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Lecture 4 of 4711

Social Research Methods I29.9.03 5-6pm

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Social Research Methods I & II

• Lecture 4 (Paul Lambert) o Introduction to social research o The Survey Method

• Lecture 5 (Nicola Illingworth)o More on social research processo Participant Observationo Interviewing

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Course webpages

• Have lectures 4 and 5 for download

• Plus extract on “Survey Method”

• See instructions in your coursebooks

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Sociology and Empirical Social Research

Problem Hypothesis

Evaluation with empirical

social research evidence

Discussion

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Empirical Social research

• Is conducted by social researchers

• Involves social research skills

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Who does social research?

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Who does social research? Outside universities

• The Media

• Market researchers and commercial companies

• Charities

• The Government and Local Authorities

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Who does social research? Inside Universities:

• University lecturers

• University researchers

• Post-graduate students

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Empirical Social research

• Is conducted by social researchers

• Involves social research skills

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What are social research skills?

SR skills involve understanding issues and problems in, and being capable of

undertaking, one or more forms of social research methods

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Social research methods = forms of empirical social research

Experiments Surveys Interviews

(‘in-depth’)

Focus Groups Documentary research

Participant Observation

Others… Visual Material analysis

Life history narratives

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Why learn SR skills & methods?

• To undertake social research

• To understand / critique other people’s social research reports

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The ‘big 3’ social research methods

Experiments Surveys Interviews

(‘in-depth’)

Focus Groups Documentary research

Participant Observation

Others… Visual Materials Life history narratives

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A classical approach divides research methods as either

Qualitative

or

Quantitative

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Qualitative and Quantitative:

• Quantitative: Anything that involves presenting numerical summaries

• Qualitative: Anything else, typically involves a researcher interpreting and evaluating textual information

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QuantitativeQuantitative or Qualitative:

ExperimentExperimentss

SurveysSurveys Interviews

(‘in-depth’)

Focus Groups Documentary research

Participant Observation

Others… Visual Materials

Life history narratives

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Ql v’s Qn as real:

• People doing them tend to be differento Can’t be a ‘Jack of all trades’o People favour specialismso Men computing v’s Women chatting!

• Skills / technologies differ

• Research presentation differs

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Ql v’s Qn as false:

• Methods-types not mutually exclusive

• Not aligned with different philosophies

• Research often benefits from more than one method, often both Qn and Ql

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Choice of Research Methods

Want to:

1. Address research question

2. Avoid own bias

3. Choose an attainable project

4. Convince others

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The rest of this lecture concerns 1 research

method: surveys

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Surveys: The systematic collection of selected information

from all or part of a population

(see Marsh 1992 extract)

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Surveys are characterised by ‘variable-by-case matrix’

Cases Variables 1 1 17 1.73 A . . . .

2 1 18 1.85 B . . . .

3 2 17 1.60 C . . . .

4 2 18 1.69 A . . . .

. . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . .

N

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Cases can be:

• Any distinctive entity

• Most often, they are individuals (people)

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Variables are:

• Measures of selected concepts of interest

• Indicators (our ‘best guess’ at representing the concept)

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The survey size

• Total number of cases survey size.

• A census covers every case in population.

• Most surveys use samples of cases.

• Larger survey size

more reliable sample estimates.

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Sampling

• Several sampling methods select cases

• Aim: representative of total population

• ‘Random sampling’ better

• Opportunist samples more problematic (but not invalid)

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Key features of survey evidence

• Can involve large numbers of cases

• Can be representative

• Uses variable indicators

• Usually analyses relatively few variables

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Why study survey methods?

• Often best way to assess research questions

• Very widely used

• Survey skills valuable assets

• Survey based data everywhere

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Strengths of surveys

• Can be representative / large scale

• Lots of methods research

• ‘Inferential’ and ‘multivariate’ analyses

• Analysis is ‘falsifiable’

• Secondary datasets widely available

• Small scale surveys quick to conduct

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Critiques of Surveys

• Variables can be - simplistic

• - misinterpreted

• Sampling techniques often imperfect

• Case / item non-response

• Some people distrust data analysis – ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’

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The strength and weaknesses of Surveys

• …is a common essay topic…!

• Most textbooks present lists or comments – it is well worth reading some up

• Beware: most commentators have their own favourites and edit their lists accordingly..

• See previous research examples

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Surveys as a research method

Want to:

1. Address research question -Depends

2. Avoid own bias –Better than average

3. Choose an attainable project -Usually

4. Convince others –Average

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Survey research skills:

• Choose sampling

• Design survey variables

• Data collection methods (eg postal, telephone, face-to-face, internet)

• Process data

• Analyse data files on computer (eg SPSS)

• Report / highlight results

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Surveys: some examples

1. Historical:

• The earliest surveys were attempts to understand the nature and causes of poverty (eg Booth, Rowntree, Bowley)

• Early census’s - C19th – were concerned with demographics and mortality rates

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Surveys: some examples

2. Modern large scale datasets

• General Household Survey

• British Household Panel Study

• Census Samples of Anonymised Records

• Major market research polls (eg Mori)

[Often free access at the UK Data Archive]

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Surveys: Some examples

3. ‘Ad hoc’ or opportunistic surveys

• Small scale market research

• Social research with specialised interest (eg attitudes of young students to drinking)

• By far the most used form of SR

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Summary

• Surveys one of most important SR methods

• Both good, and bad, survey research widely conducted

• Larger scale surveys more reliable

• Small scale surveys still have much to offer