Introduction to social science methods

The problem with surveys

Inaccuracies

Omissions (lacking categories)

Phrasing and question sequence

MEmory

Social desirability

Interviewer effects

Intensive data collection

Designing and conducting surveys costs a lot of time and money

Obtrusive

People know that they are filling in a survey, so they may alter their response

BEhaviour

In a survey you can only ask about behaviour, but what people say may differ from what people do

Secondary data analysis

Data from other researchers

Official statistics and administrative data (e.g. governments)

Meta analysis

Big data

Replication of others' analyses from fresh perspective

Data collection is expensive, so often researchers collect more data than they actually see

Data from research institutes

Professional organizations specialized in data collection

Constant stream of new data

Often freely available (for scientific purposes)

Professionally collected data

High quality data

MEasurement validity extensively tested

High response rates

LArge samples

External validity

Subgroup analysis

OFten longitudinal

OFten comparative

ADVANTAGES

cheap and fast

More time for analysis

DISADVANTAGES

Large datasets are organised in complicated ways

Unfamiliarity with data

Costs a lot of time to understand

No control over the quality of the data

Restricted to variables that are avaliable in the research

Often based on officially relevant characteristics (sex, job, education, revenue, etc)

ADVANTAGES

Cheap and fast

People dont know that they are being studied

Longitudinal and comparative

DISADVANTAGES

Not collected for researcher purposes

Categories may differ over time

REgistration may be incomplete or sloppy

Sometimes not yet digitized

Quantitative content analysis

DEFINITION: The quantification of the contents of visual, written or spoken communication

Research questions have a massive impact on sampling and categorizing

Sampling

Which types of texts and media are going to be studied?

Which samples will be drawn and on what basis?

What time frame?

Coding

What is going to be quanitfied

ACtors

Words

Subjects and themes

Dispositions

Relevant elements need to be categorized by assigning a code to them

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