Chapter 13 Web Resources

Why Triangulate? (http://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/com9640/files/2010/08/whytriangulate.pdf)

In this brief and widely cited article from Educational Researcher, Sandra Mathison traces historical origins of the term in social research, outlines the various forms that it can take, and then offers an alternative conception of triangulation. Because data sources and methods do not always converge, she argues that triangulation should not be construed merely as a mean of increasing validity. Rather, when data are inconsistent or contradictory, triangulation “provides more and better evidence” to “construct meaningful propositions about the social world.”

Multiple Methods in the American Sociological Review (http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/dec05/indextwo.html)

One of the multi-methods studies introduced in Chapter 13 (Cherlin et al.) was published in the American Sociological Review (ASR) under the editorship of Jerry Jacobs. A proponent of multi-method research, Jacobs points out in this essay that one quarter of the papers accepted for publication in ASR while he was editor drew on more than one research method. He then “highlights some of the ways” that these papers have provided “a more informative account of the social world.”