Book review of David Kaplan (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Quantitative Methodology for the Social Sciences, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005. $125.00 hardcover

Orme, John G.

English

ScholarWorks at WMU

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Volume 33 Issue 2 June Article 13 2006 Review of The SAGE Handbook of Quantitative Methodology for the Social Sciences. David Kaplan (Ed.). Reviewed by John G. Orme. John G. Orme University of Tennessee Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw  Part of the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation Orme, John G. (2006) "Review of The SAGE Handbook of Quantitative Methodology for the Social Sciences. David Kaplan (Ed.). Reviewed by John G. Orme.," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 33 : Iss. 2 , Article 13. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol33/iss2/13 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Social Work at ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact maira.bundza@wmich.edu. 06 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfareargues that although Cohen and his colleagues were engagedin research, they were not part of the cohort of sociologistsand economists whom historians view as America's povertyintellectuals and policy makers. It would have been helpful toread more about these poverty intellectuals and policy makersand what they were studying and proposing in the post-warperiod.Notwithstanding these shortcomings, this book isrecommended for policy makers, social work leaders, educa-tors, and students of social welfare history. In addition to thecautionary tale of reform, other lessons can be derived fromMittelstadt's analysis. First, it suggests the importance of ben-eficiary involvement in policy making. With no poor people'sorganizations involved in the 1956, 1961, and 1962 reforms,content and evaluation of proposals 'from the ground up' weremissing. Further, the analysis suggests the importance of focus-ing on structural causes and solutions to poverty. Policy shouldfocus, as Amartya Sen, James Midgley and others suggest, anon how we maximize people's capabilities. Assuring access tobasic human needs, providing an array of social investmentopportunities that lead to successful family formation, careerdevelopment, community and political participation, and cul-tural enrichment.Margaret Sherrard SherradenUniversity of Missouri in St. LouisDavid Kaplan (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of QuantitativeMethodology for the Social Sciences, Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage Publications, 2005. $125.00 hardcover.The SAGE Handbook of Quantitative Methodology for theSocial Sciences was written to introduce quantitative social sci-entists, applied statisticians, and graduate students to a broadrange of state-of-the-art quantitative methods applicable to thesocial sciences. The Handbook was written by a distinguishedgroup of contributors from psychology, education, statistics,and other related disciplines, and virtually all contributors areestablished authorities in their particular areas. It shows theBook Reviews 157breadth and depth of advanced quantitative methods usedby social scientists from numerous interrelated disciplines,it is rich with examples of real-world applications of thesemethods, and it provides suggestions for further readings andstudy in these areas.The Handbook is organized into six sections. The firsttwo pertain to measurement. Specifically, the first section,Scaling, includes chapters on dual scaling; multidimensionalscaling; and principal components analysis for ordinal andnominal data. The second section, Testing and Measurement, in-cludes chapters on advances in reliability and validity theory;test modeling (item-response theory in particular); differentialitem functioning; and computerized adaptive testing. Sectionsthree through five detail advances in statistical methodology.Specifically, the third section, Models for Categorical Data, in-cludes chapters on trends in categorical data analysis; ordinalregression models; latent class models; and discrete-time sur-vival analysis. The fourth section, Models for Multilevel Data,includes chapters on growth modeling; multilevel models forschool effectiveness research; hierarchical models for analyz-ing data from experimental and quasi-experimental designs;and meta-analysis. The fifth section, Models for Latent Variables,includes chapters on determining the number of factors inexploratory and confirmatory factor analysis; experimental,quasi-experimental, and nonexperimental design and analysiswith latent variables; dynamic factor analysis; and latent vari-able growth mixture modeling for longitudinal data. Finally,the sixth section, Foundation Issues, provides discussion of themajor philosophical issues that underlie quantitative methods.Specifically, it includes chapters on probabilistic modelingwith Bayesian networks; null hypothesis testing; exogeneity;objectivity in science and structural equation modeling; andcausal inference.The Handbook provides an excellent introduction to abroad range of state-of-the-art quantitative methods applica-ble to the social sciences. But why is it important for quantita-tive social scientists to spend the considerable time required tounderstand and use these methods? These methods are impor-tant for a number of reasons. They allow us to study complexsocial phenomena that cannot be represented accurately with158 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfaresimple methods (for example, methods that do not take intoconsideration measurement error, multilevel data structures,or complex sample structure). They also allow us to betterhandle methodological challenges posed in applied research(for example, new methods for analyzing data from quasi-ex-perimental designs and for handling missing data). Finally,these methods may stimulate the formulation of researchquestions in new and potentially important ways (e.g., latentclass models allow us to think about person-centered researchquestions in addition to traditional variable-centered researchquestions).This Handbook does an excellent job in covering a broadrange of state-of-the-art quantitative methods applicable to thesocial sciences. However, there are a few topics that I wish hadhave been covered in separate chapters, not just as part of ex-isting chapters (and most of these topics are indeed coveredat least in part in existing chapters). These include chapterson recent advances in methods for handling missing data,methods for analyzing data from complex samples, methodsfor determining statistical power for many of the methods de-scribed in sections three through five, and perhaps nonlinearregression methods and methods for modeling count data.Although some of the chapters in the Handbook aremathematically challenging, the Handbook is successful inproviding an introduction to a broad range of state-of-the-artquantitative social science methods to quantitative social sci-entists, applied statisticians, and graduate students. It is wellworth reading cover-to-cover, and it is a very useful additionto the reference libraries of all quantitative social scientists,applied statisticians, and graduate students.John G. OrmeUniversity of Tennessee

Review of \u3cem\u3eThe SAGE Handbook of Quantitative Methodology for the Social Sciences.\u3c/em\u3e David Kaplan (Ed.). Reviewed by John G. Orme.

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3169&amp;context=jssw

Review of \u3cem\u3eThe SAGE Handbook of Quantitative Methodology for the Social Sciences.\u3c/em\u3e David Kaplan (Ed.). Reviewed by John G. Orme.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

ScholarWorks at WMU