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Becker, Howard S. (1998). Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While You're Doing It. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

$35.00 (Cloth)           0-226-04123-9
$14.00 (Paper)           0-226-04124-7

Reviewed by Lynn Stallings, Georgia State University and
          Ansley Yeomans, Georgia State University

 
          Howard S. Becker's Tricks of the Trade is an invitation to sit in on a graduate seminar in methodology with an experienced social science researcher. The tone is conversational and thought-provoking, often humorous. Through a quirky set of examples that includes embezzlement, theatre casting, transvestitism, forestry, and opiate addiction, Becker describes common methodological problems in research and some "tricks" that might be helpful in unlocking them. Although the word "tricks" in the title might put some readers off, the author explains that he has found these to be useful tools in "tam[ing] theory...[by providing] ways of thinking that help researchers faced with concrete research problems make some progress" (p. 4). These tricks are not shortcuts to the solution of theoretical problems; in fact, Becker points out that they may cause more, rather than less, work because they "suggest ways of interfering with the comfortable thought routines academic life promotes and supports" (p. 6).
          Becker's collection of tricks is organized under four topics: imagery (the images a researcher brings to his or her research), sampling (the issues involved in data collection), concepts (their creation and definition), and logic (the processes involved in elaborating concepts and the connections between them). In the chapter on imagery, Becker addresses the ways a researcher's images about a study develop and the bias caused by the researcher's preconceived images. The crux of the imagery problem is that researchers' lives shape their images, so they must "do something about the character of [their] ordinary lives" (p. 15) in order to improve the quality of their imagery. Becker calls one of his imagery tricks the "Machine Trick." He uses a somewhat dated example from educational research to illustrate how it works. Studies that try to explain disappointing student achievement by focussing solely on variables such as race, socioeconomic status, gender, or intelligence ignore that student learning occurs in a "machine" or system. Student achievement cannot be explained without an understanding of the other factors in the machine, including teaching, and the organization of the school.
          Another example from the chapter on imagery is "What is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" This trick points out that each behavior or circumstance is the logical result of a sequence of events. For example, unless the educational researcher knows enough about the preceding events, a teacher's highly developed procedures for managing students will be incomprehensible or may even seem silly. The chapter on imagery includes these and many other tricks, such as the more commonly known one of asking "how" and not "why" when interviewing. Sampling is an important issue for every researcher. Becker addresses what to include in the sample, how much detail is needed, and the importance of finding cases that do not fit into conventional categories. Becker also debunks some of the reasons that researchers use to make decisions about their samples. These reasons include not studying a particular topic because "Everybody knows that!" or "That's been done." Further, when studying an organization, Becker reminds researchers to avoid the assumption that people in high-status positions are more credible than people of lower status within the organization. The final tricks in the chapter on sampling address the problems of using data collected by other people and the need for recognition of bastard institutions, which are the informal "collective human activities" that develop to achieve certain communal purposes. One sampling trick that Becker offers is called "Why them?" He points out that researchers very often choose to study the best possible schools, the most effective teachers, or the brightest students. Instead, the researcher should consider the selection of cases from other parts of the spectrum, cases that might challenge and elaborate our existing theories and much more. This trick is closely related to another in this section: a challenge not to accept the evaluation from participants in a study that "nothing is happening," but rather to analyze what is occurring when "nothing's happening."
          In working with concepts or "generalized statements about whole classes of phenomena" (p. 109), Becker discusses the problems involved in defining concepts and takes the position that the development of concepts should be based on continuing interaction with empirical data. Becker suggests tricks to "create more complex ideas that will help you find more problems worth studying and more things about what you have studied worth thinking about and incorporating into your analysis" (p. 109). One way for a researcher to produce well-defined concepts is to describe the findings of a study without including any terminology specific to the actual cases studied. For instance, Becker examined the careers of Chicago school teachers in his dissertation. Describing this work without using the words teacher, school, student, principal, or Chicago leads to findings that are more generalizable and abstract.
          The final chapter, "Logic," is the longest and the most difficult because the tricks describe techniques of data analysis. Although the tricks in previous chapters are neat analogies or ways of thinking about research problems that provide researchers with quick ways to challenge their own thinking, the tricks in the chapter on logic are data analysis techniques. Becker hints that the tricks in the last chapter do not parallel those in previous chapters when he calls them "families of tricks." Some of these methods may seem "pretty abstract and frighteningly mathematical" (p. 189), however Becker assures the reader that they are no harder than performing simple algebra. Property space analysis [PSA], qualitative comparative analysis [QCA], and analytic induction [AI] are the three combinatorial "tricks" in this chapter. Each provides a logical procedure for classifying objects, determined by the degree to which they share relevant traits. The tricks are combinatorial because they are ways to account for all possible combinations of characteristics. Every combination defines a type, and the frequency or absence of each type provides interesting data. Although the logic chapter may be more difficult to read, the ideas seem useful, and they serve the same purpose as those in the previous chapters.
          Each of these approaches has its own strengths: PSA is a way to define and examine types by putting them into a table or matrix that shows all of the logical possibilities. QCA emphasizes "conjunctural explanation, the search for combinations of elements that produce unique and invariant results" (p. 196). AI allows the researcher to discover and account for examples that do not fit the emerging theory.
          As befits a professor of sociology who is also a musician, Becker closes with a coda on the application of his tricks. He urges constant mental practice so that the tricks become second nature, although he does warn that practicing research techniques in everyday life may irritate a researcher's family and friends. He also encourages readers to develop and practice their own "tricks of the trade."
          Becker's very readable book will probably be most interesting to someone who has some research experience and has grappled with the methodological and theoretical problems it addresses. For that reason, it would be less useful as an introductory methodology textbook than it would for a beginning researcher, but reading Tricks of the Trade will benefit researchers of any experience level. The usefulness of a particular trick to a given researcher will depend on the researcher's interests and experiences, but this may well be one of those books that yields fresh insights each time it is read. The main strength of Tricks of the Trade is the glimpse it provides into the thinking of an experienced and respected researcher.

About the Reviewers

Ansley Yeomans
Ansley Yeomans is a graduate student in mathematics education at Geogia State University. Her research interests include the aesthetic appreciation of mathematics in high school teachers and students.