Week 11 : Material-Based Methods Flashcards
1
Q
What are Materials-based methods?
A
- Sociological methods that involve analyzing existing materials rather than interviewing, surveying or observing ppl
- called unobtrusive methods
- Materials include expert analyses, reports, records, news media, cultural artifacts, written accounts of events, physical materials, maps and pre-existing datasets
2
Q
Why use material based methods? 4 reasons
A
- Individuals are not the best sources of information about macro-social phenomena
- The answers to some questions do not exist in living memory
- People are not always the best sources of information (even about themselves)
- Materials facilitate studies otherwise difficult or impossible to carry-out
3
Q
1 - individuals aren’t the best source for macro-social phenomena
A
- Social patterns or trends are sometimes bigger than any individual
- often rely on pre-existing expert analyses, government reports, media & other records (e.g. why revolutions occur in some countries but not others)
- look at societal composition, structures & processes
4
Q
2 - answers to some questions do not exist in living memory
A
- If some/all of the tings you want to study happened in the past, memories of events may have faded or individuals who experienced the events may have died
5
Q
3 - People are not always the best sources of information
A
- want to put their best face forward
- Problem of societal blind spots… romanticize past, presume false things are true even when factcs contradict them
- not great at answering how/why they do specific things in their era if its just ‘normal’
6
Q
Materials Used in Materials-Based Methods…
A
- expert analysis
- reports (Syntheses of information, typically created by governments or organizations)
- records
- news media
- cultural artifacts
- individual accounts of events (e.g. diaries, letters, journals, videos, blogs, or Facebook posts)
- physical materials (e.g. children’s toys)
- maps
- data sets
- big data
7
Q
Primary vs secondary information…
A
- primary… firsthand evidence in its original, unaltered form, includes researchers’ direct observations
- examples of primary… diary enteries, birth certificate, etc.
- secondary… gathered, reported & sometimes altered by another, indirect evidence of something; comes through at least one other person (leads to validity problems)
- examples of secondary… nyt article, general social survey, death certificate,
8
Q
Where do researchers find material for analysis?
A
- archives
- governments (e.g. census, US department of education, criminal records)
- organizations (e.g. GoogleBooks, large organizations more likely to have archives) must be cautious tho
- individuals (e.g. individual researchers data)
9
Q
3 common methods
A
- historical comparative
- content analysis
- secondary (quantitative) data analysis
10
Q
1 - historical comparative methods
A
- better understand macro processes & reveal the blind spots of contemporary societies by comparing societies across time & space
- historical… examine change over time
- comparative… use materials to examine change across locations
- usually use government records, official reports & pre-existing academic literature/expert accounts
11
Q
1 - historical comparative methods
1 - selecting cases
A
- case-oriented research (usually 2-4)
- case = time x location
- purposive sampling… importance, typicality & contrasting outcomes/key differences
- one way to think abt whether you have selected noteworthy cases is to think in terms of counterfactuals…
- Counterfactuals involve thinking about what might have happened but did not or what might have happened if the focal event or condition had not occurred
12
Q
1 - historical comparative methods
2 - Developing Concepts & Hypotheses…
A
- theory –> concepts –> hypotheses
- key question - why did the case turn out the way it did?
- Should be based on a sociological theory & research on the topic
- be open to alternative connections & explanations
13
Q
1 - historical comparative methods
3 - finding & organizing information
A
- high-quality, unbiased & complete information on your cases
- learn as much as possible about your cases with respect to the particular angle you are exploring
- 3 steps to determine whether you have gathered sufficient materials… 1- Approach your sources systematically… 2- Closely consider the contradictions you encounter… 3- Try to reach saturation
14
Q
1 - historical comparative methods
4 - analyzing the data
A
- affirming or refuting the different possible explanations that you identified on the basis of sociological theories
- write up your findings
15
Q
2 - content analysis
A
- research conducted based ont he content of materials (text or images found in the materials)
- how do people talk about/represent things?
- seeks to uncover evidence of bias (reflects societal blind spots or the hidden biases of the public)
- Quantitative content analysis… (sytematically review some kind of material to test hypotheses)… e.g. do levels of feminist activism affect the portrayl of gender in children’s literature
- Critical (qualitative) content analysis… (focusing on a single piece of material (such as a speech) or a small number of items and analyzing the material in great depth to uncover hidden/alternative meaning)
16
Q
2 - content analysis
steps in content analysis
A
- conceptualization & operationalization
- sampling
- data collection & analysis
17
Q
2 - content analysis
sampling…
A
- both purposive & representative random sampling
- you may be confronted with a very large number of cases, so set limits on how much you will analyze
18
Q
2 - content analysis
coding…
A
- researchers operationalize their key concepts into variables through coding
- Coding - is the process of translating written/visual material into standardized categories suitable for quantitative analysis
- For ordinal/nominal variables, researchers create a coding scheme, which lists all the possible categories and outlines specific rules for how to apply those categories to the material (assign them numbers)
- Can use a decision rule - which is a rule for categorizing difficult material
- Useful to maintain a codebook - that lists the variables in order & provides information about each variable
- common practice is to share coding scheme & decision rules
19
Q
2 - contnet analysis
factors drive the complexity of coding…
A
- The ambiguity of the concept of interest (e.g. coding into specific variables can be hard)
- The length and complexity of the material being coded
- coding into themes
4.
20
Q
2 - content analysis
critical content analysis
A
- takes particular images from popular media & analyzes them to uncover societal blind spots
- evaluate a small number of items, selected using purposive sampling (may deconstruct a single cultural artifact)
- analyzing images
21
Q
3 - secondary (quantitative) data analysis
A
- involves converting materials into numerical data & then analyzing the data to investigate relationships and test hypotheses
- data-sets that have been colected by other researchers
22
Q
3 - secondary (quantitative) data analysis
steps…
A
- Using Pre-existing data sets to help construct a research question…
- Familiarizing yourself with the data & data-collection process…
- Merging Materials into a single dataset…
- Checking your analysis against previously published reports…
- Citing & describing the data sets
23
Q
3 - secondary (quantitative) data analysis
advantages/disadvantages
A
- advantages… save time & resources, probability samples usually expensive to draw & minimize respondent fatigue
- disadvantages… pre-existing data may not be related to your research questions & data can be flawed or poorly documented
24
Q
3 - secondary (quantitative) data analysis
when assessing datasets ask the following…
A
- what type of previous studies have used the data?
- what method was used to collect the data? is the method appropriate for answering your research questions?
- are the time frame and units of analyses included in the data appropriate for your research questions?
- which variables will you be using & do they fit your key concepts/operationalization plan?
25
Q
3 - secondary (quantitative) data analysis
codebook
A
- a system of organizing information about a data set
- the variables it contains
- the possible values for each variable
- sampling & weight information
- discussions of coding schemes & decision rules
- in a excel sheet – # of rows- number of observations/cases – # of columns- number of variables
26
Q
3 - secondary (quantitative) data analysis
merging materials
A
- researchers may choose to merge 2+ secondary data sets if they have a common unit of analysis
- combine multiple years of data… repeated cross-sectional, more observations
- combine multiple sources of data… more variables, more levels of analysis
- comebind multiple levels of analysis… macro to micro (study impact of social contextx on individual outcome) & micro to macro (aggregate to create macro-level variables
27
Q
3 - secondary (quantitative) data analysis
Possible mistakes
A
- level of analysis ~ the dependent variable (outcome)
- aggregation error
28
Q
2 key limitations of material-based methods
A
- barriers to accessing material… cost, privacy, language barriers, etc.
- potential shortcomings in materials… may miss some important nuances of the social world they are studying, may lack info on women, minorities & requires triangulation
