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Module 3: Doing Research and Reading Research

Our five realms for today:

· What are the main research methods that sociologists use in their investigations?

· What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different methods?

· What kinds of ethical issues may at times arise for sociological researchers?

· What is the importance of the political context in which research is conducted?

· How do we read a research article?

Use of Hypotheses and Open-Ended Research Questions

Sociologists use a variety of research methods-some of these are experimental, field, historical and survey research. Usually research methods are used to gather information relevant to hypotheses. A hypotheses is a carefully formulated statement that may be either verified or discarded on the basis of the examination of relevant data.

For example-a hypothesis could state “Mother headed families receiving welfare, who heads enter the labor force under federal and state welfare reform requirements, are likely to rise out of poverty”. Data would then be gathered on the work behavior and poverty circumstances of such mothers to see whether the hypothesis receives support. In testing a hypothesis researchers look for systematic relationships between the variables contained in their statement. Variables are attitudes, behaviors, or conditions that can vary (hence the name).

Two main types of variables: independent and dependent. A independent variable is one that affects another variable. A change in the independent variable causes the other variable to change. A dependent variable is one in which change is caused. In short, when an independent variable changes, a change in the dependent variable should follow. Sociologists use statistical techniques to manipulate (change) independent variables in order to see whether and to what extent dependent variables then undergo change. For the hypothesis I gave you, the sociologist is interested in whether welfare-reliant mothers’ entry into the labor force (the independent variable) results in their families rising out of poverty (the dependent variable).

However, correlation (an association between two variables) does not imply causation.

On the other hand, maybe you don’t know enough about the social phenomenon you want to study to develop and test specific hypothesis about it. In that case, you could pursue open-ended questions-they are open-ended in the sense that no particular answers are assumed. These questions can be very exploratory. An example could be… “Why is there a high rate of hunger in the US population?”. You could use data on numbers of people going to soup kitchens and food banks, different social service caseworkers, health clinic staffs and staff and schools, people in government, anti-hunger groups.

Steps in the Research Process

In brief: 6 steps

1. Observing, hearing about, or reading about a social phenomenon of interest

2. Reviewing existing scholarly literature to learn more about the phenomenon.

3. Framing hypotheses or research questions that, if addressed, will generate valuable new knowledge and understanding.

4. Selecting an appropriate research method (or methods)

5. Gathering data that will address the hypothesis or research questions

6. Analyzing the data gathered, reaching conclusions based on the findings.

7. Disseminating information about the research project, its findings and its conclusions through reports, articles, books or public.

So, after you get interested in a particular topic, and you have reviewed existing scholarly literature to learn more about it, the research determines the hypothesis to be tested or the research questions to be pursued. Next, a method is chosen and the method selected depends, in part, on the hypothesis or research question. Some methods will be more appropriate than others to answer the questions posed by the researcher’s investigation. They then gather the data relevant to the hypothesis or research question (or uses data already gathered by others). The researcher analyzes these data, records the findings, and reaches conclusions. Lastly, the research shares the information they found, either through reports that describe the purpose of the research, the method(s) used, an explanation of how the data produced were analyzed, the findings and the conclusions reached. Often, the report will include recommendations for future research. If it was a commissioned study, the report will be given to those who sponsored it (i.e. a government agency, a foundation, or a private firm). Information is also disseminated through academic journals, books, the mass media and thorough public presentation.

So, to show you the principle methods in sociological research, I’m going to tell you about a method, give you an example of how it has been used and then give you some of the advantages and disadvantages of the method.

Types of Methods: experimental, field research, survey research, historical research, analysis of existing data

Experimental Research:

How a particular organism or object is affected by different types of treatment selected by a researcher. Not commonly used in sociology, though popular with people who work in social psychology, but some find it useful. There are two groups: an experimental group, which is the one that the researcher gives special treatment to in order to determine the treatments effect. The other group is the control group and it does not get the special treatment. If well designed, differences in thinking and behavior between the two groups should reflect the differences in their treatment.

All researchers, regardless of method, want to avoid bias (unwanted influences that can produce research results which are invalid). For experimental, avoidance of bias begins with how the two groups are set up. Usually there is a sample of subjects (sample=set of subjects that is representative of the total population of subjects). The sample is chosen at random, meaning that every individual in the total population has an equal chance of being selected. Then, those selected for the sample are assigned to the groups at random. In terms of where to actually conduct the research, natural settings are best because while you can do it in a laboratory, people don’t live in labs! You might only be able to get the same results when you replicate it in a lab, you might not be able to apply it to the real world. One example of a natural setting for an experiment would be in a school: can you think of a way you could do an experiment in a school?

Example: teacher expectations and student performance Rosenthal and Jacobson 1968

Could lower achievement on IQ tests be due, in part, to low expectations on the part of teachers toward children of the less affluent? Hypothesis: Within a given classroom those children from whom the teacher expected greater intellectual growth would show such growth. The researchers gave a test to students and said that the test would predict who would experience an “intellectual bloom.” Of course, it didn’t really do this-to get their experimental group, kids were just picked at random. The difference in the children’s abilities was only in the minds of the teacher. 80% of the school’s kids were the control and the rest were the experimental group. A year later all of the kids were tested and those who were in the experimental group did gain intellectual growth (as measured by the test) and were better perceived by the teachers than the control group kids. Mixed results in replication. What do you think took place?

Advantages and Disadvantages:

-Can demonstrate causal links between experimenter treatments and predicted outcomes, can provide researchers with a high degree of control over the independent and dependent variables in order to exclude some sources of error and they can be used to study changes in people’s thinking and behavior over time.

-BUT they sometimes have an artificial character, people aware of their involvement in an experiment might change their behavior (Hawthorne effect) and there limits to sample size, in a practical sense.

Field:

When you leave your office and go out among people to observe or speak with them, this is field research. Especially good for exploratory research when little is known about a group or a phenomenon.

Passive observation-just watch, listen, record and later analyze and interpret.

Participant observation-take part and even become an actual participant in the actives of those being observed. Good for trying to better understand something from the position and viewpoint of others. Usually takes place at 1 site, within a given time, with a specific sample of people. Do we know if the findings are generalizable? But, sometimes the research is so unique it might not be repeated easily. Must build trust. Highly labor intensive.

Issues of identity and purpose=important. Should you observe covertly or overtly? Should the people know they are being studied. Would your presence as a researcher influence the subject’s behavior? What rights to privacy do those being studied have? What about informed consent?

Example: Manufacturing classroom failure

Rist (1973) followed up on Rosenthal and Jacobson’s work. Rist was interested in how schools may actually nurture class inequalities. He observed student teacher interaction in the classroom. Rist got pre-enrollment information on the children from their K teacher-none of the information related to academic performance, but it say whether kids families got welfare. By the 8th day, this information was used to place kids into permanent seating arrangements. Table 1, closest to the teacher, were the better dressed kids and none had families on welfare. They were more at ease in school, interacted confidently with the teacher and their peers and tended to speak standard American English. Table 2 and 3 were less well-attired kids. They were more likely to be from families who received welfare, appeared restrained in their interactions, and were likely to speak in street dialect, if they even spoke at all. The teacher called table 1 her fast learners and said the other two tables were clueless. She focused her time and attention on table 1 and effectively wrote off table 2 and 3 as unteachable. Rist concluded that those the teacher had earmarked for school success were those who were most similar to offspring of the educated middle class, the same class that the teacher was a member of. Uh, children who are not taught don’t test well, either. however, formal IQ tests and reading tests were used to sort the kids into tracks for the first and second grade, and the groupings pretty much matched the K tables.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Pro: researchers can observe behavior as it happens, they can be flexible in determining what to consider data and they can get information about people in natural settings. You can also study deviant behaviors this way-giving a survey to those in the local drug market isn’t exactly going to work!

Con: Entry, cooperation issues. Personal limitation/prejudice can impact observations, practical difficulties in recording and analyzing data, time commitments for doing research, and problems in establishing reliability of observations when two or more researchers need to alternate in field research of long duration.

Survey:

A survey is a set of questions administer to a sample of people. Need to be careful in creating your sample of people, random selection from the population is best. The sample must be representative of the population about whom you want to generalize. For example, if you wanted to find out about views on people of color moving into a close-knit white suburban neighborhood, you might decide to do interviews with every third home on a block. The wording must be as neutral as possible and must only ask one question in a question. Questions are usually pre-tested and rephrased as needed to attempt to eliminate bias in the question, as well as rephrased so they don’t confuse respondents. Can use these for descriptive information or for gathering data relevant to a hypothesis.

Gatekeeping in High Schools

Oakes in Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality (1985) explored the connection between high school education and class inequality. Most schools use a system of tracking students, so they are in either college-bound or some sort of vocational tracks and these tracks are supposed to prepare students for what teachers, counselors, and school administrators believe they should be doing after graduation. Some schools may divided various academic subjects into separate classes for different ability and students are assigned often after standardized tests and teacher recommendation to a given classroom ability. Oakes looked at the tracking experiences of students in 25 high schools in 13 different communities, with the students roughly approximating the differences in the US high school population. Students from low-income background and students of color were found to be disproportionately in non-college bound tracks. There were major differences in the types of educations received in the college bound and non-college bound tracks, with college bound being similar to college courses and non-college bound classes focusing on basic materials that required little more than rote learning. She concluded that high schools operated at gatekeepers-they function to open up different doors of opportunity for different populations. It is interesting to note that dropout rates are highest for students in non-college bound tracks, suggesting that track placement by itself can lower students’ educational aspirations and commitment to schooling.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Pro: Good for when you want to learn about thinking and behavior in large populations. You can sometimes get at sensitive information because of assurance of anonymity.

Con: Only gives information from a given point in time. Doing in-person surveys requires special skills and is time consuming. Harder and harder to do phone surveys because of increase in telemarketing. Quality and dependability of survey results hinges on how well the sample was constructed, how well the questions were constructed and the degree to which respondents are cooperative and truthful.

Historical:

While many researchers are interested in the present, some wish to establish facts about the past and this approach is known as historical research. Sociologists using this method may want to gain more understanding of people’s behavior in contemporary society by comparing it with that of an earlier era. Or they want to determine origins of present-day practices. Data used to recreate the past included that which is found in primary sources-original records, diaries, eyewitness accounts, official documents. Oral history is another method where people are interviewed and asked to recount perceptions and make observations about earlier life experiences. This source of data may be useful when written sources are inadequate to lacking. Data can also be found in secondary sources, such as historical data described in the publication of scholars.

The Origins of School Tracking Practices

Schooling in Capitalist America (1976) by Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis, both of UMass Economics, and both are retired. They wanted to know why tracking systems were originally established in order to more fully understand their contemporary significance. They mostly used secondary sources and traced these policies back to the beginnings of mass public education in the US well over 100 years ago. What they found was that public schooling, from its beginnings, was designed to guide individuals toward different occupational levels. These different occupational levels required different degrees of skill and allowed for different amounts of autonomy, responsibility and privilege. To do this, the economic and political elites who organized mass public education deemed it necessary to sort children into various curricular tracks and it was rationalized that tracking systems were the most efficient way to make sure each child received a school experience appropriate for their potential. However, biases in track assignment destined many poor and working class kids to the lower rungs of the occupational ladder and the middle and upper class kids usually received different educations and had different trajectories. Even today, schooling is organized to serve the labor needs of hierarchical workplaces. However, schooling does not seem, to be performing this function satisfactorily in the eyes of many employers. Actually, must of the recent corporate interest in improving the quality and effectiveness of US public schools stems from employers desire to increase worker productivity at different levels of the occupational structure.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Pros: Knowledge of history provides a unique context in which we can better assess present day issues. Oaks work on tracking as a gatekeeping process was informed by the historical work of Bowles and Gintis.

Cons: Possibility of inaccuracy and bias in the sources. Primary sources may exaggerate or fabricate reality, contain errors, or be intentionally self-serving. The content of documents may be built around a depiction of reality that departs from actual events. Secondary sources should be critically assessed-the selection of source material and the meaning the scholar derived from their selection must be assessed critically.

Secondary data analysis:

Sociological researchers often rely on data that has been collected by others for different purposes. When someone uses one of these datasets, they are doing secondary data analysis. There are tons of data out there-General Social Survey, National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and 1997 waves, Survey of Income and Program Participants, Federal Census data, government statistics.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Pro-Saves a ton of time and money.

Con-Pain to build and takes time to learn the dataset (longitudinal surveys). Not always as up to date as you want the data to be. Might not exactly answer your question because it wasn’t built with you and your question in mind!

Ethics and Politics

Under certain circumstances, unless care is taken, research may cause harm to people. researchers have an obligation before they even begin an investigation to consider the ethical and political implications of what they are about to do. Failure to do so not only may be harmful to others but is likely to increase the difficultly further researchers face in obtaining the cooperation and legitimacy they need to pursue their own inquiries. I am not saying that researchers should avoid controversy-newly discovered facts are often controversial, if only because they may be differently interpreted depending on one’s personal or group values. Rather, researchers must be reflective and ready to take responsibility for the impact of their research undertakings.

Ethics of Research

Ethical Issues in Social Research:

What is right or wrong? How do we define it? (ask: political, religious, what works/doesn't work).

What we typically regard as ethics is a matter of agreement among members of a group. Anyone doing social research needs to be aware of the general agreements shared by researchers about what is proper and improper in the conduct of scientific inquiry.

· Researchers Must be Honest About Their Findings and Researchers

You need to make the shortcomings in your study known to readers—even if it makes you look like a fool. You need to report negative findings as well as strong, causal findings. It is just as important to know that two variables are not related as it is to know that they are related.

· Voluntary participation

Social research involves invading people's lives for data. It often involves the sharing of personal information with a stranger. No one should be forced to participate in social research. Earl Babbie gives an example in his research methods textbook of a study he wanted to do of law school graduates about their experiences in law school. He wanted the questionnaire to be administered when law school graduates took the bar exam and he was excited because he thought he solved his nonresponse problem-you take the bar, you are in the study. However, a colleague of his told him that it was unethical to do that, the was no law requiring the questionnaire and participation in research has to be voluntary. He never did the study.

Although the norm of voluntary participation is important, it is almost impossible to follow. If there is a instance where you feel justified in violating it, you must ensure that you follow the other ethical norms of research and ensure that no harm comes to your participants.

For example, the American Sociological Association requires that people being studied give the researcher their informed consent, but such consent can be waived under certain circumstances, as I stated earlier. The code states:

“Despite the paramount importance of consent, sociologists may seek waivers of this standard when (1) the research involves no more than minimal risk for research participants, and (2) the research could not be practically carried out were informed consent to be required.” (Section 12.01)

· No Harm to Participants

No harm goes beyond simple physical harm. You must ensure that you do not reveal any information that would publicly embarrass subjects in the long term or endanger their home life, friendships and jobs (short term embarrassment caused by answering a difficult question during the study is actually okay). Put another way, you should not expose subjects to greater risk than is present in everyday life.

It should be apparent that just about any research you might conduct runs the risk of harming others in some way. It isn't possible to avoid all types of harm, but some types of studies can make the risk of harm more likely than other types of studies. For example, a study on a behavior considered by a majority of society as deviant would run a higher risk of harm than a study concerned with whether the town you live in should build a new park.

To ensure voluntary participation and to minimize harm, you should obtain informed consent from your study participants. This means that the subjects of your study must base their voluntary participation in research projects on a full understanding of the possible risks involved. Informed consent can be a verbal acknowledgment on a taped interview or it can require signing off on an extensive amount of paperwork for a medical study.

Avoiding harm is easy in theory but it is difficult in practice. However, especially in recent years, funding agencies typically require an independent evaluation of the treatment of human subjects in research proposals, which, through sometimes troublesome, helps guard against unethical research.

· Anonymity and Confidentiality

What is the difference between these two terms?

Anonymity: When the researcher—not just the people who read about the research—cannot identify a given response with a given respondent.

Confidentiality: When the researcher can identify a given person's responses but essentially promises not to do so publicly.

It is important to make sure your respondents know the difference between a confidential study and an anonymous study and that they understand the difference because courts have not recognized social research data as the kind of “privileged communication” accepted in the cases of priests and attorneys.

So, what should you do to protect yourself and your respondents? You should remove identifying information as soon as you no longer need it. Like for a survey, take off the names and replace them with ID numbers and create an identification file that links numbers to names so you can correct missing or contradictory information later on and don't share that file!

· Deception Must be Justified by Compelling Scientific Concerns

Because deceiving people is unethical, deception in social research needs to be justified by compelling scientific or administrative concerns. Even then, the justification will be arguable.

Sometimes researchers admit they are doing research but fudge about why they are doing it and for whom they are doing it. You might be doing a study for a welfare agency to find out the living standards of recipients, but you might not want to tell the respondents you are doing the study for the agency. Instead, you might use your university affiliation as a cover. What problems do you see with this (better data, ethical issue-lying).

So, how do you deal with this? Debriefing! You tell the participants the true purpose of the study they complete it, but it must be done carefully so the participants aren't left with bad feelings or doubts about how they performed in the experiment.

Politics of Research

Political issues can arise from the purposes or substance of the research and the uses to which findings may be put. An example of this is “Project Camelot,” a research project that became the object of international condemnation. In the early 1960s the department of the army asked researchers at American University to engage in a research project that would enable it to “predict and influence politically significant events of social change in the developing world.” At the time, Latin American notations-in which a number of US corporations had important investments-were the army’s principal focus. In many such nations, impoverished people were rebelling against strong, often brutal dictatorships. the army wanted research conducted that would help it predict where rebellions were most likely to occur so it could help these Latin American governments head them off. It was, in short, a project aimed at helping the powerful remain powerful. Those who agreed to participate in Project Camelot accepted, whether consciously or not, that political bias. It was to cost millions over a 3 year period and was to drawn on researches in the US and Latin America. Less than a year after it started, the army dropped the whole idea. The US government was embarrassed when news of the research leaked to the mass media, governments and scholars around the world strongly condemned the US for this planned intrusion in to other nations’ internal affairs and the political uses it was making of social scientists.

The controversy over Project Camelot altered sociologists to the importance of understanding the interests of their sponsors, the implications of the research questions they were being asked to pursue and the sponsors’ intended uses of the findings. In the view of many sociologists, we have an obligation to pursue knowledge that will aid in reducing human suffering and enhancing human potential and by these standards, research Project Camelot should not take place.

How to Read a Research Article (separate document for assignment)

Kaplan, Elaine Bell. (2005). “Not Our Kind of Girl”.

1) Each student should prepare a written log that includes at least three things: a) a written answer to the questions, b) a list of questions/problems/concerns they had while reading the article (with specific page and line references), and c) notes (again, with specific page and line references) about the things that they felt were particularly fascinating about the study.

2) Note, for this class, the important thing is to understand the prose summary of results, both in the main part of the article and in the discussion section at the end.

3) See thread "How to Read a Research Article" for full details of assignment.

Works Cited

Neubeck, Kenneth J. and Davita Silfen Glasberg. 2005. Sociology: Diversity, Conflict and Change. Chapter 2: Research Methods. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Much of these notes are near verbatim from this chapter.

Babbie, Earl. The Practice of Social Research (10th Edition). 2004. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Source of material for Ethics of Research