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| Usually we think of seven different
kinds of research methods in the social sciences: |
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documents;
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experiments;
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participant observation;
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qualitative interviews;
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secondary analysis;
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surveys; and
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unobtrusive measures.
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| Let us look at these
in turn: |
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| Documents offer a wide
range of material. |
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| A major difficulty is that the research
has already been done, and you can not go back in time and ask different
questions. |
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| A telephone
book provides a small amount of material for a large number of individuals. |
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| A diary provides detailed material
for only one person and a few others observed by that person. |
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| Newspapers provide good historical
data, although they are collected for what will sell the paper rather than
for their quality of observation and scientific interest. |
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| Experiments are more
popular with micro sociologists and psychologists. |
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| They tend to rely on setting up artificial
environments which in themselves may affect the responses. |
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| Participant observation means living
with the observed people, learning how they see things and experience things. |
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| It requires much time and language
ability, and might not be suitable for researchers of every personality
type. |
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| A 90 pound weakling
[sic] may find it difficult to run with the Hell’s Angels, for example. |
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| That was the main method I used when
I studied the Kwawu people of West Africa,
supplemented by most of the other methods. |
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| Qualitative interviews, with open
ended questions, allow more subjects being observed but not as many as
in a survey, and allows more in-depth investigation than will a wide survey. |
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| One problem with them is that answers
from different respondent may not match up or cover the same material. |
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| The amount of material
from each respondent is quite unpredictable. |
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| Secondary analysis, a favourite of
armchair sociologists, takes material collected by other observers, for
other purposes, and rearranges it and interprets it for new purposes and
new theses. |
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| Like documents, it is difficult to
go back and ask different questions, and you must be satisfied with whatever
you get. |
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| Surveys, one of the most popular
methods favoured by the numbers crunchers, allows a limited number of bits
of information for a potentially large number of respondents. |
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| It requires determining methods of
sampling, and well designed, unambivalent questions, perhaps a pilot test,
and a list of questions that is short as possible to ensure respondent
consistency; that all questions are answered by every respondent. It is
not a good approach for in-depth questions. |
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| Unobtrusive measures can apply to
most of the above except questionnaires, where the persons being observed
do not know that they are being observed. |
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| Watching where people sit on getting
on a bus, or which urinal they choose in men’s rooms are classical studies
using unobtrusive measures. |
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| Any study of documents can be done
without letting the observed know that they are being observed. |
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| Good research applies
several of these methods on the same topic. |
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