For many years Research at grass roots: for the social sciences and human services professions supported social sciences researchers and human services professionals with a comprehensive; local and easy-to-use research guide. The work in this updated and expanded edition continues to assist novice researchers as well as more experienced researchers; postgraduate students and academics with a range of methodological decisions required in planning; designing; executing and reporting on their research endeavours. Although many salient features of the previous four successful editions have been retained; exciting new features have been added; including material to support lecturers who teach research courses. The unique structure of the book; consisting of different sections highlighting methodological decisions common to both the qualitative and quantitative approaches; those unique to qualitative and quantitative research and those which combine these approaches; have been developed from decades of work with postgraduate students and practitioner-researchers. New content includes a focus on the growing impetus of ethical conduct in research with human participants; debates and developments in the field of big data sets; and the latest trends in thematic and narrative inquiry; as well as contemporary data collection methods.