Research Methodology

    Sampling in qualitative research
    Apart from people, what else can purposive sampling be used for?
    The principles of purposive sampling can be applied to documents in the sense that we will select for our sample those that satisfy certain criteria relevant to our research questions. Because of the practical problems encountered in ethnography, there is a need to sample for observations at different time periods. Equally, observation studies need to be clear about how behaviour may change in different circumstances. Since this is not probability sampling, we are free to pick and choose, as it were, between contextual issues. We just need to stay consistent with our research questions.
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 418
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    The nature and process of social research
    The core ingredients of a dissertation are:
    Different types of research may be written up slightly differently, just as different publishers have different requirements. Your own institution has almost certainly specified a required (or at least a recommended) layout and you must follow this absolutely. Bryman’s point is that most dissertations, theses and research articles have an identifiable common core, as outlined in answer (d). The other answers are, therefore, ‘wrong’ relatively speaking. All academic reporting must reference sources fully; such reference lists, transcripts of interviews, full tabulations of quantitative data, may be seen as appendices.
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 12, 13
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    Self-administered questionnaires
    Corti (1993) makes a distinction between two types of researcher-driven diary:
    “Research in focus 10.1”, on page 238, shows how a diary study can be used to gather data for social research. Both quantitative and qualitative data can be gathered using this method but it is not a form of questionnaire, so there are no “answers”, whether open or closed. Rather, people are selected (perhaps randomly) for a sample and asked to keep a diary of their activities over a period of time. Depending on how the concept has been operationalized, diaries are as likely to have measurement validity as any other data-gathering instrument. Corti (1993) thinks it worthwhile to see diaries as being either ‘structured’ or ‘free-text’ (p238). Furthermore, diarists should be given explicit instructions on how to keep the diaries and shown a model of a completed diary section (Corti, 1993, cited on page 239).
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 238,239
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    Using IBM SPSS statistics
    To generate a Spearman’s rho test, which set of instructions should you give SPSS?
    Spearman’s rho is a test of correlation, so we should expect to find the SPSS function under ‘Analyse’ – ‘Correlate’. Selecting ‘Bivariate’ opens up the “Bivariate Correlations” dialog box and allows you to generate a coefficient to show the strength of the relationship between variables you selected. Plate 16.16 on page 367 shows the dialog box featuring age, cardmins and weimins as the selected variables. Remember, Spearman is used when one or both variables are ordinal (Table 16.3, on page 366, shows the output for a Pearson test).
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 363 (and see plate 16.16 on page 367)
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    Qualitative data analysis
    What is one of the main ethical problems associated with conducting a secondary analysis of qualitative data?
    It can be extremely illuminating to conduct a secondary analysis of a qualitative dataset and compare your interpretation to that of the original researcher. Furthermore, it is likely that qualitative datasets are under-explored because of their size and difficulty of handling. However, secondary analysis can be ethically problematic because the participants may not have given informed consent to their data being used by anyone other than the original researcher. It can also be difficult to maintain the levels of anonymity and confidentiality established in the original study.
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 594
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    Qualitative data analysis
    What is narrative analysis?
    Bryman (p589) defines narrative analysis as ‘an approach to the elicitation and analysis of data that is sensitive to the sense of temporal sequence that people, as providers of accounts (often in the form of stories) about themselves or events by which they are affected, detect in their lives and surrounding episodes and inject into their accounts’. Broadly speaking, it is concerned with the forms and structures of sequence that people use to frame their ‘stories of experience’ and can be applied to primary or extant material.
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 590
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    Quantitative data analysis
    What is the difference between a bar chart and a histogram?
    Histograms are used to display interval/ratio variables, which involve a continuous range of values, and so there are no gaps between the bars that represent each category. Bar charts, on the other hand, display nominal or ordinal data, which fall into discrete categories.
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 337 (Figures 15.2 and 15.3)
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    The nature of qualitative research
    A sensitizing concept is one that:
    Blumer (1954, cited on pages 382 and 383) made a distinction between definitive concepts, which are used in quantitative research to define a concept in terms of measurable indicators, and sensitizing concepts, which should provide qualitative researchers with just a general sense of reference that is open to revision. The problem with ‘definitive’ concepts is that we may stop thinking further about them once we have established indicators. But, since these are also hypothetical, we really should refine them in the light of collected and analysed data. Quantitative research cannot tolerate this, because of its dependency on measurement validity, but qualitative research makes its unique contribution through willingness to “learn as we go”.
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 382,383
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    Structured observation
    What did Salancik mean by “field stimulations”?
    In “field stimulation”, participants do not know they are being studied, so there is no reactive effect as discussed in the previous question. In this type of observation study, the researcher directly intervenes in and/or manipulates an element in the environment in order to observe changes in participant behaviour. Salancik (1979, cited on page 277) classified “field stimulations” as a qualitative method but Bryman (p277) believes they work better as part of a quantitative strategy because of the concentration on numbers of instances of particular behaviours.
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 277,278
    Author: rikazzz Comment
    Structured interviewing
    A filter question is one that:
    Generally speaking, filter questions are questions asked of some respondents but not of all. Usually the filter works like a branch in a decision tree, where we take one course of action if “yes” and another if “no” is the answer. Since there are separate courses of action, we don’t need to follow both. If respondents say “yes” to a question, we can then ask other questions which follow from that “yes” and avoid asking those same, irrelevant, questions of those answering “no”. Answer (a) indicates required practice in a structured interview but filter questions are designed to ensure that not every question is asked of everyone.
    Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 208
    Author: rikazzz Comment