.
In the next section, students learn the methods of data collection, including: open-ended interviewing, questionnaire design, participant observation, direct and indirect observation, building scales in the field, and taking and managing field notes. This section also introduces the methods for cultural domain analysis and network analysis.
The last section of the book covers methods for analyzing all these kinds of data, including: finding and analyzing themes in text, conversation and narrative analysis, and decision modeling, as well as descriptive and inferential statistics, multidimensional scaling. and cluster analysis. There is no separate chapter on ethics. That topic is important in every phase of research, even in the beginning phase of choosing a problem to study, and is covered throughout the book.
- A comprehensive research methods text for cultural anthropologists
- Covers research design, data collection and data analysis
- Full coverage of both qualitative and quantitative approaches
- Written in plain language. Turns research methods into fun reading
- A real how-to, hands-on text
- Extensive bibliography on all topics covered in the book
H. Russell Bernard is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Florida and Director of the Institute for Social Science Research at Arizona State University. His books include this text on Research Methods in Anthropology, as well as
Social Research Methods (2d edition, Sage Publications 2012),
Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches, with Gery Ryan and Amber Wutich (2d edition, Sage Publications 2016), and
Native Ethnography, with Jesús Salinas Pedraza (Sage Publications 1989).