Effective Questioning Techniques and Research Methods in Social Sciences, Lecture notes of Social Statistics and Data Analysis

Download Effective Questioning Techniques and Research Methods in Social Sciences and more Lecture notes Social Statistics and Data Analysis in PDF only on Docsity!

A Good Questioning Route

 Focus groups employ different types of

questions…each has distinct purpose.

 5 Basic Question Types: Opening,

Introductory, Transition, Key,

Ending.

Opening Questions

 Goal: get people talking & make them

comfortable. Ask by going one by one

around table.

 Easy to answer….ask facts not opinions or

attitudes.

 Avoid asking things which translate into

power, status, expertise differences (e.g.,

occupation, education).

Introductory Questions

 Introduce topic & participant connection.

 Open-ended questions.

 Moderator clues.

 “What is the first thing that comes to mind

when you hear the word “risk”?

Transition Questions

 Move conversation toward key questions.

 Link introductory & key questions.

 Strengthen connection between participants

& topic.

Key Questions

 Valuable information.

 2 - 5

 10 - 20 minutes each.

 Moderator pauses & probes.

 1/3 to 1/2 way through focus group.

Ending Questions

 Closure & reflection.

 Important to analysis.

 “All-things-considered” question determines the final position of participant.

 Summary question asked by moderator who gives a short summary of discussion on key questions ….and then asks how adequate summary is.

 Final question provides feedback to moderator.

Making Questions Open-Ended...

 Respondents direct their response.

 Reveals what is on interviewee’s mind.

 Beware of questions that only appear to be open-

ended…questions with phrases such as “how satisfied”, “to what extent”, “how much”.

 Avoid asking “Why” questions….can lead people

to rationalize attitudes, responses, behaviors.

More on making questions open-ended...

 Break “why” questions into different open-ended

questions: (Do not ask “Why did you attend Nipissing University?”). Instead….

What prompted you to attend NU?

What aspects of NU do you like?

What aspects of NU do you dislike?

 Ask “What” or “How”.

Observational Research

 Qualitative Research derives from the “verstehen” (interpretive) tradition in sociology. Emphasizes importance of an in-depth understanding of social behaviors.

 Field or observational studies are “the study of people acting in the natural course of their daily lives”.

 (1) location; (2) research implementation.

 Religion…..attend church services.

 Homeless.…become a homeless person for several days or weeks.

 Labor disputes…sit in on collective bargaining, attend union meetings, march a picket line.

 Technology….enter a workplace and observe reactions of workers.

Major Types of Field Studies:

 Participant Observation

 In-depth Interviewing

 Field Experiments

 Covert Observational Studies

 With Participant Observation (PO), the researcher develops close, direct attachment to group.

 PO researchers adopt perspectives, share in activities & interactions, learn language, habits, & lifestyles.

 Erving Goffman’s PO study of psychiatric hospitals.

 “Back wards” & “working patients”….how psychiatric hospitals function through informal relationships & interactions.

 The healthier you are mentally when you enter a psychiatric hospital, the more your mental health will suffer over time!

 The more sane you are, the more shame/ embarrassment you feel from institutionalization, makes you cut off friends & family (potential social supports).

More on Participant Observation …

 Document richness, depth, meaning of social behaviors in ways that experiments & surveys cannot match.

 Advantages: can directly gather data on social behaviors occurring in real social environments or contexts****. Observations occur in natural environment… less contrived & reactive.

 Potential for longitudinal research…or documenting behaviors over time!

Disadvantages of Participant Observation…

 Little or no control over the context of data collection ….lots of observations can be missed.

 Difficult to quantify (and statistically analyze) many observations.****.

 Data usually collected from small, non- probability samples…can have dubious external validity.

 Vulnerable to ethical (and even legal) issues.

Steps in Participant Observation…

 Select topic (should be of personal interest).

 Review research literature for planning, variable identification / definitions & hypotheses.

 Select group / site… gain access****.

 For private groups / sites, permission requires legitimacy , value & no hidden agendas.

 For some topics, obtaining permission may not feasible, pursuing study without permission is possible but creates ethical & legal problems.

 PO in public settings is less problematic, gaining access is a matter of convenience & practicality.

 Permission (other than from ethics committees) is typically not needed.

 Once access to the site is achieved, gaining rapport with “informants” is important. With suspicious or hostile groups gaining rapport can difficult; with other groups gaining rapport can be easy.

 Observe & record data ….should always be guided by hypotheses & research questions.

Non-reactive Research Designs

 (1) Secondary Data Analysis, (2) Content Analysis, (3) Comparative Studies.

 Secondary Data Analysis (SDA) is research based on data, usually from surveys, collected by others…such as Statistics Canada.

 While popular today, SDA has a long history in sociology (Durkheim’s study of suicide used vital statistics gathered from several governments in Europe).

Why SDA is becoming more popular:

 For many research questions/ hypotheses,

secondary data is the only data available.

 Secondary data facilitates replication of other

research; survey data is usually high quality.

 Lots of data covering variety of research

topics…obtained for much less money & time than if you tried to do your own survey.

Limitations of SDA:

 Gap between ideal data for testing hypotheses

and what is available from secondary sources.

 Time delays…often must wait 12 to 24 months

before data is available to outside researchers. In the case of private sources (corporations), the data sets may never be made available.

 Huge number of data sets out there can make

finding best one a challenge.

Content Analysis (CA):

 A method for objectively studying the content of communications (e.g., television / radio shows, books, magazines, movies, advertising etc.,).

 Aside from testing hypotheses, major uses of CA include: (1) describing trends, (2) auditing communications, (3) analyzing techniques of persuasion, (4) identifying authors.

 Indirect observation through examining & analyzing communications people produce and consume.

 CA is objective & carried out on the basis of precise conceptual & operational definitions, explicit rules & procedures for classifying communication content, and consistently applied criteria for evaluation of communication content.

 CA processes: (1) specifying communication content to be measured, (2) applying the rules for identifying & recording the relevant communication content.

 What is to be analyzed (a book, movie, TV program, advertisements)?

 Draw a representative sample.

 Recording unit is the smallest part of the message to be analyzed (e.g., words, themes, characters, paragraphs, images or photos).

 Context unit is the largest part of the message to be analyzed. Context unit helps determine the meaning of the recording unit by examining the context (e.g., the sentence in which a word appears; the advertisement in which a photo appears).

Recording observations with CA:

 Binary Coding …presence / absence of communication content of interest.

 Frequency Counts …how often communication content of interest appears in message.

 Amount of Space …devoted to communication content of interest (e.g., in newspapers, books, internet sites, magazines).

 Amount of Time …devoted to communication content of interest (e.g., on radio, movies, television).

Other non-reactive research methods…

 Webb’s Erosion measures (records of social

activity) and Accretion measures (social deposits).

 Gerber’s Simple Observation research language

behavior as attention seeking & attention giving.

 To be effective these methods must be guided

by specific hypotheses or desire to get information to answer research questions.