Robert K. Yin has directly overseen, led, or participated in nearly 200 studies, most using qualitative methods. He serves as the president of COSMOS Corporation, a firm devoted to social science research. Most recently, he has had an extensive assignment with the United Nations Development Programme, helping its staff to strengthen the use of qualitative research in its evaluations. Dr. Yin has taught methods courses in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he advises doctoral students in preparing the prospectuses for their dissertations, most recently at the University of Copenhagen. Currently, he holds the position of distinguished scholar-in-residence in the School of International Service at American University. In all, Dr. Yin has authored six books, edited four others, and published nearly 100 journal articles. His research has covered a wide array of fields, such as primary, secondary, and postsecondary education; health promotion, HIV/AIDS prevention, and substance abuse prevention; organizational development and program evaluation; neighborhood, community, and urban development; and technological innovation and communications.

This lively, practical text presents a fresh and comprehensive approach to doing qualitative research. The book offers a unique balance of theory and clear-cut choices for customizing every phase of a qualitative study. A scholarly mix of classic and contemporary studies from multiple disciplines provides compelling, field-based examples of the full range of qualitative approaches. Readers learn about adaptive ways of designing studies, collecting data, analyzing data, and reporting findings. Key aspects of the researcher's craft are addressed, such as fieldwork options, the five phases of data analysis (with and without using computer-based software), and how to incorporate the researcher's "declarative" and "reflective" selves into a final report. Ideal for graduate-level courses, the text includes: Discussions of ethnography, grounded theory, phenomenology, feminist research, and other approaches Instructions for creating a study bank to get a new study started End-of-chapter exercises and a semester-long, field-based project Quick study boxes, research vignettes, sample studies, and a glossary Previews for sections within chapters, and chapter recaps Discussion of the place of qualitative research among other social science methods, including mixed methods research. This book will be invaluable to students and instructors in education, psychology, social work, sociology, nursing, management, and communication; practicing researchers and evaluators. It will also serve as a text in graduate-level qualitative methods courses, and as a supplement in graduate-level research design courses.