Research Design in Urban Planning: A Student′s Guide - Paperback

by Stuart Farthing (Author)

"This excellent book fills a significant gap in the literature supporting planning education by providing clear, succinct advice on the design and implementation of small-scale student research projects."
- Chris Couch, Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool

"A perfect text for supervisors to give students so that they plan their research projects carefully rather than leap headlong into data collection."
- Jean Hillier, Emeritus Professor of Sustainability and Urban Planning, RMIT University, Melbourne

"Highly recommended... Ranging across topics such as planning a research programme and data management and the handling of ethical issues, the book will be very helpful to those embarking on a thesis or dissertation in the field."
- Peter Fidler, President of the University of Sunderland

Research Design in Urban Planning: A Student's Guide is a brilliantly accessible guide to designing research for that all-important dissertation. Aimed at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, this text will:

- discuss research design, outlining the stages of the research process in clear detail and the key decisions which need to be taken at each stage

- explain to students how to re-interpret policy issues as researchable questions, appropriate for investigation

- look in detail at how researchers make their choice of methods, helping students to justify their own decisions

- reveal the ethical dimension to such decisions in the context of a growing requirement for the ethical approval of student projects

- review the issues for comparative studies - important not least because of student involvement in Erasmus programs and AESOP workshops

Packed with case studies, exercises, illustrations and summaries, Research Design in Urban Planning is an invaluable resource for students undertaking their first substantial, individual investigations.

Author Biography

Stuart Farthing was Principal lecturer in Urban Planning in the Department of Planning & Architecture at the University of the West of England, Bristol until his retirement in July 2011. He was the programme leader for the MA Applied Social Research from 1997 until 2011, the then ESRC-recognised cross-disciplinary doctoral training programme at UWE, and leader of the specialist Environmental planning pathway in that degree. Much of his career was spent in Bristol but he also taught at the Universities of Reading and Cardiff in Britain as a specialist in planning methods in the 1980s and early 1990s. Under Erasmus exchange programmes he taught at the Universities of Hannover and Tours and was a visiting researcher in the Department of Planning at the University of Melbourne. His teaching interests were in urban planning research, social research methods, and research methodology. His research interests have been in planning for housing, and, more recently, comparative planning and city region planning.