Ontology, epistemology, production of knowledge etc ....aaahhhh help

ash2008

Im studying for a psych degree and while I had heard these words mentioned briefly before, I am now smackbang in the middle of a module (Critical social psychology) in which everything seems to be based around these.
Im sort of drowning in it at the moment. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a book or website that would help me start to get a handle on this stuff.
I have tried googling, but I can only ever find journal articles which aren't always the simplest things to read.

hotspur

I recommend a general introductory philosophy textbook if it's not something you are tremendously interested in getting into at this point. Something like John Hospers's classic An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis is very readable and would serve as an introduction to the concepts you are looking to understand something of.

I took a quick look to see if there was anything helpful on the Philosophy Now website (it's a good magazine if you get interested in philosophy and wish to keep abreast of things), perhaps the podcast named The Limits of Science might be useful to you (I haven't listened to it), #29 here:
http://www.philosophynow.org/podcasts

There are lots of video courses and podcasts online if you look. For example here are excellent video ones from Oxford which will introduce you to what you want to know (check out philosophy for beginners and general philosophy):
http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/podcasts

The Black Oil

Any half decent research methods book should point you in the right direction. Here are a few that were mentioned to us at the start of this year. Can't recall if each one will have the topics in question, but no harm to flick through them.

Blaikie, N. (2000) Designing Social Research: The Logic of Anticipation. Cambridge: Polity.

Gomm, R. (2004) Social Research Methodology: A critical introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Gray, D. E. (2009) Doing Research in the Real World (second edition). London: Sage.

Flick, U. (2009) An Introduction to Qualitative Research (fourth edition). London: Sage.

Mason, J. (2002) Qualitative Researching (second edition). London: Sage.

Mertens, D.M. and Ginsberg, P. E. (eds) (2008) The Handbook of Social Research Ethics. London: Sage.

Punch, K. (2005) Introduction to Social Research: quantitative and qualitative approaches. London: Sage.

Silverman, D. (2010) Qualitative Research (third edition). London: Sage.

ash2008

Thanks to both for the replies

Ive ordered the Hospers book. In the meantime, Ill take a look at those sites.