Social Research Methods
Social Research Methods/Unobtrusive Research
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Social_Research_Methods/Unobtrusive_Research
Introduction - Unobtrusive measures are ways of studying social behavior whithout affecting it in the process. Unobtrusive research is simply the methods of studying social behaviorwithout affecting it.
- There are three types of unobtrusive research: Content Analysis Analysis of existing statistics Comparative and historical analysis
Content Analysis - With content analysis you focus on the details of recorded human communications. For example you would analyze a painting a written document, photos, films, and things like face book.
- Appropriate topics include who says what, to whom, why, how, and with what effect.
For example, if our unit of analysis is writers, then we can use units of observation like novels written by them, chapters and paragraphs of the novels, etc.
- Variable identification and measurement in content analysis depend on clarity of the unit of analysis.
- Content Analysis involves coding which may attend to both manifest and latent content. The determination of latent content requires judgements by the researcher.
- Both quantitative and qualitative techniques are appropriate for interpreting content analysis data.
- There are four characteristics that are usually coded in content analysis: 1) Frequency - a count of the number of occurrences of a word, phrase, image, etc 2) Direction - the direction in meaning of the text content (e.g. positive vs negative or active vs passive) 3) Intensity - degree or strength of a text reference 4) Space - the size of the passage, image, or other content
- Strengths of content analysis: -Research poses little to no harm on subjects -Time efficient, cheap -Allows researcher to correct mistakes -Can look at processes occurring over time -Good reliability
- Weaknesses of content analysis: -Limited to what the researcher is able to record -Validity
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Social_Research_Methods/Unobtrusive_Research
Introduction - Unobtrusive measures are ways of studying social behavior whithout affecting it in the process. Unobtrusive research is simply the methods of studying social behaviorwithout affecting it.
- There are three types of unobtrusive research: Content Analysis Analysis of existing statistics Comparative and historical analysis
Content Analysis - With content analysis you focus on the details of recorded human communications. For example you would analyze a painting a written document, photos, films, and things like face book.
- Appropriate topics include who says what, to whom, why, how, and with what effect.
For example, if our unit of analysis is writers, then we can use units of observation like novels written by them, chapters and paragraphs of the novels, etc.
- Variable identification and measurement in content analysis depend on clarity of the unit of analysis.
- Content Analysis involves coding which may attend to both manifest and latent content. The determination of latent content requires judgements by the researcher.
- Both quantitative and qualitative techniques are appropriate for interpreting content analysis data.
- There are four characteristics that are usually coded in content analysis: 1) Frequency - a count of the number of occurrences of a word, phrase, image, etc 2) Direction - the direction in meaning of the text content (e.g. positive vs negative or active vs passive) 3) Intensity - degree or strength of a text reference 4) Space - the size of the passage, image, or other content
- Strengths of content analysis: -Research poses little to no harm on subjects -Time efficient, cheap -Allows researcher to correct mistakes -Can look at processes occurring over time -Good reliability
- Weaknesses of content analysis: -Limited to what the researcher is able to record -Validity