Tom Clark

Tom Clark
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The University of Sheffield | Sheffield · Department of Sociological Studies

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41
Publications
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1,293
Citations

Publications

Publications (41)
Article
Full-text available
Presenting the results from a mixed methods case-study, this paper draws together insight from the fields of ‘BME attainment’ and ‘student transition’ to explore how differential levels of degree attainment might be experienced within the context of a higher tariff university in England. Across a five-year period (2010/11–2014/2015) it compares the...
Article
Full-text available
There is a well-established literature examining how perpetrators of child sexual abuse (CSA) neutralise the norms and beliefs that ordinarily prohibit such behaviours. However, there has been substantially less focus on how such techniques of neutralisation might also be applied by people and groups who were not directly involved in the abuse, who...
Book
Clear, comprehensive, and trusted, Bryman's Social Research Methods has supported over a quarter of a million students through their research methods course and research project. Spanning theory and practice and covering quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, this bestselling text offers unrivalled coverage of the whole research process.
Article
Full-text available
In 1987 Myra Hindley submitted a petition to the Home Office requesting permission to undergo hypnosis in an attempt to locate the grave of Keith Bennett. Whilst the request was initially declined, the issue continued to be an administrative challenge for the Home Office for the fifteen years that followed. Drawing on her ‘prison records’ currently...
Article
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Responding to the need to develop the range and scope of narrative criminology, this paper provides an empirical demonstration of how auto/biographical analysis can be used for criminological purposes. More specifically, the paper explores how British serial killer Myra Hindley sought to construct, (re)present and rehabilitate her own identity in t...
Chapter
Whether the research project adopts a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed strategy, there is little point in asking a few non-random people a few non-random questions as the student has no idea what those answers might indicate, or whether they might apply in other situations. Therefore, the student needs to think carefully about his or her samplin...
Chapter
This chapter discusses the basics of collecting quantitative material. It outlines the nature of quantitative data in the context of the research process, before exploring the differences between primary and secondary data. In doing so, it highlights some of the benefits of using secondary data sets for the purposes of dissertation-based research....
Book
How to do your Social Research Project or Dissertation looks to help readers to navigate research for a project or dissertation. It starts with an introduction to the research process and how to get started. It examines the process of developing an idea. It reviews the available literature. It then considers how to build upon the project idea, the...
Chapter
This chapter outlines some of the basic features of social research. It introduces students to the notion that social research is a process, helps to clarify the reasons for reearch, and explores the relationship between theory and research. Using the analogy of a voyage, it demonstrates that specific tasks associated with for carrying out social r...
Chapter
Once students have developed an idea, outlined a rationale for their research, and found the relevant literature, they then need to start mapping out what their project will look like. To do this, they will need to make some decisions about how they will answer their research questions. Research can be approached and conducted in many different way...
Chapter
Although much of the data used in social science dissertation projects is produced by interviews, surveys, and participant observation, there are other forms of data that can be used for the purposes of social science. This chapter explores some of this ‘documentary’ data and how to use it for the purposes of research. Documentary forms of data hav...
Chapter
Critical reflection is a key part of evaluating the research project, and a dissertation that demonstrates this is likely to achieve higher marks. However, one of the first things to recognize is that the process of evaluation does not necessarily begin at the end of the project. Instead, issues of research quality are implicitly embedded in all pa...
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Social research is concerned with developing defensible knowledge about people and all of the things that they do. This means that the landscape for social research is both wide and varied. In some cases, the research gaze will be directed by disciplinary interests, in others it will be much more open. This chapter discusses techniques that can hel...
Chapter
This chapter discusses two approaches to analyse quantitative data: descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics allows the student to summarize and describe data, whereas inferential statistics enables him or her to infer answers from the data using hypotheses. Both approaches can be extremely useful. The chapter detai...
Chapter
After going through the process of planning, designing, and carrying out research, the student needs to write up the project. Writing is an extremely important part of the research process as a poorly written dissertation will constrain the student’s ability to communicate findings and limit the final mark he or she can achieve. This chapter discus...
Chapter
Ethics play a vital part of the research process. They provide a set of value-based principles that enable research to be conducted in an appropriate manner. Research ethics help ensure that the relationships built during the process of conducting social research are respectful and constructive, and that the student’s project does not endanger eith...
Chapter
Today, the world of research is quite literally available through the touch of a few buttons via online resaerch. But this increase in access and availability is not without its challenges. With ‘hits’ that can run into millions, unless the student knows how to search effectively and efficiently, the information that he or she finds can quickly bec...
Chapter
Before starting a dissertation, it is common practice to have to write a research proposal. Not only does a research proposal help make sense of the student’s own project and what it will look like, it also allows he or she to connect research idea to a wider audience so that other people can give advice about whether, and how, it makes ‘research s...
Chapter
This chapter deals with qualitative data. While everyone is familiar with the idea of interviewing and observing, actually collecting qualitative data is not as easy as it might first appear to be. In fact, when doing qualitative work, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of information collected. However, with some purposeful planning, p...
Chapter
This chapter examines the more practical foundations on which all research projects are built and guides students through the realities of planning and managing their dissertation. It examines how to negotiate the workload of the research process, how to cope with unexpected problems, and how to best use the supervisor for support throughout this p...
Chapter
The literature review is a key component of a dissertation. It serves to contextualize the aims and objectives of the project, and in terms of the research process it helps to sensitize issues of interest that the student might want to direct their attention towards when they begin collecting and analysing data. This chapter provides an introductio...
Chapter
This chapter discusses the analysis of qualitative material. There are many types of qualitative analysis. Some approaches are related to specific forms of data, whereas others are more generic in nature. There can also be considerable differences between some forms of qualitative analysis to the extent that they have very little in common with one...
Article
Full-text available
There is currently much interest in the interconnections between research and teaching in Higher Education. This relationship is usually termed ‘the research/teaching nexus’ (RTN). However, within this wide body of literature, there has been little attempt to explore the emergent experiences of students across the entire length of their degree prog...
Article
Full-text available
In 2012, the UK government introduced the National Scholarship Programme - a scheme that aimed to ensure that young people from families with low household incomes would not be discouraged from entry into higher education by increases in tuition fees. Drawing on longitudinal evidence in the form of eighty semi-structured interviews conducted in an...
Article
Full-text available
There is a continuing trend within higher education policy to frame undergraduate study as ‘human capital investment’—a financial transaction whereby the employment returns of a degree are monetary. However, this distinctly neoliberal imaginary ignores well-established information asymmetries in choice, non-monetary drivers for education, as well a...
Article
This paper explores how the various pressures of finance, employability and part-time work are experienced by undergraduates studying in an English Red Brick University. Drawing on the results of a 3-year qualitative study that followed 40 students throughout their 3 years of studies (n₁ = 40, n₂ = 40, n₃ = 38, ntotal = 118), the paper details thre...
Article
There has been an increasing emphasis placed on the skills and attributes that university students develop whilst studying for their degree. These ‘narratives of employability’ often construct extracurricular activity (ECA) as an essential part of gaining postgraduation employment. However, these future-oriented drivers of engagement often neglect...
Article
Drawing on a thematic analysis of longitudinal qualitative data (ntotal=118), this paper takes a ‘whole student lifecycle’ approach to examine how lower and higher income students at an English Northern Red Brick University variously attempted to manage their individual budgets. It explores how students reconcile their income - in the form of loans...
Article
This article critically examines how undergraduate students in a red brick university in the North of England have experienced the threefold rise in tuition fees since 2012, with particular attention on how they have begun to understand and negotiate the process of indebtedness. Drawing on a corpus of 118 interviews conducted with a group of 40 und...
Chapter
Full-text available
Keywords: research methods, inquiry-based learning, research spine , qualitative skills, quantitative skills, urriculum development.
Chapter
Full-text available
Keywords: quantitative methods, inquiry-based learning, workbooks, academic skills, group work, engagement.
Article
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Supporting a football team in the lower leagues of the English league system is rarely a glamorous endeavour that is full of success and glory. So why do fans keep turning up game after game, season after season, in spite of the frequent false dawns, regular disappointment, and apparent lack of success of their adopted team? This essay aims to offe...
Article
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Gatekeepers occupy increasingly important positions within qualitative social work research and their engagement with research is crucial to the ongoing development of a useable knowledge base. However, while some studies have hinted at the mechanisms that support and challenge the relationship between gatekeepers and researchers, there is a paucit...
Article
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While there has been some anecdotal discussion that hints at what motivates people to engage with qualitative research, little research has systematically explored the role of research engagement for those who choose to participate: Why do people engage with qualitative research? Using interview data collected from experienced researchers (n=13), t...
Article
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Despite a number of references to research fatigue and over-researching in the literature, the concepts have yet to be empirically investigated within qualitative contexts. This article, therefore, seeks to explore how researchers understand and account for research fatigue and over-researching. Using the results generated from a grounded analysis,...
Article
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Children's Services Departments (CSDs) that are willing to host research projects are invaluable to the ongoing development of a reliable and useable evidence bank within social care. However, little attention has been paid to the costs and benefits that CSDs experience as a result of their participation. Using a mixed methods design, this small-sc...
Article
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Using the child and family research arena as a base, and by generating and analysing empirical data according to the grounded theory methodology proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967), this thesis adopts an empirical approach to the study of the research relationship. More specifically, it explores how researchers (n=13) understand the research proc...
Article
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This paper explores some of the implications for qualitative researchers within sociology of developments in Grid technology and thereby aims to contribute to the debate on the future of sociological research in an increasingly digitised world. The well-established field of humanities computing provides an interesting counterpoint. We use the metho...
Article
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The terrace chant, despite many varied efforts toward its control, remains a central part of many a match‐day experience. Using ethnographic data collected from Scunthorpe United Football Club over the course of the 2002/03 season, this essay explores the supporters’ utilization of songs at football matches, concentrating on the dialogic exchanges...
Article
The present paper assesses (a) the predictive utility of expanding the normative component of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to include a measure of descriptive norms, and (b) the moderating role of group identification on TPB-intention relations. In Study 1 (N= 48), male soccer fans read a vignette describing a potential confrontation with o...

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