Research Methods

Understanding and Doing
Successful Research
This page intentionally left blank
Understanding and Doing
Successful Research
Data Collection and Analysis
for the Social Sciences
Shaun Best
13 Routledge
Taylor & Francis Croup
LONDON AND NEW YORK
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ISBN 978-1-4082-2922-4 QCL
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Typeset in 9.5/12.5pt Giovanni by 35

Brief contents
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Getting started 1
2 The ethics of social research 19
3 Searching and reviewing the literature 39
4 Secondary analysis – research using other people’s data 59
5 Interviews 75
6 The case study 95
7 Ethnographic approaches 117
8 Observation, participant observation and observational inference 139
9 Biographical and autobiographical approaches 159
10 Documentary and narrative analysis 179
11 Measurement and statistical inference 205
12 What is a sample survey? 233
13 Mixed methods research 267
14 Evaluation research and experiments 287
15 Successfully completing the research project 307
Index 315
Contents
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Getting started 1
Introduction 1
What is research? Where and how do you start? 3
Coming up with a researchable research question 3
The rationale 5
Objectivity 8
Action research 10
A literature review 11
Identifying variables and indicators 12
So I don’t have to do a questionnaire then? 13
The ‘conventional’ stages in the design and execution of
a research project 14
Conclusion 15
Erica’s research project 16
Bibliography 17
2 The ethics of social research 19

Introduction 19
Why research ethics are important to you 20
Informed consent 21
Committees and guidelines 23
Confidentiality 27
What makes an ethical researcher? 28
Tearoom Trade 30
What type of researcher are you? 34
Conclusion 35
Bibliography 37
3 Searching and reviewing the literature 39

Introduction 39
Constructing literature reviews 40
viii Contents
Why do I need to justify my research question? 40

Assessment issues 41
Identifying variables and indicators 41
Journals 42
Textbooks 44
The internet 45
When to end your search of the literature 47
Plagiarism 48
Wikipedia 51
Quoting and referencing 52
Developing a bibliography 53
Conclusion 54
Bibliography 56
4 Secondary analysis – research using other people’s data 59

Introduction 59
Durkheim on suicide 61
Crime statistics 63
Databases and data sets 63
Conceptual and technical instruments 65
Categories of secondary data 65
Historical data 71
Advantages and disadvantages of secondary analysis 71
Conclusion 73
Bibliography 74
5 Interviews 75
Introduction 75
Issues to be aware of 76
Structured and unstructured interviews 78
How to conduct the interview 79
Coding and data analysis: structured interviews 81
In-depth interviews 82
The funnel 87
Collaborative interviewing 87
Selecting the sample 88
Group interviews and focus groups 89
Online interviews 90
Conclusion 92
Bibliography 93
Contents ix
6 The case study 95

Introduction 95
Forms of case study 97
Styles of case study 98
Emic v. etic approaches 101
The critical incident approach 103
Theoretical and empirical generalisations 105
Application to qualitative interviews 106
Criticisms of the case study approach 106
Analysis and interpretation of the case 107
Correspondence and pattern matching 108
Avoiding errors and using verification procedures 110
Conclusion 112
Bibliography 114
7 Ethnographic approaches 117

Introduction 117
Ethical issues and trust 119
Verstehen 120
Empathy and shared feeling 122
Social action 122
Tertiary understanding 123
Guidelines to ensure authenticity 125
Learning the ropes 126
Marginality 127
Developing an ethnographic presence 128
Going native 128
Discourse 129
Practice – the unit of analysis 130
Redefining the concept of ‘site’: ethnography on the internet 133
Conclusion 136
Bibliography 137
8 Observation, participant observation and observational inference 139

Defining participant observation 139
Understanding human meaning systems through observation 141
Problems with participant observation 144
Reading and recording observations 144
Covert methods 145
Observation in overt research projects 149
Summary of viewpoints 149
Data analysis 152
x Contents
Thematic content analysis 153

Conclusion 154
Bibliography 156
9 Biographical and autobiographical approaches 159

Introduction 159
Methods of data collection 161
Providing concrete examples 162
Advantages of biographical methods 165
Discourse and narrative 166
The feminist perspective 167
The ‘neurotic narrator’ and other problems 168
The problem of generalisation 169
What is narrative analysis? 170
Data analysis in biographical and autobiographical research 174
The ethical issues 175
Conclusion 175
Bibliography 176
10 Documentary and narrative analysis 179

Introduction 179
Semiology 182
Content analysis 185
Diaries 188
Letters 190
Visual methods 193
Analysing photographic data 197
Case studies and documentary methods 198
Conclusion 200
Bibliography 201
11 Measurement and statistical inference 205

Introduction 205
Common measures to identify central tendency 206
Variance and standard deviation 207
Classification 210
Measurement 211
Scientific parsimony 213
Why do we construct categories? 214
Probability 216
Scales of measurement 220
Contents xi
Complete inference 222

Producing knowledge from research findings 223
Correlations, causes and mechanisms 225
SPSS 229
Conclusion 230
Bibliography 230
12 What is a sample survey? 233

Introduction 233
How the social survey began 234
Planning: how to go about conducting surveys 234
What is sampling? 235
The Institute of Community Studies 240
Questionnaires 249
Non-response 250
How to distribute the questionnaire 254
Devising questions 255
Descriptive and analytical surveys 258
Conclusion 262
Bibliography 264
13 Mixed methods research 267

General characteristics of mixed methods research 267
At what stage does the mixing of methods take place? 269
Characteristics of mixed methods research 271
Why mix methods and/or methodologies? 273
Crystallisation 277
Conclusion 282
Bibliography 283
14 Evaluation research and experiments 287

What is evaluation? 287
Evaluation: formative and summative 289
Evaluation: internal and external 290
Central features of evaluation research 291
Experiments 297
Summary and report writing 300
Writing an evaluation report 301
Conclusion 304
Bibliography 305
xii Contents
15 Successfully completing the research project 307

Introduction 307
The structure of the report 308
Referencing 311
Where and when to start the writing up 313
Index 315
Acknowledgements
The publishers would like to thank the anonymous panel of reviewers for their support
with the development of the manuscript. The publishers would further like to thank
the author for the dedication and skill he demonstrated in producing this book.
We are also grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:
Extracts on pages 84−5 from ‘Looking at People and Asking “Why?”: An ethnographic
approach to religious education’, Religious Education, 96(3), 386−94 (Crain, MA 2001),
reprinted by permission of the publisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandf.co.uk/
journals). Extracts on pages 225−8 from ‘Ethical Coherence’, Philosophical Psychology
11(4), 405−22 (Thagard, P 1998), reprinted by permission of the publisher (Taylor &
Francis Ltd, http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals).
In some instances we have been unable to trace the owners of copyright material, and
we would appreciate any information that would enable us to do so.
1 Getting started
By the end of this chapter you should have an understanding of:

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Introduction
What can this book offer you? It takes it for granted that you are new to research and
that you have no previous knowledge of data collection or data analysis. This book also
imagines that you have been asked to complete a research project and that you do not
know what to do. In addition, it guesses that some of you are starting to panic because
you do not really know what you are doing! Many social science textbooks, especially
those written for 16–19-year-old students contain a chapter on research methods, but
usually this is little more than lists of the advantages and disadvantages of different
methods of data collection and nothing about data analysis. In addition, because those
who write textbooks for 16–19-year-olds are probably not active researchers themselves,
these books tend not to give practical advice on how do a research project.
This book will help you to think about doing research projects of your own but
perhaps, more importantly, it will help you to develop a range of skills and abilities
that will allow you to evaluate more fully other people’s research projects in relation
2 Chapter 1 Getting started
to data collection, data analysis and inference (i.e. what you can deduce or conclude
from their results).
Thinkpiece
You might want to ask yourself these questions before you read on: whose
research do you admire? And why do you admire it?
If you cannot answer these questions because you have only read summaries
of research findings in textbooks then you need to change your reading habits.
The following chapter on how to conduct a literature review will explain how to
search for relevant research in academic journals and other relevant sources and
why you need to do so.
Note on assessment
The chapters in this book will outline the central concepts, techniques and per-
spectives that underpin the process of doing research. However, if you are a
student doing a research project there will be a set of assignment criteria that
should clearly explain what you have to do in order to complete the assignment
successfully. Always read the assessment criteria! You need to understand fully
these criteria and ask the member of staff responsible for setting the assessment
if you are unsure of any aspect. What type of data is the assignment looking for:
statistical data, an understanding of the respondent’s motives and intentions,
is a large sample of people to be surveyed or is a case study all that is required?
This book will provide you with an evaluation of the most popular methods of data
collection and data analysis that are used within the social sciences. It will help you to
write a justification for your choice of data collection methods and your choice of data
analysis techniques. The book will also give you practical advice on each step of the
research process from having your initial idea for a question to investigate to writing
the concluding paragraph of your research report.
In addition, most research methods textbooks do not explain to their readers how
much fun you can have doing a research project, how imaginative you can be in choos-
ing your methods of data collection and in explaining to your reader how you made
sense of the data you have collected, and how innovative you can be in the way in
which you build your explanations about how and why people behave in the way
that they do.
$PNJOHVQXJUIBresearchable SFTFBSDIRVFTUJPO 3
What is research? Where and how do you start?

Research allows us to answer questions about the world, about things we do not under-
stand or that we find interesting or disturbing. We conduct our research in a systematic
manner that allows us to make a connection between the observations we make or
the data we collect and theories about the world. Broadly speaking, within the social
sciences there are three forms of research:
1. policy-oriented research that has a focus on investigating problems that are of social
concern and have the attention of policy makers;
2. action research that has a focus on investigating problems from the point of view of
a practitioner;
3. theoretically-oriented research that has a focus on understanding or explaining
some aspect of why people behave in the way that they do.
Much research in the social sciences builds explanations deductively; this means that
we have an existing theory in mind, develop a hypothesis and then test the hypothesis
by collecting data. However, research can also be conducted inductively whereby we make
an observation, collect data that allows us to make a generalisation and then produce
a theory to explain the observations we have made.
If we believe that there is a link between two or more variables (such as educational
under-achievement and social class) or that one variable has an influence over another
variable (that educational under-achievement is caused by social class), we can produce
a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a statement about what we believe to be the link or con-
nection between two or more variables that is both systematic and in a form that can
be tested by collecting data.
Coming up with a researchable research question

What is research? We conduct research projects because we feel that some aspect of
social life needs explaining. The decision about what to research and why we should
do so are not made within a vacuum but will be influenced by a range of factors. Where
do research questions come from? The researcher has an intuitive idea about some aspect
of the world. This may have come about by a chance observation or from reading other
people’s research. Hans Reichenbach (1938) made the important distinction between
the context of discovery and the context of justification. The ideas or questions of what we
research and the hypotheses we invent are often very personal and the processes of
inventing research questions or hypotheses are usually not very systematic or logical
in nature: this is the context of discovery. However, once we have the research idea or
hypothesis in mind we can then proceed in a logical and systematic manner: this is the
context of justification. In other words, how we test a theory by looking at the empirical
evidence is independent from how the theory was invented in the first instance.
This chapter will discuss where ideas for research projects come from and give some
advice on common approaches adopted by students and others on how to think about
potential research projects. Sources such as your own perceptions of the world around
you, news stories, personal problems that may also be public issues, local issues or issues
that emerge from your own reading etc. are all potential sources of ideas for research
projects. In addition, research ideas can come from personal observation, personal
ideas, opinions, events or incidents you have seen on television, or that you have had
reported to you by friends. When you read it is important to read critically. Ask yourself
if the current research is adequate and if it is not, why is it lacking? Is there a need for
more research in this area? Also whilst reading, try to identify conflicting or ambiguous
research findings; again there may be an opportunity to conduct research in the area.
Often such readings or observations make you want to reflect upon their meaning,
placing the issue or incident into the wider context of research to get a fuller or more valid
view of the meaning and significance of the events. As humans we find it difficult to divorce
ourselves from the moral aspects of our research projects. Clare Graydon (2006) for example
has looked at the issue of a person’s consent to a sexual relationship and whether that
can be uninformed if that person has an intellectual disability: she opens her paper with
the example below that she then goes on to put into a legal and conceptual framework.
Thinkpiece
Read the passage below and speculate on the reasons why Clare Graydon wanted
to conduct research in this area.
‘In 1981, a 23 year old woman with a mental age of 10 years 8 months went to
a country fair. She had no sexual experience and had received no sex education.
At the fair, she spent a considerable amount of time and money at the hoopla
stall trying to win a large green frog. The attendant struck up a conversation
with her, and after a time asked if she wanted to ‘make love’. She agreed and
accompanied him to a caravan where intercourse took place. He gave her the
toy frog and she returned to the fair, where she chatted happily with friends,
showed no distress, and spoke to the man again. Later a second fair attendant
approached and offered her a toy panda in exchange for sex. She accompanied
him to a truck and intercourse took place a second time. Again she was not
distressed after the incident, but when a third man attempted to have sex with
her she resisted and ran off. By the time her mother arrived to collect her she
was visibly upset. This narrative raises a number of questions concerning the
sexual expression of persons with intellectual impairment. Was this woman
capable of consent? What are, or what should be, the markers of capacity
to consent? In particular, what facts should a person know if they are to be
deemed capable of giving consent to a sexual act?’ (Graydon 2006: 1).
The rationale 5
Reports of critical incidents in people’s lives, or even personal events, can also be used
as the starting point for a research project. Best (2007) made use of an injury sustained
in a road traffic accident to develop a critique of the postmoden conception of pain:
‘This paper is an evaluation of the literature on pain in the light of an incident that
left me temporarily hospitalized and in pain. Purely by chance the incident gave
me the opportunity to discuss issues from the body of writing on pain with other
individuals in pain at the time of contact. However, because no notes were taken
at the time of meeting these people and no permission was sought to use their
accounts of pain, their views are not directly quoted. The paper is not simply a
personal account of the experience of pain, but draws upon a ‘critical incident’
approach that is well established in the fields of nursing, midwifery and education
but is not used in the field of disability studies’ (Best 2007: 162).
People feel they have to do research for a variety of reasons. In your working life you
might be expected to conduct staff appraisals, evaluate the day-to-day activities of
your organisation, review, update and monitor processes and performance of policies,
programmes and procedures within organisations, and even assess the performance of
organisations themselves. As a student, you may have to complete an assignment suc-
cessfully to progress on your chosen degree programme. However we choose to define
research, at an abstract level it involves a process of well-organised data collection and
data analysis that contributes to knowledge.
Why do people involve themselves in data collection? In our everyday lives we make
judgements about the situations in which we find ourselves. We have to make judge-
ments about the validity of our perceptions: how do we know what we know and why
do we perceive things in a certain way? Truthful research is an attempt to find evidence
to support arguments and provide a more convincing account that is more substantial
than our unsupported personal opinion. In other words, research allows an individual
to make the short intellectual journey from ‘I know’ to ‘it is known’.
There is a rich variety of data collection methods and data analysis that we can draw
upon to make that short intellectual journey. At the outset of the research process you
need to be aware of your own skills and abilities as a researcher, the type of data you
wish to collect and the way in which you want the findings to be presented. In many
cases how we choose to collect and make sense of our data is up to us. However, for
students who have to complete a research project for an assignment there may be a very
limited choice.
The rationale
A good starting point for any research project is for the researcher to write a rationale.
The rationale is an explanation or statement that explains the reasons why you as the
researcher are conducting the research project. Your rationale should include the
personal reasons for choosing the project. The rationale will help to inform you about
the type of research you want to conduct and about the type and quality of data you
are looking for. For example, if you want a small amount of not very sensitive data
from a large group of people, you might consider a postal or email questionnaire.
Alternatively, if you are looking to explore a person’s attitudes and feelings in relation
to a sensitive topic then perhaps an in-depth interview is the most appropriate method
to use. The rationale will also suggest something about your stance with regard to the
topic you wish to research.
However, when choosing a research project the most important consideration is
whether the project will produce the findings you need to complete it in the time you
have available. One approach is to consider only research questions that supplement
existing research agendas. This means that you should consider looking at questions
that have been well researched and investigated by other researchers. You may find
an anomaly in the their findings, in which case the opportunity to make a new con-
tribution to knowledge is still there, but there is the added advantage of having a
large number of books and papers that you can refer to as support and guidance.
Many first-time researchers are of the opinion that research projects should be
objective, balanced and politically neutral. In other words, that research projects should
be ‘value-free’, in that the researcher should not allow their own personal, political
or moral beliefs to play a role in the processes of data collection or data analysis. The
argument is usually based upon a belief that value-free research projects are more valid,
more reliable and as such are of better quality.
Definitions
Validity
The concept of validity refers to the completeness of the research project. To
what extent do the methods of data collection collect the data that are relevant
to addressing the aims of the research project? Is the method of data collection
really measuring what we want it to measure? Also to what extent are the findings
a complete picture of the relevant issues that the research project is investigating?
Can we trust our findings? It is important that the researcher considers potential
threats to the validity of the research project, such as the bias of the researcher,
and addresses these threats.
Reliability
If the methodological approach is clearly outlined by the researcher, so that
the research design can be repeated or replicated, then we can claim that our
methodology is reliable.
This book will provide you with a clear but critical outline of the most common methods
of data collection and data analysis, including:
The rationale 7
s ACTIONRESEARCH
s CASESTUDYRESEARCH
s CRITICALINCIDENTRESEARCH
s QUANTITATIVERESEARCH
s QUALITATIVERESEARCH
s STANDPOINTRESEARCH
s EXPERIMENTALRESEARCH
s EVALUATIVERESEARCH
There is a methodological approach that is not objective, balanced, neutral or value free
that is commonly known as ‘standpoint research’. In this approach the researcher takes
up a point of view, which may be the point of view of a given group of people in the
population such as women, ethnic minorities or children with disabilities. This form
of research is not necessarily invalid or unreliable. What standpoint researchers do is
collect data and present them in such a way that supports an argument that they want
to advance. What their research contains is a perspective or point of view. A perspective
is a framework of assumptions about the world and the data collected is selected in
such a way as to add to the validity of the perspective itself. In a Marxian analysis, for
example, you would expect the researcher to have an emphasis on collecting data about
the impact of class in society. In contrast, in a feminist analysis you would expect
the researcher to have an emphasis on collecting data about the impact of gender and
patriarchy in society.
It is not uncommon for a researcher to make a statement that explains their ration-
ale to the reader, for example:
1. Anne Oakley (1981) in her study of women having their first babies, made her
feminist stance very clear in her rationale:
‘I am a feminist, an academic sociologist, and a woman with children. I was not
a feminist until I had children, and I became a sociologist as an escape from the
problems of having children’ (Oakley 1981: 5).
2. Simone Fullagar (2002) also developed a personal approach to a research project on
travel. Fullagar suggested that desire is a bodily experience and we are motivated by
our emotions to fulfil our desires. She went on to argue that desire can unconsciously
reconcile the experiences we have whilst travelling with our accepted cultural norms.
She claims that most research in the area ignores this opinion and instead looks at
the desire to travel either as an individual motivation or as a consumer motivation.
‘As part of this method I draw upon excerpts from my own travel diaries to
examine how different trajectories of desire structure the movement of feminine
subjectivity within phallocentric culture’ (Fullagar 2002: 57).
‘It is an analysis of the desires that moved me, as a feminine subject in the
ambiguously gendered role of the white, middle class independent Australian
traveller, to know the world in its difference’ (Fullagar 2002: 59).
3. Dan Goodley (no date) presents a very clear rationale for his argument on disability
and pedagogy (learning). His paper opens with the following comments:
‘disabled learners are excluded from the discourses of critical pedagogy . . .
Instead their participation tends to be conceptualised in relation to “inclusive
education”. . . . Schools adapt or resist legislative demands to include learners
with impairments. . . . Disabled students remain marginalised through their con-
struction as an othered group requiring empowerment’ (Goodley no date: 1).
‘This paper addresses the pressing need to support disabled people in the
exercising and promotion of what might be termed socially just pedagogies’
(Goodley no date: 4).
4. Olivier (2006) in his research attempts to defend the activities of people involved in
extreme sports from the range of criticisms they have faced:
‘“Extreme” activities are now popular weekend and vacation pursuits of “ordinary”
people. . . . The underlying criticism of such participation is that, as the number
of people participating in risky leisure increases, so do the number of serious
injuries and deaths. Other criticisms include the costs to rescue teams, such as
financial costs and personal injuries; and the negative emotional impact on
significant others. This paper will attempt to defend participation in dangerous
leisure pursuits, in so doing considering issues of duty, consequence, autonomy,
and paternalism’ (Olivier 2006: 96).
Objectivity
It is probably clear from the research cited above that much data collection is not simply
a naïve search for the ‘truth’. This raises the important question of whether our research
projects should be objective and value free or not. If our research is objective then we
should be in a position to say that our findings have not been influenced by our own
personal, political or moral beliefs and that another researcher investigating the same
question, with the same group of respondents, using the same methods of data collection
would have come to the same conclusions. In summary, our data collection and data
analysis should be free from bias, and free from our personal, political and moral values.
Thinkpiece
What is the truth?
Michel Foucault wrote a number of interesting and demanding histories of
madness, sexuality, punishment and the clinic. His argument is that as the
0CKFDUJWJUZ 9
modern world developed it was characterised by increasing levels of institutional

and state control over our knowledge, to the degree that truth should be seen
as something that is produced within an institutional context of domination.
Foucault argues that the state generates epistemes (basically theories) that organise
knowledge about the everyday activities of populations and this forms the basis
of normality.
Before you read on think about this deep philosophical question: what is the
truth and how do you know when you have found it?
As we have already suggested above, social researchers are human and experience
feelings that make it difficult to divorce themselves from the moral aspects of their
research projects. Therefore we have to assume that complete objectivity will always be
beyond our ability to achieve. In many respects it might be a more honest position to
take up a distinct perspective, such as the Feminist stance adopted by Anne Oakley,
so that the reader can take into account that the researcher has selected and analysed
their data from a clear and explicit political perspective.
Research that takes up a social or political perspective can still be reliable if the
methodological approach is clearly outlined and the research design can be repeated
or replicated. Such research projects may not be valid in the sense of giving a complete
picture of the area under investigation but such projects can have a high degree of
reliability. In contrast, some forms of research aim to have a very high degree of inter-
action with the respondents and attempt to understand some aspect of their lives by
methods that involve skilled forms of interactions such as in-depth interviewing that
take the form of conversations that use prompting, probing and supplementary ques-
tions that emerge from previous responses and/or observations. The aim is to produce
high-quality data but from a small group of respondents. The findings from such
research projects often generate a great deal of high-quality data that give a very valid
or complete picture of what the respondents think and feel but the methods of data
collection and data analysis rely upon personal skills of the researcher that are difficult
to define, describe or repeat, making the research design difficult to duplicate or replicate
by another researcher. Such research projects may be methodologically unreliable but
very high in validity.
If we assume that we choose our research questions on the basis of our personal
beliefs or values – including such values as we find an area of investigation interesting
or we like it, or because we are politically motivated to come to a given conclusion such
as the feminist or Marxist – does this mean that all research is biased? One position
suggested by Max Weber (1922) was that although we choose our research projects
on the basis of our values, once chosen we should treat our research questions as
existing but not valid. We should recognise that our values and beliefs play a significant
role in the choice of topic to be investigated, but once chosen we should conduct our
data collection and data analysis in a balanced, neutral and objective manner.
Thinkpiece
Before you read on you might want to consider the following question: is value-
free or objective research possible or desirable?
Is it possible to investigate any of the research projects mentioned in this chapter
in a value-free manner? If you did attempt to investigate an issue in a value-free
manner are there any tests you could use to guarantee that you were not allowing
an unconscious prejudice, point of view or perspective to influence your research?
Kum-Kum Bhavnani (1993) argues that feminist objectivity should be derived from
‘positioning’, and ‘partiality’ from ‘situated knowledge’, because most academic research
marginalises women of colour. Many white researchers assume that racism is part of
human nature and as such that racism is a normal aspect of everyday life. In contrast,
Bhavnani’s research refuses to accept this point of view, on the grounds that such an
assumption of biological inevitability helps to reproduce racial and social inequalities
and provides a justification for racism.
Such arguments challenge dominant notions of reality and truth by questioning the
value-laden and politicised nature of the research process, including the categories we
use to organise and analyse our data. For standpoint researchers, values and bias have
a central place in the production of knowledge.
Thinkpiece
Consider the following rationale from a paper by James Dingley and Marcello
Mollica and answer the questions that follow giving reasons for your answer:
‘There appears to be a fundamental difference at the level of moral authority
between hunger strikers and suicide bombers and ordinary soldiers that
belies terrorist claims to be regarded as ordinary soldiers fighting a war like
any other soldier’ (Dingley and Mollica 2007: 460).
Questions
1. In your own words, what do you think is the meaning of this sentence?
2. Would you find it possible to research the motivation of hunger strikers or
suicide bombers in a value-free manner?
Action research
‘Action research’ and a related approach known as ‘practitioner research’ are approaches
to research that draw upon action and reflection from the practitioner’s perspective.
The action approach is most fully developed within the field of Education Studies,
"MJUFSBUVSFSFWJFX 11
but there is no reason why you as a researcher should not use this form of research
in your own area of work or expertise. All practitioners know a great deal about their
area or work, so for example, teachers ‘know about’ a great many things: textbooks;
specifications; examinations; individual learners; teaching methodology; working with
colleagues etc. Teachers have knowledge of everyday action and as such they can be
reflective practitioners.
What are the kinds of work-related and other professional issues you find yourself
reflecting upon? Such forms of reflection are often much more than simply ‘thinking
about’. Reflection can be rigorously conceptualised and used as research principles that
are in tune with the practitioner’s conception of reality. In which case we can say that
such knowing in action can become reflection in action. This is a rather long-winded way
of saying that it is possible to have a form of research that is participant-driven and
reflective. In the field of Educational Studies such research is often collaborative in nature.
Several like-minded researchers come together to conduct a research project; the aim
of this form of research is to change the way people work, in other words to bring
about an improvement in practice. Kurt Lewin pioneered this approach in the 1940s,
in a nutshell arguing that all practitioners should develop a research consciousness.
His approach contained the following stages: individual idea; fact finding; action plan;
implementation; monitoring; revision; amended plan; and so on.
In terms of educational action research, practitioners need to reflect directly on their
own teaching situation and experience. Such research begins and builds on teacher
knowledge and it has a clear focus on classroom issues. Action research builds on
the normal process of evaluation, bridging the gap between the practitioner and the
researcher. Such research can sharpen the practitioner’s critical awareness.
A literature review
Once you have the idea for a research project it is important that you conduct a full
review of the existing research in the area. This is commonly referred to as a literature
review.
In Chapter 3 we will look in detail at how to conduct an effective literature review.
This part of the research process is important for a number of reasons:
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s )TCANHELPYOUIDENTIFYCONmICTINGORAMBIGUOUSRESEARCHlNDINGS
s !NDMOSTIMPORTANTLYAS(ELEN'UNTER POINTSOUTALTHOUGHTHELITERATURE
review ‘cannot promise genius, it should at least forestall stupidity’ (Gunter 2005: 166).
‘A literature review is a systematic, explicit and reproducible method for identifying,

evaluating, and interpreting the existing body of work produced by researchers’
(Fink 1998: 37).
Identifying variables and indicators

In many research projects you are expected to identify the relationship between two
variables. In the following box two variables are identified: work and stress. Both work
and stress are very broad terms and if we wish to measure the impact of work on stress
levels we need to identify something that is clearly and directly related to work and some-
thing that is clearly and directly related to stress. In addition, the thing that we choose
must be related only to work-related activities and needs to be easily identified and in a
form that can be measured. Similarly, the thing we choose in relation to stress must only
be related to stress and also has to be identified and be in a form that can be measured.
Variables and indicators

Variables are concepts or ideas that our research projects investigate and indicators
are tangible things that can be used to measure the impact of a variable.
A variable is best understood as your ‘unit of analysis’: it is the ‘thing’ that
you wish to measure in your research project. A dependent variable is one that is
influenced by changes in the independent variable.
A hypothesis is a proposition that is presented in a testable form. Usually the
hypothesis statement predicts the relationship between two or more variables.
If we hypothesised that there is an association between gender and the level of
customer satisfaction then satisfaction would be the dependent variable because
satisfaction cannot affect gender (the independent variable).
We could for example attempt to test the following hypothesis: the greater the
workload the higher the level of stress. This hypothesis is linking two concepts:
‘the quantity of work’ and ‘the level of stress’.
Each concept has to be ‘operationalised’. This means that we have to find some
concrete, tangible thing that is clearly related to our key concepts and is in a form that
can be measured: this is called the indicator. In the work and stress research project
we need to identify an indicator for ‘the quantity of work’ and a separate indicator
for ‘the level of stress’. Always keep in mind that an indicator is something that can
be easily observed, measured and represents the variables we are interested in.
We could use the number of work-related tasks completed in one day as our
indicator to measure the ‘quantity of work’. In a similar fashion, we could use the
number of days absent from work due to stress-related illness as our indicator of
levels of stress.
In this case, ‘the number of work-related tasks completed in one day’ would
be the independent variable and the ‘number of days absent from work due to
stress-related illness’ would be the dependent variable.
So:
s 4HEINDEPENDENTVARIABLEISHYPOTHESISEDTOAFFECTTHEOUTCOME
s 4HE DEPENDENT VARIABLE IS PRESUMED TO BE THE EFFECT OF THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLE
4P*EPOUIBWFUPEPBRVFTUJPOOBJSFUIFO 13
Thinkpiece
Using the information from the box on page 12 answer the following questions.
Questions
1. Could such a hypothesis allow us as researchers to identify a causal relation-
ship between the two variables?
2. Can you think of any other indicators that we could have used as our indicator
for ‘the quantity of work’ and our indicator for ‘the level of stress’?
So I don’t have to do a questionnaire then?

Unless you are a student who is asked to conduct a research project using a specific
method of data collection as part of an assessment, you have a completely free choice
as to how you wish to collect your data and make sense of it.
Before you make your choice of data collection method you might find it useful
to ask yourself the following question and answer it honestly: what are your skills as
a researcher? At this stage you may not know what research skills you have. You may
not be in a position to answer a question such as: what methods of data collection and
data analysis do you prefer to use? However as you read through each chapter you will
develop a much clearer idea of your skills, abilities and preferences as a researcher and
thereby gain an idea of the research projects that you wish to conduct. Some types of
research question lend themselves to specific forms of data collection and data analysis.
However, if you are a person who enjoys looking for and attempting to identify patterns
within numbers, then methods of data collection that generate numerical data are for
you. In contrast, if you are interested in trying to understand the motives, intentions,
meanings and feelings of people then this suggests that you prefer more interpretative
or ethnographic methods of data collection and data analysis.
This is not to suggest that institutional constraints do not exist over the choice of
method. It is important before beginning the process of data collection to find out
what policies and protocols the institution in which you study or work has in place
for data collection. You may have skills and abilities that allow you to collect data in a
covert manner, without the knowledge and consent of the people you are investigating.
However, morally you may feel that this is an inappropriate approach. Alternatively,
you may have no moral concerns over investigating your topic covertly but you may
need to get your project approved by a university ethics committee who may not allow
covert research to be conducted by staff or students. Chapter 2 investigates the issues
of ethics in the research process.
Many students who are faced with having to do a research project for the first time
automatically assume that the questionnaire is the only method available to them. This
is not the case. In addition, when students find out that interpretative or ethnographic
methods are also available for use, those people who did not like doing maths at
school will always reject methods to generate numerical data. This book will allow you to
identify the appropriate methods of data collection and data analysis for the questions
that you wish to explore.
The ‘conventional’ stages in the design and execution

of a research project
There are several important stages in the planning and execution of any research project
including:
1. Defining the problem you want to investigate.

2. Searching the literature in the area you have chosen to investigate. This will help
you to refine your research question, identify how experienced researchers have
approached the question and help you to define your objectives (what you want
to achieve) for the research project.
3. Identify the research design: do you want to conduct a quantitative, qualitative
or mixed methods project? You will need to write a justification for your choice of
data collection method(s) so you need to think seriously about what method(s)
are the most appropriate and why. As a researcher you should also be able to write
a justification for each question asked in a questionnaire or interview and be in a
position to explain how each question is related to both your research question and
the literature in the area. This will help you eliminate irrelevant questions. Do not
automatically, for example, have a question about gender or age unless gender or
age are considered as important variables that you want to explore.
4. Identify the population you want to investigate and select the sample of respondents
or participants. When thinking about respondents steer clear of stereotypical labels
or perceptions and keep in mind that a population is a rich variety of individuals
with often very different opinions and ideas from each other: they are not just a batch
of people. Think about sampling strategies that can potentially include all individuals
from the population you are interested in.
5. Take care that your research design demonstrates consideration for the ethical con-
siderations of the respondents or participants in your sample. In particular, make
sure that you have the informed consent of the respondents, and that they know
what they are agreeing to when they say ‘yes’ to your request to participate in the
research project.
6. Choose your methods of data analysis: how are you going to make sense of the
data you collect? Data analysis can take a number of forms: looking for themes or
patterns with the transcript from an interview; numerical summaries from a simple
content analysis; and numerical summaries of measured indicators of our variables
by inferential statistics.
Conclusion 15
7. Draw an appropriate inference. Inference is the process of arriving at a conclusion:

it is the stage between the collection of data and presenting an explanation of the
meaning of the results or findings of your research project. Inference is the process
the researcher has to go through in an effort to produce a justification or a defensible
conclusion to the question they are investigating. It takes place when the researcher
makes a judgement based upon the evidence they have collected. At this stage
researchers need to give the reasons why the conclusions they suggest are better than
the alternative conclusions found in the literature.
8. Finally, write-up and report the study.
Over the following chapters each of these stages will be explored. Examples drawn
from the literature will provide you with instances or models of good practice that you
can draw upon when conducting your own research projects.
Thinkpiece
Human beings are really interesting. Even the most mundane of their actions can
be fascinating. Imagine for one moment that you are walking along a busy city
street one afternoon; there are many hundreds of people also walking along the
same street in different directions. Walkers almost always avoid communicating
with each other and touching each other, they also avoid eye contact. Yet they
tend not to bump into each other. The vast majority of people walking along city
streets have never met each other, yet they appear to have a common set of rules
that they follow for walking in busy streets. How did people acquire this set of
walking skills? If there are a set of rules, why do people follow them and what
sanctions might be imposed on a person who chose to break the rules?
Think for a moment about how you would conduct a piece of research that
was attempting to answer these questions. How would you collect the data? What
method of data collection do you feel is the most appropriate and why?
Conclusion
This chapter first considered the question: what is research? It then went on to discuss
where ideas for research projects come from and gave some advice on how to think
about potential research projects. Critical reading, personal events or observation that
make you want to reflect upon their meaning can all be used as the starting point for
a research project. There is a rich variety of methods of data collection and data analysis
that we can draw upon to make the short intellectual journey from ‘I know’ to ‘it is
known’. A good starting point for any research project is for the researcher to write a
rationale. The rationale will inform you about the type of research you want to conduct.
Many first-time researchers are of the opinion that research projects should be objective,
balanced and politically neutral; and that research projects should be ‘value-free’, in that
the researcher should not allow their own personal, political or moral beliefs to play a
role in the processes of data collection or data analysis. Standpoint research also has
a degree of validity and reliability. For example, in a Marxian analysis, the researcher
will have an emphasis on collecting data about the impact of class in society and the
aim of the research is to collect data in support of a given point of view.
In the last analysis, all approaches to data collection and data analysis involve
knowing in advance the answers to some simple questions:
s 7HATDATADOYOUWANT
s (OWAREYOUGOINGTOCOLLECTIT
s (OWAREYOUGOINGTOANALYSEIT
Erica has been asked to write a research project and she does not know what to do!
Getting started
Erica has been given the task of completing a research project in which she has
to investigate the extent zoos fulfil their legal obligations to provide visitors
with education and information on biodiversity and sustainability. Her research
question is:
To what extent do zoos fulfil their legal obligations to provide visitors with educa-
tion and information on biodiversity and sustainability?
She starts the research project by doing a literature review. She discovers that zoos
have a long history. People have been visiting collections of interesting and exotic
live animals for entertainment purposes since the early years of the eighteenth
century. Moreover, from the nineteenth century many scientific societies also took
an interest in these collections for academic reasons.
Erica found out that over the course of the twentieth century zoos became
more concerned with explaining to visitors how human action can threaten bio-
diversity. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(2004) zoos have a moral as well as a legal obligation to provide visitors with
education and information on biodiversity and sustainability. Zoos are expected
to operate as scientific institutions that help visitors develop an understanding of
how their lives can impact on the environment and consequently on the habitat
of wild animals. However, one of the issues that Erica will face in this research
project is that zoo visitors come from a diverse range of social and economic
backgrounds and have a variety of reasons for visiting the zoo. Many school
children visit zoos on organised school trips that may involve the zoo’s education
officer giving a presentation and providing learning materials for teachers and
pupils to work on after the visit. On the other hand, the majority of visitors view
#JCMJPHSBQIZ 17
a trip to the zoo as a leisure experience and what they expect from the zoo is a
fun day out. Therefore zoos have to be able to identify informal opportunities for
learning to take place and be effective at drawing upon interactive technology to
inform visitors in the most entertaining way possible.
Erica is concerned that many zoo visitors have only a limited understanding of
animal biology. A number of researchers have found that only creatures with hair
are considered ‘animals’, humans, birds and invertebrates are often not considered
animals. In addition the habitat and the home of an animal are often confused. Such
misconceptions can hamper a zoo’s ability to inform people about biodiversity.
Technical language in relation to biodiversity and sustainability is often difficult
to understand.
How should Erica approach this research project? What method or methods of
data collection should she use? What method of data analysis should she adopt?
At the end of each chapter we will look at a possible methodological approach
that Erica could have adopted to complete her research project successfully.
Bibliography
Best, S. (2007) ‘The social construction of pain: an evaluation’, Disability & Society,
22(2): 161–71.
Bhavnani, K.K. (1993) Shifting Passions, Changing Genres, London: Sage.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2004) The Secretary of State’s
Standards of Modern Zoo Practice, London: DEFRA. www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/
zoos/standards-zoo-practice/
Dingley, J. and Mollica, M. (2007) ‘The Human Body as a Terrorist Weapon: Hunger
Strikes and Suicide Bombers’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 30(6): 459–92.
Fink, A. (1998) Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From Paper to the Internet,
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Fullagar, S. (2002) ‘Narratives of travel: desire and the movement of feminine sub-
jectivity’, Leisure Studies, 21(1): 57–74.
Goodley, D. (n.d.) ‘Towards socially just pedagogies: Deleuzoguattarian critical dis-
ability studies’, www.shef.ac.uk/applieddisabilitystudies/
Graydon, C. (2006) ‘Can consent be uninformed? Suggested reform of sexual offences
against persons with intellectual disability’, paper presented to the Social Change in
the 21st Century Conference Centre for Social Change Research, Queensland University
of Technology, 27 October 2006, pp. 1–10.
Gunter, H. (2005) ‘Conceptualizing Research in Educational Leadership’, Educational
Management Administration and Leadership, 33(2): 165–80.
Lewin, K. (1946) ‘Action research and minority problems’, Journal of Social Issues, 2(4):
34–46.
Oakley, A. (1981) From Here to Maternity, London: Penguin.

Olivier, S. (2006) ‘Moral Dilemmas of Participation in Dangerous Leisure Activities’,
Leisure Studies, 25(1): 95–109.
Reichenbach, H. (1938) Experience and prediction; an analysis of the foundations and the
structure of knowledge, Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press.
Weber, M. (1922) Economy and Society, G. Roth and C. Wittich (eds), New York:
Bedminster Press, 1968.
2 The ethics of social
research

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t IPXteleological UIFPSJFTPGFUIJDTDPOUSBTUXJUIdeontological theories of ethics.
Introduction
Good research is valid, reliable and gives the reader an honest account of events or
issues under investigation. A code of ‘ethics’ is a set of moral principles about how
people should conduct themselves and gives clear guidance on the appropriate way
that people should act or behave. All research practice requires an awareness of ethical
issues. One could argue that if our research is valid and reliable then it is ethical irre-
spective of the consequences for the respondents. Some researchers such as Lynoe et al.
(1999) take the view that a badly designed research project is by definition unethical.
You might want to reflect on this comment after reading the chapter. In ethnographic
and other forms of qualitative research ethical issues often emerge during the data
collection phase and ethnographers regularly struggle to meet the ethical requirements
that professional bodies – such as the British Educational Research Association (BERA),
the British Sociological Association (BSA), the Social Research Association (SRA), the
Department of Health and in the USA the Code of Federal Regulations – have developed
for good research practice. As Wiles et al. (2003) suggest many researchers habitually
view the process of ethical approval more as a bureaucratic hurdle to be overcome,
rather than as a positive or helpful part of the research process.
20 Chapter 2 The ethics of social research
In social research there will always be disagreements about whether an issue is

morally relevant and it for this reason that ethical codes of practice have developed to
guide researchers on the correct and appropriate stance to take. As a social researcher
you need to include an ethical statement in your research report. In this statement you
need to explain if you have attempted to gain the informed consent of the respondents
and what steps you have taken to achieve this.
Lindsay (2000) argues that codes of research ethics place a much greater emphasis
on some features of the research process than others. The emphasis tends to be in
relation to access to the respondents, selection of the respondents, their consent,
anonymity and confidentiality.
Other key concepts in the field of research ethics also include:
s Veracity – as researchers we should be moral exemplars who strive to be honest

and truthful. As researchers we should not deceive respondents about our research.
In addition we should handle the information we are given from respondents in the
research process sensitively.
s Non-malfeasance – in other words, to do no harm, to be fair and to have the welfare
of the respondent in mind at all times (beneficence).
In summary, all research practice requires an awareness of ethical issues. In ethnographic

and other forms of qualitative research ethical issues often emerge during the data
collection phase and ethnographers often struggle to meet the ethical requirements
that professional bodies have developed for good research practice. As researchers we
should not tell lies about the research and we should handle the information we are
given from respondents in the research process sensitively.
Why research ethics are important to you

Before we move on it is important to list briefly why research ethics are important to you
as a researcher and why it is important to act ethically. You have a professional respons-
ibility to avoid the exploitation of research participants. You must always keep in mind
that the research process can be harmful to participants; to you personally as a researcher;
to the university; and to other researchers in the field. In addition, as Wiles et al. point out:
‘it is clear that the principle of informed consent also operates within a legal frame-
work which safeguards research organisations if adverse events occur within research.
In this respect, informed consent becomes aligned with processes of indemnity
and thus operationalised within a legal framework’ (Wiles et al. 2003: 8).
In other words, if a person feels that they have been deceived, harmed or that their
privacy has been infringed as a direct consequence of your research you may find that
legal proceedings will be started against you.
*OGPSNFEDPOTFOU 21
In this chapter we will look at:
s WHATRESEARCHERSUNDERSTANDBYINFORMEDCONSENTANDWHYGETTINGINFORMEDCON-
sent from participants in a research project is a common requirement;
s WHYETHICALAPPROVALHASBECOMEANIMPORTANTSTAGEWITHINTHERESEARCHPROCESS
s WHYITISIMPORTANTTOCONSIDERISSUESOFCONlDENTIALITYINTHERESEARCHPROCESS
The chapter will also consider the difference between teleological, deontological and
situational theories of ethics.
Informed consent
Getting informed consent from participants in a research project is a common require-
ment found in all ethical codes of research conduct. In the UK the issue of informed
consent became a major political issue following an inquiry into research practices at
Alder Hey Hospital and Liverpool University, where organs from dead children were
harvested for research purposes without the parents fully being informed as to what
they were consenting too.
In the USA obtaining the informed consent from respondents is a legal requirement
for all social research conducted at institutions receiving federal funding. Brody et al.
(1997) give some disturbing examples of research projects that have ignored the informed
consent of their participants and as a consequence caused them harm:
‘Prominent examples include the Public Health Services’ Tuskegee syphilis study
initiated in the 1930s, in which lifesaving medical treatment was systematically
withheld from 400 poor Black male participants; The Jewish Chronic Disease
Hospital study, in which patients were unknowingly injected with live cancer cells;
and the Willowbrook hepatitis study, in which hepatitis virus was injected into
mentally retarded children while their parents were falsely led to believe the children
were being vaccinated against the disease. Most recently, an advisory committee
appointed by President Bill Clinton to study the human radiation experiments
conducted from 1944 to 1974 determined that informed consent procedures were
frequently violated’ (Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, 1996)
(Brody et al. 1997: 286).
The Tuskegee experiments were very well designed with a clear hypothesis that attempted
to test if syphilis developed differently in people of different races. The research design
involved public health employees persuading African American men with syphilis not
to take penicillin even though it was recognised as the standard treatment for the con-
dition. Similarly the Willowbrook hepatitis study was also well designed. The purpose
of this study was to see how quickly hepatitis spread through the body and to test the
effectiveness of a new medication for the condition. The data for the Willowbrook
study was collected from children with a range of mental and physical impairments.
Brody et al. (1997) also comment on a series of experiments conducted by Berkun
et al. (1962) who were interested in understanding people’s reactions to highly stressful
situations. Military recruits were told that their lives were in danger from a plane crash,
exposure to radiation, a forest fire and missiles. The researchers successfully convinced
the respondents that their lives were in danger, when they were not.
Aronson et al. (2007) state that deception in research practice is the ‘procedure
whereby participants are misled about the true purpose of a study or the events that will
actually transpire’ (p. 54). Famous psychological experiments conducted by Milgram (in
1964), Ash (in 1951) and Zimbardo (in 1981) used deception to convince respondents
that they were in situations that in reality they were not in. Milgram managed to con-
vince a group of volunteers to give what they thought was a lethal dose of electricity to
a stranger. Ash (1951) managed to convince a group of volunteers that they could not
trust their own perception; whilst Zimbardo used hypnotic suggestion to gradually and
unknowingly (from the volunteers’ perspective) take away the hearing of a group of
volunteers to see if it caused paranoia. All these forms of deception could potentially
have caused harmful side-effects to the participants.
For Brody et al. (1997) informed consent is based upon the moral principle of
personal autonomy, by which they mean: ‘respect for the integrity of the individual’
including their ‘right of self-determination’ and ‘right of privacy’.
In a research context, the individual respondent should not only give their consent
to be investigated but also must understand what it is that they are consenting to. All
potential participants should have the right to refuse their participation and as researchers
we should respect that decision.
Thinkpiece
You might at this stage want to reflect on the reasons why some people might not
want to participate in a research project.
Faden and Beauchamp (1986) argue that informed consent is only valid when four
conditions are fulfilled:
1. that as researchers we must fully make known any information that could influence
a respondent’s decision to participate in the research project;
2. that the respondents fully understand the information we give them about the
research project;
3. that the decision to participate is voluntary;
4. that respondents are capable of understanding the consequences of their actions.
In most research projects it is assumed that if a respondent has signed a consent form,
then they have given their informed consent. However, Gtunder (1978) suggests that in
$PNNJUUFFTBOEHVJEFMJOFT 23
many cases, consent forms are written in a language that is too difficult for the intended
participants to understand fully.
Managing informed consent
Research methods textbooks tend to focus on the abstract principles of informed

consent. Such principles are found in guidelines produced by organisations such as
BERA, the Social Research Association and the British Sociological Association, discussed
later in the chapter.
The understanding of when informed consent is achieved differs broadly. For some
researchers informed consent is achieved when a consent form is completed. For others
‘proper’ informed consent is a more prolonged process that is only provided by the
respondent when researchers can guarantee or ensure the research process, including how
the findings are used by others, does not exploit respondents. Questions you might want
to consider are: should respondents have the opportunity to review their transcripts?
Should respondents have the ‘right’ to amend or even veto some or all of a transcript?
It is regarded as good ethical practice for researchers to offer the respondents con-
fidentiality by concealing their identity, changing their names, location, biographical
details etc. However, is it ethical to amend data in an effort to give greater anonymity?
This boils down to a researcher essentially producing a fabricated account of events
observed in an effort to be ethical in terms of research practice. On the one hand, we
want our respondents to have their identity kept anonymous. On the other hand, if
we have to change so many biographical details that the reader cannot fully understand
the circumstances that the respondent is in this can damage the validity of the research
findings. As a researcher it is important to strike a balance and negotiate with the
respondent over how much personal information they are willing for you to include in
your research report.
Thinkpiece
Who has ownership over a transcript, for example a verbatim account of responses
to a set of interview questions produced in a research project? Do these findings
belong to the researcher? As researchers can we edit transcripts however we choose?
Committees and guidelines

During the past 10 years the ethical review of research has become institutionalised
within UK and North American universities. Gaining approval from an ethics com-
mittee has become an important stage within the research process. The purpose of
ethics committees is to prevent misconduct in the research process. All universities have
a procedure for ethical approval for staff, postgraduate students and undergraduate
students. Details of the procedure for ethical approval will be made available to you
and as ever, with any research project, if you are unsure of the details ask your tutor.
The central purpose of ethical approval for a research project is to help the researcher
avoid the issue of research misconduct. Below is a definition of research misconduct
followed by an example of research practice from Clarke (1996). Read the two papagraphs
and answer the question that follows.
Thinkpiece
Research misconduct
According to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the USA:
‘Research misconduct is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in
proposing, performing or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.
Fabrication is making up results and recording or reporting them. Falsification
is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or
omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented
in the research record. Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s
ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit, including
those obtained through confidential review of other investigators’ research
proposals and manuscripts. Research misconduct does not include honest
error or honest differences of opinion’ (‘Research Misconduct – A New Defini-
tion and New Procedures for Federal Research Agencies’ (14 October 1999)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/html/9910 20.html).
Clarke (1996) used deception in a forensic unit, claiming that this approach was
necessary to obtain ‘uncontaminated’ data. She used participant observation over
a period of six weeks while working as a nursing auxiliary. Clarke did not disclose
her role as researcher. She retreated to the restroom to take notes or to speak into
a small dictaphone. Clarke justified this method stating that some degree of decep-
tion is permissible when ‘dealing with sensitive aspects of subjects’ behaviour’
(Clarke 1996: 38).
Question
Is the deception of respondents ever justified in the research process?
In 2004 the British Educational Research Association (BERA) revised their Ethical
Guidelines for Research. The BERA Code clearly states that researchers should avoid
the fabrication of data; respondents must give their informed consent and researchers
should make their findings available to respondents; report findings should be accurate
and honest; and respondents have a right to remain anonymous. The Code also states:
$PNNJUUFFTBOEHVJEFMJOFT 25
‘The Association considers that all educational research should be conducted within
an ethic of respect for:
The Person
Knowledge
Democratic Values
The Quality of Educational Research
Academic Freedom’ (BERA 2004: 5).
In addition:
‘The underpinning aim of the guidelines is to enable educational researchers to

weigh up all aspects of the process of conducting educational research within any
given context (from student research projects to large-scale funded projects) and
to reach an ethically acceptable position in which their actions are considered
justifiable and sound’ (BERA 2004: 4).
When the guidelines say that researchers must have respect for the person this means
that researchers must comply with the data protection legislation, the respondents
need to know who will have access to the data, how and why the data they give to the
research project are going to be stored.
Also when the guidelines state that as researchers we should have respect for
‘knowledge’ BERA means that:
‘Researchers must accord due respect to all methodologies and related methods.
They must contribute to the community spirit of critical analysis and constructive
criticism that generates improvement in practice and enhancement of knowledge’
(BERA 2004: 13).
Activity
Look up the BERA guidelines on the internet and write a short account of what
BERA understand by respect for: Democratic Values; The Quality of Educational
Research; and Academic Freedom. You can find the BERA guidelines for research
ethics at http://www.bera.ac.uk/search/node/research%20ethics.
The BERA guidelines for ethical research are seen by many researchers as a benchmark
for ethical research practice and they are representative of codes of ethics for researchers
across the social sciences.
There are concerns about the level of bureaucratic supervision that research ethics
guidelines impose on researchers. We can still recognise that social science research has
responsibilities in relation to potential harm, consent and anonymity etc. However, a
number of critics have suggested that all social science research is now subjected to
a very high level of ethical guidance and supervision because of a small number of
well-publicised cases in science, technology and medicine, especially in relation to
medicine, that have caused harm to people. Although Haggerty (2004), for example,
accepts that all research requires an awareness of ethical issues, he develops the
argument that:
‘As a regulatory system, however, the research ethics process now poses dangers to
the ability to conduct university based research’ (Haggerty 2004: 392).
Ethics ‘creep’
For Haggerty (2004), in the past the ethics of research were based upon the profes-
sional competence and responsibility of the researcher and the code of conduct of their
discipline. Professional competence and responsibility have been replaced by a system
of bureaucratic supervision or oversight. Haggerty (2004) suggests that journalists have
much greater freedom to explore social and political issues in a much more critical
fashion than social scientists. He develops the concept of ‘creep’ to describe the ways
in which the unintended transformation and expansion of systems, bureaucratic super-
vision or oversight of the research process is damaging research practice. Informed
consent provisions have also made it increasingly difficult to conduct research that
makes use of deception even when no harm occurs from the researcher not giving a
full account of the research to the respondent. For Haggerty (2004) the coercive and
conformist rule-following that ethics committees require from researchers can prevent
researchers from conducting critical research that takes risks:
‘The fetishization of rules can reduce ethical systems to a form of conformist rule-
following. Researchers risk being seen as acting unethically when they fail to submit
an application to the REB [research ethics board] or obtain a signed consent form,
whether or not there was ever the slightest prospect of anyone being harmed by
virtue of such research. When following the rules hampers research but seems
disconnected from any prospect of producing harm, researchers conform not
because they accept the moral authority and ethical insights of the REB structure,
but because their reputations and careers can be damaged should they fail to do
so. The authority of the ethics structure risks becoming more coercive than moral’
(Haggerty 2004: 411).
In other words, for Haggerty (2004) institutions have developed a coercive and
unhealthy obsession with conformist rule-following in relation to the ethical nature
of conducting research. Institutions have put a great deal of emphasis on bureaucratic
procedures such as making sure that people sign relevant consent forms, even when
there is no real chance of a respondent being harmed by research. Failure to do so can
damage a person’s reputation and career prospects.
Confidentiality 27
Thinkpiece
Children as respondents
The BERA guidelines for research make it problematical for an educational
researcher to include children as respondents in a research project. Legally a child
is any person under the age of 18 years. The traditional approach to the study of
children in social research is paternalistic. Children are assumed to be vulnerable,
unable to protect their own interests and dependent upon adults. Children are
assumed to be acted upon by others, rather than being social actors or persons
in their own right. A child’s welfare is dependent upon the adults in their lives,
notably parents and teachers who are legally responsible for the care of the child.
As such, children lack the ability to give consent to participate in a research project.
If we want to study children we need to get the consent of parents who do not
have a duty to consult their children.
An alternative view has been developed by Alderson (1995, 2000) and Thomas
and O’Kane (1998), who draw upon the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC) that specifically explains that all children have participation rights:
the right to be informed on all issues and to have a voice, including the right to
participate in social research. In the UK, children are protected by the Children
Act (1989). In addition, under the Child Protection Act (1999), a researcher can-
not promise to maintain the confidentiality or anonymity of a child.
Questions
1. Write a summary of the main points from the two paragraphs above.
2. Should a social researcher use the same ethical standards whether they are
researching adults or children?
Confidentiality
Should every respondent be offered confidentiality? Is it ever appropriate to breach
confidentiality? These are the questions that we should consider when we discuss the
issue of confidentiality.
Firstly as researchers we have to conform to relevant data protection laws. If we make
an offer of confidentiality and later break it respondents would be able to take legal
action against us. However, in many cases it is in the public interest to disclose our
research findings to the authorities, say to protect a child or others in the community
from harm. In addition, if our research findings contain evidence of illegal activity then
the police or the courts may require information to be disclosed. The researcher would
be in contempt of court if they refuse to give the court such information. Although
these are legal rather than ethical obligations placed on us as researchers, it is better if
you do not give respondents a guarantee of confidentiality but simply to state that you
will make every effort to maintain confidentiality. Also it is important to note that
some respondents do not want their identity concealed.
It is not uncommon for researchers to protect the confidentiality of respondents
and their activities by not recording names and other identifying details from con-
fidential data. For example, the name of the town or city where the research took place
can be disguised. However, as researchers it is not our decision alone to decide what
information is sensitive or damaging for the respondent. Tolich (2004) has suggested
that researchers find out from respondents what information they might consider to be
damaging. Forms of data alteration, such as only presenting aggregate data, can be very
effective at maintaining the confidentiality of the data by hiding the identity of the
individual respondents. However, ethnographic data from case studies, life histories or
in-depth interviews are not so easy to disguise, separate or aggregate than are data from
questionnaires.
Researchers have identified a number of justifications for confidentiality. Many
respondents are reluctant to reveal details about themselves if they think the informa-
tion could be freely disseminated to third parties, particularly if the research topic is
sensitive and the dissemination of the information could have adverse consequences
for the respondent. Every individual has a right to limit access to his or her person; this
is our right to privacy and it is based on the principle of respect for autonomy. In other
words, people should have the right to maintain secrets about themselves and be in a
position to decide who knows what about them (Allen 1997; Beauchamp and Childress
2001). However, a number of codes of research ethics such as that of the British Socio-
logical Association and the United States Code of Federal Regulations (45 CFR 46.101,
3[iii]) suggest that we need not offer confidentiality to people who hold public office
such as MPs or civil servants who are giving us information about their public work.
What makes an ethical researcher?

There are a number of distinct ethical stances that researchers can take regarding the pro-
cesses of data collection and data analysis. On the one hand, there are teleological theories
of ethics, which suggest that if the outcome of the research process is ethical then the
research is ethical, irrespective of how we choose to behave during the course of the data
collection process. As researchers we need to define a proper end or telos for our research.
During the course of the data collection we may deceive the respondents, not give them
a full account of the aims of our research or the argument we hope to explore but if at the
end of the research process we produce a report that contains data that can benefit large
numbers of people then the end justifies the means. Alternatively, deontological theories of
ethics place the emphasis on the behaviour of the researcher in the field. These deontological
8IBUNBLFTBOFUIJDBMSFTFBSDIFS 29
approaches suggest that the manner in which researchers behave and the decisions they
make in the research process should be ethical, not simply the outcome.
Definitions
s Teleology – the doctrine of final causes, takes the view that the end justifies the
means.
s Deontology – the science of duty, puts emphasis on the manner by which
results are achieved.
Being ethical is not simply about paying lip-service to a code of research practice,
it is about honesty and explicitly understanding our own values and motivation as
researchers. Hursthouse (1991) argues that it is possible to identify an objective basis
for what she refers to as ‘a single set of human virtues’. In a research context, virtue
ethics is based upon the assumption that as researchers we should act as a fully virtuous
human being. Virtue ethics involves the researcher behaving as a good person, rather
than following a set of rules about how to behave: we should tell the truth, we should
keep our promises, we should be kind to respondents, not act meanly towards them,
not lie to them, or break promises we make to them.
Hursthouse’s ‘virtue ethics’ is based upon the assumption that the moral values of
any action are derived from a person’s character. Actions are ethical if in a given set
of circumstances we behave in the same way as a fully informed and virtuous person
would behave in the same set of circumstances. People who support deontological
approaches would maintain that this idea rests on a misguided assumption that it is
possible to be a moral person without a set of rules to guide your behaviour and stress
the need for rules in the justification of moral judgements in the research process.
However, there is also the problem of rule-following. It can be morally questionable
to follow rules without question. The individuals who were involved in the Tuskegee
experiments, the Willowbrook hepatitis study and the organ harvest research at Alder
Hey Hospital should not be able to claim that their actions were ethical because they
were following rules. According to Cullity:
‘There must, therefore, be some concepts for which there are no independently
articulable rules; and if so, we have been given no argument for thinking that moral
concepts must be governed by such rules. . . . What I need instead, according to this
line of argument, is moral sensitivity, good moral judgement: an appreciation of
the true moral value of things’ (1999: 282).
Thinkpiece
Before you read on, what do you think Cullity means by this?
Right action
All ethical codes begin with a simple premise that right action is ethical and as such,any
action is right if it is in accordance with a moral rule or ethical principle. This assumption
defines a relationship between right action and moral rule, but it does not provide a
researcher with guidance about how to recognise a moral dilemma that a rule is meant
to cover. However, if we behave in a way that would be greeted by universal rational
acceptance or we can assume that our choice would be the choice made by all other rational
beings than this is the best we can hope for from a moral code. Codes of research ethics
have a tendency to create a conceptual link between the rule, right action and rationality.
In the case of Alder Hey Hospital and Liverpool University, we could argue that
when a child dies this is a very distressing and emotionally charged experience for
parents. Medical science needs to conduct research on the organs of children who die
in order to provide better medical knowledge to prevent other children dying of the
same medical conditions in the future. It is therefore rational to harvest organs from
dead children without the full informed consent of the parents because the refusal to
grant consent to harvest organs is not rational and could be viewed as callous because
such actions are putting other children at risk in the future.
Thinkpiece
Consider this question: is the action right because it promotes the best consequences?
To act in a morally correct manner will involve ethical interpretation. You may not
accept the logic of this argument, but what is important to recognise is that within
any set of ethical guidelines there will be ample opportunity for a researcher to behave
in an amoral or even immoral fashion. Ethical rules can also conflict. For example, as
a social researcher I should get the informed consent of the people I wish to investigate
but if the respondents are not in a position to give their informed consent should
I phrase the aims of the research in a form of words that is not a complete description
of the project, but which they are more likely to understand?
In the next section we look in detail at a very influential research project that raised
a number of important ethical concerns. It shows a research project in which the
author did not attempt to get the consent of the people he investigated; he observed
people without their knowledge and conducted interviews in disguise, claiming to be
from a social health survey.
Tearoom Trade
In 1970 Laud Humphreys published his book Tearoom Trade. A study of homosexual
encounters in public places, this book caused arguments about the ethics of social
research and it is worth looking at Humphreys’ methodology in some detail. Humphreys
Tearoom Trade 31
informs his reader that his interest in ‘the homosexual world’ emerged from his under-
standing of psychoanalytic theory in relation to homosexuality that he developed
whilst doing clinical training in a psychiatric hospital and from his conversations with
gay men whilst working as a chaplain for 10 years.
The initial phase of the study was gaining access to the gay community by develop-
ing a relationship of trust. Humphreys describes how he did this:
‘I had to enter the subculture as would any newcomer and make contact with
respondents under the guise of being another gay guy’ (1970: 24).
His purpose at this point in the research project was ‘simply to get a feel of the deviant
community’ (1970: 25). He regularly visited gay bars, parties, bathhouses, and ‘private
gatherings’ and had ‘dozens of informal interviews with participants in the gay society’
(1970: 25).
Keeping his identity as a researcher hidden from the respondents was a central
element of the research design and he gives his reasons for this in a footnote:
‘My reticence at admitting I was a sociologist resulted, in part, from the cautioning
of a gay friend who warned me that homosexuals in the community are particularly
wary of sociologists. This is supposedly the result of the failure of a graduate student
at another university to disguise the names of bars and respondents in a master’s
thesis on the subject’ (Humphreys 1970: 24).
Humphreys adopted the role of the watchqueen to observe the structured interactions
of same-sex sexual encounters between strangers meeting in public toilets in parks,
including the rules that were followed to initiate homosexual encounters safely. The
watchqueen stood in and around the public toilets observing and informing the
participants if the police were near. Given that there was very little talking that took
place during these encounters, the study drew upon concepts from Goffman’s symbolic
interactionism* to describe the ‘deviant’ acts that were committed and to give some
insight into how and why people engage in the activities. Humphreys describes this
interaction in terms of gestures such as: positioning, signalling, contracting, foreplay,
and payoff.
Humphreys collected 134 licence numbers of men involved in homosexual encounters.
In addition, he kept systematic records of his observations on a ‘systematic observation
sheet’ and used a concealed tape recorder to assist in the data collection. He explains
how he managed to find the names and addresses of the men he observed:
‘Fortunately, a friendly policeman gave me access to the licence registers, without

asking to see the numbers or becoming too inquisitive about the type of “market
research” in which I was engaged’ (Humphreys 1970: 38).
* A perspective in the social sciences that is concerned with understanding how sustained social
interaction is possible by using methodological approaches that are sympathetic and sensitive
to the respondent’s view of the world.
Humphreys initially used this information to visit the homes of the men to make an
assessment of factors such as their social class position, which could be judged
from the type of house they lived in and the area of the city in which it was situated;
if they were married with a family, children’s toys could be seen in the gardens, etc.
Humphreys also wanted to find out more about the home circumstances of the men
and argued that observation was insufficient in itself to draw an appropriate inference
about the men, to get a fuller picture he needed to interview them.
It was at this time that in his role as a research associate at Washington University,
Humphreys was asked to develop a questionnaire for a social health survey. Humphreys
added the names of the men from his observation to the sample to be interviewed for
the health survey. The added benefit of the survey being about health was that ques-
tions could be legitimately asked about a range of intimate issues in relation to sex and
sexuality. Moreover, Humphreys could make a comparison between the group of men
he had observed in the toilets and the other men in the survey, giving the research a
quasi experimental edge. Humphreys confidently states that:
‘the important thing to note here is that none of the respondents was threatened
by the interviews . . . Although I recognized each of the men interviewed from
observations of them in the tearooms, there was no indication that they remem-
bered me. I was careful to change my appearance, dress and automobile from the
days when I had passed as a deviant. I also allowed at least a year’s time to lapse
between the original sampling procedure and the interviews’ (1970: 42).
In addition to the stigma attached to homosexuality at the time, the activities that the
men were engaged in, in the public toilets, were criminal offences as was Humphreys’
role in watching them. If Humphreys’ data had fallen into the hands of the police
department or federal investigative agencies this would have resulted in prosecutions.
Although Humphreys maintains that he was not recognised by the men he cannot
know this for sure and because of this, it is not possible to say that the data collection
process was free from coercion.
In the interviews, Humphreys found that closeted men created a moral shield of
hyper-conformity which he refers to as the breastplate of righteousness. The men used
the breastplate as a protective outer-self to maintain the illusion of leading respectable
lives. Many of the men involved had seen active service in the armed forces, 42 per
cent were Catholic, 54 per cent were married and 32 per cent were conservative in their
political views.
Thinkpiece
Ethical questions raised by Humphreys’ research
s $IDTHEMENINTHISSTUDYGIVETHEIRINFORMEDCONSENTTOBERESPONDENTSIN
this research project?
Tearoom Trade 33
s )SITETHICALTOPRETENDTOBEANOTHER@GAYGUYTOGAINACCESSTOTHEGAYCOM-
munity when you are not gay?
s $ID(UMPHREYSBETRAYARELATIONSHIPOFTRUSTATANYTIMEINTHISPROJECT
s )SITETHICALTORECORDINFORMATIONABOUTPEOPLEWITHOUTTHEIRKNOWLEDGEAND
consent on a ‘systematic observation sheet’ and use a concealed tape recorder?
s )SITETHICALTOLIETOA@FRIENDLYPOLICEMAN
s !LTHOUGH (UMPHREYS SAID THAT @NONE OF THE RESPONDENTS WAS THREATENED BY
the interviews’, is it ethical to put respondents in a position where they might
feel threatened?
s )SITETHICALTOASKAGROUPOFRESPONDENTSIFTHEYWOULDLIKETOPARTICIPATEIN
a health survey when the researcher’s real intention is find out more about a
person’s sexuality?
s "YADDINGTHEMENTOTHESAMPLEOFPEOPLETOBEINCLUDEDINTHEHEALTHSURVEY
has this damaged the validity and reliability of the health survey?
s )SITETHICALFORARESEARCHERTOCHANGETHEIRAPPEARANCEINORDERTOCOLLECTDATA
Humphreys ends his book with a short discussion of the ethics of his data collection.
He rejects any suggestion that he was involved in misrepresentation. A person’s identity
in the tearoom interaction is represented in terms of the role they play: ‘there was no
misrepresentation of my part as an observer: I was indeed a “voyeur” . . . The only sign
on its door said “Men” which makes me quite eligible for entering’ (1970: pp. 170–1).
Humphreys may well have been a voyeur, but it is not clear if he was entirely
honest with his reader as to whether he was a sexual voyeur in search of titillation or a
sociological voyeur in search of greater understanding. Some of the information reported
by Humphreys could not have been collected by observation alone, and according to
Carrier (1999):
‘[Humphreys] most likely did more in the tearooms than play the role of lookout
– he was in the closet but homosexually active at the time of his study – he probably
gathered important information from his own sexual encounters in tearooms yet
was unable to reveal that he did so because he did not want to let his family and
colleagues know he was gay’ (1999: 218).
Several years after the book was published Humphreys left his wife and started to lead
an openly gay lifestyle.
A second objection that Humphreys discusses is if it is ethical to gather data for
purposes that are unknown to the respondent. His argument is that if the data are kept
secure and the results are presented in an aggregated fashion then there is no ethical
problem. Banks and the Revenue & Customs publish details of people’s income but
in a form that cannot be related to any single individual. The systematic observation
sheets, interview transcripts and licence plates data were eventually destroyed by
Humphreys. However, before they were destroyed the data were placed in a safety
deposit box of a bank in a city where no data collection took place.
Humphreys’ argument is that all interviews have a degree of dishonesty about them
and the researcher’s identity is never fully represented to the respondent. The import-
ant issue, argues Humphreys, is that we weigh ‘possible social benefits against possible
cost in human discomfort’ and acknowledge that ‘no method can be completely safe’
(1970: 170).
Situation ethics
For Humphreys the ethics in social science research are situation ethics. The situation
ethics approach was developed by Joseph Fletcher, who like Humphreys was also an
Episcopalian minister. The approach is based upon the assumption that as long as your
intention is to benefit the individuals under investigation, the end justifies the means.
In other words, Humphreys’ approach is teleological in nature. His individual actions
in the context of the research may be ethically questionable but his motivation was
to present the actions of the men he observed in a more positive light. However, if a
person disguises their appearance to question individuals about their sexuality, when
the respondent knows that the researcher has witnessed them engaged in an illegal
sexual activity in a public place and that public knowledge of the events observed would
result in the respondent becoming victimised in any number of ways, is this form of
data collection ethical or unethical?
What type of researcher are you?

At the start of the research project you need to reflect upon the ethics of social research
and provide the reader with an ethical statement in which you state a justification
for the stance you have taken in relation to the issues raised in this chapter so far. Lee
(1993) argues that there are three approaches to the issue of ethical data collection:
1. The absolutist position – this is based upon the assumption that as social researchers
we should be moral exemplars and only conduct research in a manner that is ethical.
If we cannot get the informed consent of the respondents then we should not con-
duct the research. Disregarding the rights of the respondents leads researchers to
become cynical and treat people as research objects rather than human individuals
with feelings.
2. The pragmatic position – is based upon the assumption that we should have the
informed consent of the respondents. However, if the benefits of doing research
without the informed consent of the respondents outweighs the costs and potential
harm to the respondents, then the research should take place. This position recognises
the need to protect respondents from harm and maintain their anonymity.
Conclusion 35
3. The sceptical position – this is based on the assumption that ethically anything goes
in social research. The most powerful groups in society can protect themselves from
investigation and as such social researchers have found out a great deal of informa-
tion about people who are the poorest and most powerless in society. It is only by
using covert methods that we can get a picture of how the most powerful people
operate in society.
Conclusion
As a social researcher you need to include an ethical statement in your research report.
In this statement you need to explain if you have attempted to gain the informed
consent of the respondents and what steps you have taken to achieve this. If there is a
covert element in your research then you need to provide a justification for this. It is
important to note that BERA and the other bodies mentioned above do not prohibit
covert research.
All ethical codes begin with a simple premise that right action is ethical and, as
such, any action is right if it is in accordance with a moral rule or ethical principle.
Codes of research ethics have a tendency to create a conceptual link between the
rule, right action and rationality. Ethical approval should not be viewed as a bureau-
cratic hurdle to be overcome in the research process. The purpose of ethics committees
is to prevent misconduct in the research process, defined in terms of fabrication,
falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing or reviewing research, or in
reporting research results. In summary, getting informed consent from participants
in a research project is a common requirement found in all ethical codes of research
conduct.
In most research projects it is assumed that if a respondent has signed a consent
form, then they have given their informed consent. However, the understanding of
when informed consent is achieved differs broadly. For some researchers informed
consent is achieved when a consent form is completed. Tolich (2004) has suggested
that researchers find out from respondents what information they might consider to
be damaging. Forms of data alteration, such as only presenting aggregate data, can be
very effective at maintaining the confidentiality of the data by hiding the identity of
the individual respondents.
There are problems with this approach if we wish to include children as respondents
in our research. The traditional approach to the study of children in social research
is paternalistic. A child’s welfare is dependent upon the adults in their lives, notably
parents and teachers who are legally responsible for the care of the child. Children
are protected by the Children Act (1989) and in addition under the Child Protection
Act (1999), a researcher cannot promise to maintain the confidentiality or anonymity
of a child.
Finally the chapter looked in some detail at Humphreys’ (1970) research which
investigated men involved in homosexual encounters in public places. Humphreys’
ethical stance is founded upon situation ethics. This study raised serious ethical questions:
Humphreys’ data could not have been collected by observation alone, but is it ethical
to gather data for purposes that are unknown to the respondent?
The ethics of researching zoos

All research practice requires an awareness of ethical issues. As a social researcher
Erica needs to include an ethical statement in her research report. As we saw in
the chapter a code of ‘ethics’ is a set of moral principles about how researchers
should conduct themselves whilst collecting the data for their research project.
Erica needs to obtain the ‘informed consent’ of her respondents before she can
collect the data she needs. One approach she could adopt would be to provide
each respondent with a written statement in which she explains who she is, pro-
vides contact details, outlines what the research project is about, who will read
the project, who will read the responses given by the respondent and if the
respondent’s identity will be protected and/or made anonymous.
Many zoo visitors are children. Children are unable to give their consent to
participate in a research project. Erica assumes that if a child is visiting the zoo
with parents or legal guardians then the parents or legal guardians can consent
for their children to be part of a research project. However, if a child is visiting
the zoo with grandparents or adult family friends, or on a school trip, can Erica
assume that a grandparent, an adult family friend or teacher can give consent for
a child to be a respondent in Erica’s research project?
What does Erica need to do? Firstly she needs to take advice from the member
of staff who is her supervisor. The supervisor will be in a position to give informa-
tion about the ethical oversight policy and procedures within the institution.
Erica also needs to write an ethical statement and include this in her research
project. In this statement she need to explain how she managed to obtain the
informed consent of the respondents, explain what possible harm a respondent
could face from their involvement in the research project, and how issues of
confidentially and anonymity were addressed.
#JCMJPHSBQIZ 37
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Brody, J.L., Cluck, J.P. and Aragon, A.S. (1997) ‘Participants’ Understanding of the Process
of Psychological Research: Informed Consent’, Ethics & Behavior, 7(4): 285–98.
BERA (2004) Revised Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research at www.bera.ac.uk/
publications/guides.php
Berkun, M.M., Bialek, H.M., Kern, R.P. and Yagi, K. (1962) ‘Experimental studies of
psychological stress in man’, Psychological Monograph, 76(134): 1–39.
Carrier, K. (1999) ‘The Social Environment of Second Language Listening: Does Status
Play a Role in Comprehension?’, The Modern Language Learning, 83(1): 65–79.
Clarke, L. (1996) ‘Covert participant observation in a secure forensic unit’, Nursing Times,
92(48): 37–40.
Cullity, G. (1999) ‘Virtue Ethics, Theory, and Warrant’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice,
2: 277–94.
Department of Health (2001) Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care,
London: HMSO.
Faden, R.R. and Beauchamp, T.L. (1986) A history and theory of informed consent, New
York: Oxford University Press.
Gtunder, T.M. (1978) ‘Two formulas for determining the readability of subject consent
forms’, American Psychologist, 33: 773–5.
Haggerty, K. (2004) ‘Ethics Creep: Governing Social Science Research in the Name of
Ethics’, Qualitative Sociology, 27(4): 391–414.
Humphreys, L. (1970) Tearoom Trade. A study of homosexual encounters in public places,
London: Duckworth.
Hursthouse, R. (1991) ‘Virtue Theory and Abortion’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 20(3):
223–46.
Lee, R. (1993) Doing Research on Sensitive Subjects, London: Sage.
Lindsay, G. (2000) ‘Researching Children’s Perspectives: Ethical Issues’, in A. Lewis
and G. Lindsay (eds) Researching Children’s Perspectives, Buckingham: Open University
Press.
Lynoe, N. (1999) Mellan cowboyetik och scoutmoral. Medicinsk forskningsetik i praktiken,
Kristianstad: Liber.
Thomas, N. and O’Kane, C. (1998) ‘The Ethics of Participatory Research with Children’,
Children and Society, 12(5): 336–48.
Tolich, M. (2004) ‘Internal confidentiality: When confidentiality assurances fail relational
informants’, Qualitative Sociology, 27: 101–6.
Wiles, R., Crow, G., Charles, V. and Heath, S. (2003) ‘Informed Consent and the Research
Process: Following Rules or Striking Balances?’, Sociological Research Online, 12(2),
www.socresonline.org.uk/12/2/wiles.html
3 Searching and
reviewing the
literature

t IPXUPDPOEVDUBMJUFSBUVSFSFWJFXPSBMJUFSBUVSFTFBSDI JODMVEJOHIPXUPVTF
the Dewey system
t XIBUDPOTUJUVUFTQMBHJBSJTN
t IPXSFGFSFODFTBSFVTFEBOEDJUFE
t IPXUPKVEHFUIFRVBMJUZ WBMJEJUZBOESFMJBCJMJUZPGUIFNBUFSJBMZPVGJOEWJB
search engines such as Google.
Introduction
A review of the relevant literature in the area that you are investigating is an important
element of any research project. As we shall see in this chapter the literature review can
provide you with a justification for your study; allow you to comment on how your
study is related to other research in the area; give you advice on avoiding problems
faced by previous researchers; and play a role in the discussion of your findings by
allowing you to comment on how your findings are similar to or different from
other research in the area. The important issue of plagiarism is also addressed in the
chapter. You should not engage in plagiarism because it is a form of malpractice that
could result in failure of your assessed research project or even more severe penalties.
This chapter will look at why people copy other researchers’ words and ideas without
acknowledgement.
40 Chapter 3 Searching and reviewing the literature
Constructing literature reviews

‘A literature review is a systematic, explicit and reproducible method for identifying,
evaluating, and interpreting the existing body of work produced by researchers’
(Fink 1998: 37).
There are several important reasons for conducting a review of the literature in the area
that you are interested in investigating. If you are a student doing a research project
as part of an assessment, there will be a number of marks allocated for searching the
relevant research and writing a review. Also if you believe that your research project
is original and that you are on the verge of making a new contribution to knowledge,
you might want to find out whether or not your research project is as unique or original
as you think. In other words, has some other researcher had the same idea before you?
As Helen Gunter points out:
‘[this] intellectual method cannot promise genius, it should at least forestall stupidity’
(2005: 166).
Much of the research that you will read will not be making a completely new con-
tribution to knowledge but is likely to be adding to the existing stock of knowledge
by reinforcing a given theory or well-established perspective. In other words, there is
nothing wrong with doing a research project that sets out to rediscover the wheel as
much academic work is of this nature.
Why do I need to justify my research question?

It is important for any researcher to justify the need for their research project. If you
are attempting to develop a unique research question you will need to demonstrate
that the issues have not been addressed by other researchers in the past. Alternatively,
if the person assessing you work, or others, feels that your project is trivial the literature
review will help you to demonstrate that your project is addressing a legitimate and
worthwhile subject to investigate.
The literature review will help to place your project within the context of existing
research in the area. This is particularly important if you can identify an aspect of
the current research that is inadequate, or if you can identify conflicting or ambiguous
research findings. The literature review allows you to demonstrate how existing research
supports your question or hypothesis before you present your own findings. For the
vast majority of research projects there is far more literature about existing research
than you can fit into a literature review, so you need to have a clear set of criteria for
deciding which books, articles and papers you are going to include and which you are
going to exclude. The review should not be subjective and you should have a short
*EFOUJGZJOHWBSJBCMFTBOEJOEJDBUPST 41
statement at the beginning of your review explaining which research you have focused
on and why. One of the central reasons for having a clear and justifiable set of criteria
for the construction of your review is that literature reviews are central to any discus-
sion and analysis of your research findings.
Assessment issues
Most assessment criteria for the allocation of marks to a student research project will
allocate a significant number of marks for a discussion and analysis of the data you have
found. One of the most common and effective approaches to a discussion of findings is
to make a prediction of what you would expect to find in the field, using your literature
review as a guide, and then compare what you expected to find with what you really
did find. This approach is referred to as ‘pattern matching’ and will be more fully
explained in Chapter 6 on the case study method. It is unusual to generate data that
are exactly what you expected to find on the basis of your review; likewise it is just as
unusual to generate data that are exactly what you did not expect to find. Reality is
often somewhere between the two, and it is up to you as the researcher to infer the
most reasonable conclusions from the findings that you have produced. Using other
people’s research is central to any process of inference in social research.
Identifying variables and indicators

In many research projects you are expected to identify the relationship between two
variables. Variables are concepts or ideas that our research projects investigate and
indicators are tangible things that can be used to measure the impact of a variable. If we
were interested in studying poverty for example we would need to identify an indicator
such as low income that indicated that a person was in poverty.
The literature review will also allow you to identify clearly the variables and appro-
priate indicators for your project; in other words, the review will help to decide on
the most appropriate questions to ask, for example in a questionnaire or interview. The
review will also give you examples of good practice, for example in terms of appro-
priate methods of data collection and data analysis used by experienced researchers in
the field who have investigated questions similar to yours.
A literature review is not a list; rather the review should be as comprehensive a dis-
cussion as possible of the research that is of direct relevance to your research project. It
is good idea to think of the literature review as a short essay that outlines and evaluates
the research in the area that you are investigating. In the review process you have to
become an active reader. This means that you only abstract (take) information from a
source that is of direct relevance to your project.
Tips on becoming an active reviewer

s 9OUMUSTATTEMPTTOIDENTIFYTHEUNDERLYINGORHIDDENASSUMPTIONSWITHINAN
author’s work and make these clear to your reader.
s )DENTIFY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES OR POINTS OF VIEW WITHIN THE BODY OF RESEARCH
that are addressing the same question or issue that you are looking at. This will
allow you to position your findings in relation to other researchers in the field
and give your review a focus and critical feel.
s )FYOUlNDITDIFlCULTTOSUMMARISEANAUTHORSWORKORYOUCANNOTIDENTIFY
any positive or critical points, then consider using book reviews. Book reviews
often provide a sound summary of a book’s argument, together with some
informed evaluation and commentary on the content.
In any area of social research there is usually a small number of internationally

respected experts in the field and you need to include these in your review. But how do
you identify these ‘big names’ if you are new to the field? One option is to identify who
has been published/cited most often in research. The other option is to ask! If you are
a student you will have been allocated a supervisor for your project, or there will be a
person who has set the assignment. Your supervisor will direct you towards what you
need to read. In addition, as your review is under construction ask if any major studies
have been excluded from your review.
It is important to focus your review on good quality studies that have rigorous
research standards. You must look at the validity and the reliability of the research and
publications that you intend to include in your review. One of the purposes of this
book is not only to help you conduct your own research projects, but also to help you
to evaluate the quality of other people’s research. Each chapter will look at the appro-
priateness of given methods of data collection and data analysis for specific research
projects. This will allow you to apply a set of criteria in relation to validity and reliability to
a piece of research that will help you to decide if it should be included or excluded from
your review. In the last analysis, your review should be high quality and comprehensive.
Journals
All disciplines have a number of high-quality internationally-recognised academic
journals and as a researcher you can almost certainly rely upon the quality of the articles
within them. For example, it is not unreasonable to expect that a Sociologist could
rely upon the British Journal of Sociology, a Leisure Studies student upon Leisure Studies
and a Management student upon the Harvard Business Review. Articles in such journals
are peer reviewed by experts in the field who comment on the quality of the research
for an editorial board made up of other experts in the field. Moreover the articles are
written by well-qualified and experienced academics. Therefore searching the relevant
journals is a very good place to start your review process.
Journals 43
Searching journal articles

If you are doing your review of the literature for an assessment as part of a module, your
supervisor will have given you some recommended or indicative reading and suggested
some journals that are worth looking at. This is a very good place to start your search.
However, there will be an expectation that you should seek out relevant, up-to-date
and high-quality articles that have not been recommended to you. By identifying ideas
and arguments that are not suggested to you by your supervisor you will be rewarded
with higher marks!
University libraries purchase collections of high-quality academic journals that
are available as hard copies or online. Online collections such as SwetsWise, Informa
World etc. are available via your university library website and they allow users to
search through many hundreds of publications by looking for key words, authors, titles,
words within the abstract, or words within the journals articles themselves. Searches
can be limited by time frame, such as after 2009 or before 1998.
To make effective use of such online library services you need to form your research
question in very precise terms, otherwise you will be presented with thousands of
potentially irrelevant articles. Your key variables are a good starting point; search for
articles with the same variables as your own research project.
One of the most effective methods of searching for relevant journal articles is by the
use of key words. In most journal articles, on the first page after the abstract (a summary
of the argument including the conclusions reached) there are five or so key words. These
key words will be the central variables or key concepts within the article. If an article is
addressing the same key words as your research project it is probably worth looking at it.
What key words should you use? This depends on your research question and the more
specific the question the more specific the search and the more relevant will be the findings.
Example
Below is the abstract and key words from a journal article written by Sølvi Helseth
and Åshild Slettebø (2004):
‘In a Norwegian study on how children aged 7 to 12 years cope during a
period of serious illness within the family and on their quality of life at this
time, several ethical questions became apparent. These were mainly concerned
with the vulnerability of children during research, with their ability to make
autonomous decisions, and with considerations regarding how to respect their
right to confidentiality during the research process. In this article we approach
these questions using our experience from this previous study, discussing
them within the framework of theories of ethics and relevant research ethical
guidelines. Finally, we discuss our experience in the light of the overall purpose
of this article: how to deal with the ethical dilemmas that may appear during
research involving young children.’
Key words: assent/consent; children; confidentiality; research ethics; vulnerability
It is important to know your own variables, central concepts and ideas as this will help
you identify you own key words.
Activity
Looking at the following research questions, choose one question and identify
what you would consider to be the five key words for that question.
1. In the United Kingdom, the Gambling Act (2005) established the Gambling
Commission, a Non-Departmental Public Body, sponsored by the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport, but funded by licence fees from the gambling
industry.
What is the role of the Gambling Commission? How effective do you con-
sider the Gambling Commission to be in performing its role?
2. In the United Kingdom, New Leisure Trusts are said to occupy ‘a middle ground
between the public and private sectors’ (Simmons 2001: 101) and according
to Pringle trusts can: ‘Escape from the dead hand of a Council’s central depart-
ments who have often pursued their own agenda rather than that of the service
they nominally support’ (2001: 44).
What is a New Leisure Trust? Why would a local authority want to establish
a New Leisure Trust?
3. What do you understand by the term Public Service Broadcasting? What prob-
lems do Public Service providers face providing the public with access to sport
on television?
4. To what extent has the concept of ‘heritage’ turned history into entertainment
for profit?
5. Outline and evaluate the criteria for the allocation of Lottery Funding in the
area of either Arts or Sport in the United Kingdom.
Textbooks
Library books are also a very important resource for your literature review. However,
a word of warning about textbooks. Subject textbooks give the reader an introduction
to the subject area and they are designed to support the student. Textbooks are usually
not included in a literature review, because they typically contain summaries and a
discussion of other people’s research. In other words, by using a textbook you are using
another person’s review of the literature in the area. In addition, textbooks have a
tendency to provide the reader with a shorthand summary of an area that can over-
simplify the original author’s arguments. It is always better to find original research and
The internet 45
write you own summary and evaluation of the argument and evidence presented.
However, textbooks can be a very good source of ideas for research projects. In addi-
tion, they often provide very good summaries of the most important theories and ideas
of the central thinkers in an area.
The Dewey System
To get the most out of your library you must be familiar with the Dewey System, which
is also known as the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Dewey Decimal System.
This is a system of library classification developed in 1876 by Melvil Dewey and still
used today by library staff to organise books in a predictable manner to help researchers
conduct their literature reviews more quickly and efficiently.
Books that are on the same subject have the same Dewey classification number and
are placed next to each other on the shelf alphabetically according to the author’s family
name. Sociology books have the classification number 301 and books about reflexive
sociology have the classification number 301/583.
Example
If you took an interest in the work of Loïc Wacquant, for example, and you
wanted to know more about his approach, you might be interested in reading a
book that he wrote with Pierre Bourdieu called An invitation to reflexive sociology.
This book has the classification number 301/B583 because Bourdieu is the first
named author. If you wanted to compare Bourdieu and Wacquant’s approach
to reflexive sociology with that of other authors you need to look at the books
placed on the shelves near to their book that share the same Dewey number
301/583.
The internet
Is everything published on the internet worthwhile and suitable for inclusion in
your literature review? Anybody with internet access can produce their own website
and give the world the value of their knowledge. There are issues about the validity and
reliability of information available online because unlike journal articles, the content
of most websites is not peer reviewed. It is important that you read any source, whether
online or in hard copy, with a critical eye. Look out for prejudices, misinformation, lies
and simple misunderstanding.
Google
There is no doubt that Google has revolutionised the internet. Vise (2005) claims
that Google is as important as the invention of the printing press. Whether you agree
with that or not there is no doubt that Google is a very successful global company that
has allowed people to get much greater use from the internet. In 1998 Larry Page and
Sergey Brin filed a patent for the algorithm PageRank; this is the software that allows
Google to provide users with more specific search results than other searches at the
time and in a much shorter time. And through the use of sponsored links that are also
specifically related to the searches the user is making at the time, Google makes money
without having to rely on pop-up adverts that slow down the search and take up a large
part of the screen. With sponsored links, companies pay Google a certain amount every
time the link is clicked. Sponsored links appear on the right-hand side of the screen
that is triggered by key word searches, so both the search and the adverts should
be relevant to the interests of the user. Google is thus financially dependent on the
sponsored links that appear on its web pages.
Many Google users are unsure about which links are sponsored links. If you access
a webpage via a sponsored link you have to keep in mind that you are accessing a
website via an advertisement, albeit one which PageRank has identified as relevant
to your search.
How does PageRank work?

PageRank is said by Google to be ‘uniquely democratic’ in nature by providing
each individual page a value based upon Google’s estimation of the status of
the webpage, in a similar manner to the way academic journals are judged in the
academic community. Google interprets a link from one page to another in terms
of a vote, by page A, for page B. Google is not only concerned with the number
of votes, or links a webpage receives, it also makes a judgement about the page
that casts the vote. Therefore if a university has a link to a given site then that will
count more than an isolated individual. High-quality web pages receive a higher
PageRank that Google takes into account each time a search is conducted.
You might want to reflect for a moment on whether this system of ranking
webpage is subjective or not.
Although you should treat with caution any web pages found using Google or any other
search engine, do not dismiss them out of hand as there is great deal of very useful
information on the internet and as researchers we should make use of this resource.
In addition, Google Books and Google Scholar are useful resources for the active
researcher. However, you need to have a firm set of criteria to evaluate if a website is
worth using or not.
When to end your search of the literature 47
Evaluation of a webpage
Harris (1997) devised the checklist below to help students make an informed judg-
ment about the quality of information contained within a webpage. It contains some
very useful advice, in the form of a list of questions that you can use to evaluate web
pages in terms of their validity and reliability.
s )STHECONTENTOFTHEWEBPAGECURRENTANDUP TO DATEWITHRECENTEVENTSINTHElELD
s )SITPOSSIBLETOIDENTIFYTHEAUTHORSAUTHORITYTOSPEAKONTHEISSUECONCERNEDARE
the author’s educational background and/or qualifications identified?
s 7HOHASPUBLISHEDTHEWEBPAGE)SITHOSTEDBYARELIGIOUSORGANISATIONAPOLITICAL
organisation such as a pressure group or new social movement?
s $OESTHEARTICLEHAVEADISTINCTPERSPECTIVEPOINTOFVIEWORBIAS
s )STHECONTENTOFTHEARTICLEWELLORGANISED)SITPRESENTEDINASTRUCTUREDWAY
s $OES THIS ARTICLE LIST CITATIONS AND REFERENCES )F SO THEN IS IT WORTH LOOKING UP A
number of the references to see if they are verifiable?
s )STHEREEVIDENCETHATTHEARTICLEHASBEENPEERVIEWED
Activity
Collect four sources from the internet that draw upon any one concept that you
feel is central to your understanding of your discipline or subject area.
Write a commentary of approximately 500 words for each source in which you
outline and evaluate the validity and reliability of the source.
In the commentary you might want to comment on how well the sources fare
in relation to the Harris checklist.
When to end your search of the literature

There does come a time when you have to end your search for suitable literature, but at
what point do you stop searching? How long is too long to spend searching for relevant
books and articles? This can be a surprisingly difficult question to answer, as perhaps
the next look in the library catalogue, or on Google or SwetsWise might include that really
important piece of research or argument that you need. Well it might, but assignments
have deadlines and you will be penalised for submitting an assignment late. One approach
is to allocate an amount of time for doing the search. My own approach is that I will
stop searching when I no longer find new studies. If I am using the online library services
or an internet search engine, and the same documents keep appearing, even when I
have defined and redefined my key words, and opened up my search over longer and
longer time frames etc., then it is at this point that I decide my search is at an end.
Good examples of literature reviews

Daniel Muijs, Alma Harris, Christopher Chapman, Louise Stoll and Jennifer
Russ (2004) ‘Improving Schools in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Areas – A
Review of Research Evidence’ in School Effectiveness and School Improvement (2004),
Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 149–175.
Helen Gunter (2005) ‘Conceptualizing research in Educational Leadership’ in
Educational Management Administration and Leadership, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 165–180.
Plagiarism
Your literature review will almost certainly produce some excellent studies that you
will want to incorporate into your research project. However, it is very important that
you acknowledge the source that you are using and not attempt to ‘pass off ’ other
people’s words or ideas as if they were your own work. The practice of using other
researchers’ ideas and/or words as if they were your own is known as plagiarism, and
if you are an undergraduate student you will be penalised if you are caught engaging
in this activity.
A student once asked me: ‘How much does a source need to be changed to avoid
plagiarism?’ This question raises a number of important issues about the attitude of
many students towards assessment, authorship and intellectual property in general.
It is commonly assumed that with the greater accessibility of the internet and the
greater sophistication of search engine software, there are many more opportunities for
students to plagiarise (Underwood and Szabo 2003). Because a great deal of informa-
tion is available free on the internet and in some cases, such as Wikipedia, you can
edit and redraft pages that you read, an assumption has emerged that no one person
or organisation has ownership over the material presented on the internet and students
can use this material without the need to acknowledge that the ideas or the words
used have come from another published source. It is very important that you do not
share the assumption that material from the internet can be used without the need
to acknowledge that the ideas or the words used have come from another published
source. Your work needs to be original. Your research projects need to be a product of
your own individual effort.
In recent years awarding bodies in the UK have taken a much tougher stance in
relation to plagiarism. The OCR newsletter Uplink (2006: 1) reported that in public
examinations in the UK, cases of plagiarism rose from 67 in 2004 to 167 in 2005
primarily because of ‘copying’ from the internet. However, OCR explained that the
increase in reporting might have been a product of the Joint Committee on Quali-
fication’s greater emphasis on plagiarism. This message has been reinforced in a
range of other documents. Awarding bodies and university departments are far better
Plagiarism 49
at identifying work that is from another published source than they ever were in
previous years.
What exactly is plagiarism?
For Park:
‘the act of plagiarising means “to appropriate (ideas, passages, etc) from (another
work or author)”. Plagiarism involves literary theft, stealing (by copying) the words
or ideas of someone else and passing them off as one’s own without crediting the
source’ (2003: 472).
Scollon argues, that the Western literary tradition: ‘tends to presuppose a common
ideological ground in the creative, original, individual who, as an autonomous scholar,
presents his/her work to the public in his/her name’ (1995: 1). This is another way of
saying that in societies such as ours individual people have ideas, conduct research and
publish findings in their own name and as such that person claims ownership over those
ideas and words used, in the original published account, to express them.
Park (2003) goes on to give an outline of the literature on plagiarism: ‘the
unoriginal sin’ (Colon, 2001), ‘thought thief ’ (Whiteneck, 2002), ‘intellectual shoplifter’
(Stebelman, 1998), and ‘a disease of inarticulateness’ (Bowers, 1994). Park argues that
students plagiarise in a number of ways:
s BY STEALING MATERIAL FROM ANOTHER SOURCE AND @PASSING OFF THE WORDS OR IDEAS AS
their own; this may involve buying a paper from an online service such as www.
writework.com, www.schoolsucks.com, www.buypapers.com, www.termpapers.com
or www.ivyessays.com;
s COPYINGFROMASOURCETEXTWITHOUTREFERENCETOTHEORIGINALSOURCE
s SUBMITTINGWORKWRITTENBYSOMEONEELSEORCLOSELYPARAPHRASINGMATERIALWITHOUT
reference to the original source.
You may disagree with Park that buying an essay from a website is stealing, but for
the people assessing your work it is. You are pretending to have knowledge that you do
not possess. The work you hand in with your name attached must be from your own
intellectual efforts.
Park found that some plagiarism is unintentional in nature, rooted in a lack of under-
standing of appropriate ways of quoting, paraphrasing, citing and referencing sources
or simple carelessness by integrating notes made during research into an assignment.
However, intentional plagiarism is often motivated by a student’s desire to get a better
grade and/or to save time. Personal values/attitudes also have a role to play, a number
of students: ‘see no reason why they should not plagiarise or do it because of social
pressure, because it makes them feel good or because they regard short cuts as clever
and acceptable’ (Park 2003: 479). Finally, Park identifies ‘defiance’ as a possible cause:
‘To some students plagiarism is a tangible way of showing dissent and expressing a lack
of respect for authority’ (Park 2003: 479).
Thinkpiece
If someone plagiarised your work how would you feel: flattered or annoyed?
Research into plagiarism
There is surprisingly little research into plagiarism but what research there is might give
you an idea as to what motivates people to plagiarise and hopefully to avoid becoming
a plagiariser yourself. Gajadhar (1998) argues that some students assume that material
on the internet is ‘free’ and can be reused without making reference to the original
source. One of the first systematic studies in the area was carried out by Bowers (1964)
who conducted a self-report study on 5000 American students across 99 campuses and
found that 82 per cent of the sample admitted to one or more instances of plagiarism
in written assignments. Similarly, McCabe and Trevino (1993) found that from 6000
responses from students in 31 American colleges to a postal questionnaire, 67 per cent
admitted to at least one instance of plagiarism. According to Adenekan: ‘Universities
cite “laziness”, “lack of appropriate preparation for assessment”, “peer pressure and
pressure to pass modules and gain good grades” as some of the reasons students have
given for cheating’ (2003: 1).
According to Stoerger (undated): ‘A survey done by Rutgers’ Management Education
Center found that “of 4500 high school students, 75 per cent of them engage in serious
cheating”. Many of these students do not consider these acts of plagiarism to be wrong’.
Saltmarsh (2004) argues that one of the causes of plagiarism is the growing pressure
that students are under because of the increasing marketisation of education. Students
are expected to work in order to meet the cost of higher education and to excel in their
studies. This is a point supported by Park who argues that students: ‘are faced with
many temptations to plagiarize, because many of them now have to work part-time to
support their studies, they produce coursework in large quantities and to tight dead-
lines, and they are under mounting pressure to perform well to justify the investment
in studying for a degree’ (2004: 293).
However, warns Park: ‘Plagiarism by students is a moral maze, because it raises
important ethical and moral questions about good/bad or right/wrong behaviour and
about acceptable/unacceptable practices. Who decides it is wrong, on what basis and
for what reasons?’ (2003: 474).
We cannot leave our discussion of plagiarism without briefly mentioning the offensive
nature of some of the published work in the area. Leask (2006) argues that plagiarism is
a culturally constructed, politicised and culturally loaded concept with an international
dimension (Chanock, 2003; Hamilton et al., 2003; Handa and Power, 2003). Asian
students are said by some to be ‘persistent plagiarisers’ (Deckert 1993: 131). According
Wikipedia 51
to Leask (2006) this opinion represents a form of ‘Orientalism’* based upon the
assumption that Western styles of thinking and academic practice are superior to
that of ‘the Other’, although, as Leask goes on to explain, there has been a number
of challenges to the stereotype of the inferior Asian learner (Pennycook 1996; Biggs
1997; Kelly and Ha 1998; Melles 2003).
What is this moral maze and why are students lost in it?
In terms of practical advice on plagiarism the message is simple: if you are taking informa-
tion, words or ideas from a source, then you need to acknowledge the source that you
have used. This may be easy to say but difficult to fully understand for some students.
In Jordan’s (2001) sample of students, 85 per cent said that cheating could not
be justified, yet 54.9 per cent reported that they had engaged in plagiarism. Is this an
instance of inconsistency and confusion by the students, or is there a more fundamental
factor underpinning these figures? More likely, these figures reinforce Gajadhar’s (1998)
point that some students assume that material on the internet is ‘free’ and can be
reused without making reference to the original source.
The current generation of undergraduates does not regard the internet as novel.
Watts describes the internet as a ‘tool among many’ (2003: 11). More importantly, the
internet has brought with it a new conception of the relationship between authorship
and ownership. Within a Western literary tradition, authorship of a text is understood
as ownership of that text. Contrast this, for example, to students making use of P2P
technology to download music or video. Such downloads are not regarded as intellectual
theft, but as ‘file sharing’; a defence that has had some success in the courts.
For many students the use of ‘file sharing’ and ‘sampling’ by performers has helped
to redefine the Western literary tradition from one in which authorship is equated with
ownership to one in which sampling from a range of sources from the internet and
elsewhere is not regarded as cheating, or intellectual theft, but a legitimate ‘derivative’
creative act. However, it is important to keep in mind that for the purpose of assess-
ment the old-fashioned Western literary tradition of authorship is alive and well. If you
engage in a form of ‘sampling’ in your assessed work you will be penalised.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an internet-based encyclopedia that is written collaboratively by anybody
who wants to contribute. It is important for students to note that academic teachers do
not regard Wikipedia as a serious academic source and discourage students from using it.
* ‘Orientalism’ is a term that is rooted in Western culture that caricatures Asia and the East in
general as fundamentally inferior to the West.
According to Elia (2006) Wikipedia is one of the most popular reference websites
receiving in the region of 50 million hits per day.
Wikipedia is very popular amongst students, although given the nature of its
construction you should be concerned about the validity and reliability of the encyclo-
pedia’s content. However, in terms of the notion of ‘authorship’, what is significant
about Wikipedia is that it encourages users to edit contributions to the encyclopedia.
The resulting contributions are the product of many individuals working independently
of each other, taking, borrowing and refashioning contributions without reference
to any traditional conception of authorship as ownership. When a student views the
construction of an assignment as a form of sampling, the student can legitimately feel
that they can sign a declaration of academic integrity and affirm that the work is their
own because they feel that it is. Rather than an attempt by the student to seek to
gain an unfair advantage, we might argue that this form of plagiarism is a consumptive
practice. Within the Wikipedia community knowledge is collective and ideas are
generated collectively within a ‘thread mode’ of reorganising and synthesising; no one
author has ownership over these ideas. If they belong to anybody, then they belong to
the Wikipedia community who are described on the Wikipedia website as a ‘conscious,
self-modifying entity’.
As Elia explains:
‘Traditional writing creates a gap between writer and reader. Wiki technology
mediates the gap because the two actors assume interchangeable roles in this new
open e-environment. To conclude, wiki text is never static as it is considered revisable,
a-temporal as nodes continually change through the collaborative writing process,
creating a never ending evolving network of topics’ (2006: 2).
If you want to make use of Wikipedia then do so but it is important to repeat the
point that for the purpose of assessment the old-fashioned Western literary tradition
of authorship is alive and well. If you take from Wikipedia without acknowledging the
source of the words or ideas in your assessed work you will be penalised.
Quoting and referencing

If there is a sentence or paragraph from another author that you really would like to
include in your literature review then you should quote the source and fully reference it.
Also if you are using the ideas of another author, or if you are paraphrasing an author,
then again you must acknowledge the source. There are a number of reference systems,
but one of the most popular is the Harvard System, which will be discussed here.
With the Harvard System, in the text and after a quote you normally give the family
name of the author, date of publication and page number, all of which will be in brackets
as in the example following.
%FWFMPQJOHBCJCMJPHSBQIZ 53
Example
‘Educators . . . should reject forms of schooling that marginalize students who
are poor, black and least advantaged. This points to the necessity for developing
school practices that recognize how issues related to gender, class, race and sexual
orientation can be used as a resource for learning rather than being contained
in schools through a systemic pattern of exclusion, punishment and failure’
(Giroux 2003: 10).
If there are two authors then you give both family names and the date of publication,
such as Ramanathan and Makoni (2007). If there are three or more authors then you
give the family name of the first author followed by et al. followed by the date of pub-
lication: for example Smith et al. (2010).
It is also regarded as good practice to use quotes sparingly. Many teachers suggest
that one quote per page is more than enough; this would mean that for a 2000 word
assignment you should have no more than five quotes.
Paraphrasing
If you want to paraphrase Giroux, you could say: Giroux (2003) suggests that. . . .
If you want to paraphrase several authors who share the same point of view, you
can use a folio, which is a list of authors and dates at the end of a sentence, as in the
example below from Ramanathan and Makoni (2007).
Example
‘These discourses, of which societal discourses are a part (since the latter tend
on the whole to reify the former), have typically dehumanized “patients” and have
attempted to understand them primarily in terms of their malfunctioning body
parts (Bury, 1998; Scambler & Higgs, 1998; Watson-Gegeo, 2005; Williams, 1999)’
(Ramanathan and Makoni 2007: 284).
Developing a bibliography
All your citations should be included in a bibliography. With the Harvard System,
the bibliography is placed at the end of your research project, all authors are listed in
alphabetical order by family name of the first author, followed by a comma, then the
initial of the first name of the author or authors, year of publication in brackets, title
of the book in italics, place of publication, publisher and ending with a full stop; as in
the following example:
Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender, London: Routledge.
In the case of journal articles, the format is author or author’s family name and
initials, date of publication in brackets, title of article, name of journal in italics,
volume number, issue number, and page numbers of the article from start to finish,
for example:
Ramanathan, V. and Makoni, S. (2007) ‘Bringing the body back: the (mis)languag-
ing of bodies in bio-medical, societal and post structuralist discourses on diabetes
and epilepsy’, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 4(4): 283–306.
The importance of having a correctly referenced assignment with a full and com-
plete bibliography cannot be over-stressed. Apart from the simple fact that marking
schemes almost always reward the student with a number of marks for referencing
and bibliography, correct referencing and a full bibliography will both demonstrate
the comprehensiveness of your literature search and prevent any suggestion that you
have plagiarised the work of others.
Conclusion
This chapter has looked at the nature of the literature review within a research
project. The review is not a list but a critical evaluation of the relevant research in
the area that you are investigating, that allows you to position your research in the
field. The review can be used to demonstrate the originality of your own work and
identify problems or issues within the field. Reviews also give some advice on appro-
priate methods of data analysis and data collection methods, in that you can if you
wish use the methods that are most common in the field. Reviews also have a role to
play in the analysis and discussion of your findings through such techniques as ‘pattern
matching’. The documents we use can come from a variety of sources: hard copies of
books and papers in libraries, online library services and the internet. However, you
must always be prepared to acknowledge a source that you use and reference it in an
appropriate manner.
Conclusion 55
Searching and reviewing the literature

As we have seen in the chapter the literature review has a number of important
roles to play in a research project:
s )T CAN HELP THE RESEARCHER PLACE THEIR RESEARCH PROJECT WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF
other research in the field.
s )TPROVIDESTHERESEARCHERWITHAJUSTIlCATIONFORDOINGTHESTUDY
s )TPROVIDESADVICEONAVOIDINGPROBLEMSFACEDBYPREVIOUSRESEARCHERS
s )T PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE DISCUSSION OF THE lNDINGS BY ALLOWING THE
researcher to comment on how their findings are similar to or different from
other research in the field.
However, before Erica can start her evaluation she needs initially to find out what
the legal obligations that zoos are under when it comes to providing visitors with
education and information on biodiversity and sustainability. By typing the
words ‘zoo’, ‘biodiversity and sustainability’ into the Google search engine Erica
found a document about zoos published by the Department for the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in 2004. The document is called The Secretary of
State’s Standards of Modern Zoo Practice (DEFRA 2004) and Chapter 7 outlines the
conservation and education measures that all zoos have to provide for visitors.
The document explained that the European Community’s Zoos Directive
(1999/22/EC) made it a formal statutory requirement that all zoos across the
European Union should put into practice the following measures:
‘(a) participating in research from which conservation benefits accrue to the
species, and/or training in relevant conservation skills, and/or the exchange
of information relating to species conservation and/or, where appropriate,
captive breeding, repopulation or reintroduction of species into the wild and;
(b) promoting public education and awareness in relation to the conservation
of biodiversity, particularly by providing information about the species
exhibited and their natural habitats’ (cited in DEFRA 2004: Chapter 7, p. 1).
These requirements were incorporated into the Zoo Licensing Act 1981.
According to DEFRA (2004: Chapter 7, p. 1):
‘In addition to these statutory requirements, as a general principle zoos should
establish ethical review processes and, where appropriate, seek appropriate help
in planning and implementing their conservation and education strategies.’
On the basis of this information Erica has a much clearer idea of what information
zoos are expected to provide to visitors.
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4 Secondary analysis
– research using
other people’s data

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archives.
Introduction
Social researchers make a distinction between data they have personally collected for a
research project themselves, known as primary data, and data collected by others, known
as secondary data. According to Hinds et al. (1997) the purpose of secondary analysis is
to apply alternative points of view or a new perspective to the data collected.
Heaton (1998) explains that secondary analysis can involve the use of single or
multiple data sets, and makes use of mixed qualitative and quantitative data. She
identifies three analytical purposes of secondary analysis:
1. additional in-depth analysis;

2. developing a new perspective on the data; any set of data can be made sense of in a
number of ways;
3. developing an analysis of a sub-set from the data.
60 Chapter 4 Secondary analysis – research using other people’s data
Secondary analysis can be used to generate new knowledge or for heuristic purposes
(generating new hypotheses), or to find data to support a given theory. Secondary
analysis can also be used to enhance the validity of an ethnographic research project
by allowing the researcher to generalise from the ethnographic findings to a wider
population. Secondary analysis is also useful for looking at sensitive issues, where the
researcher feels that they do not have the skills or abilities to collect valid and reliable
data, or to collect data where the researcher may be in personal danger.
Data from a secondary analysis is also useful when added to the literature review of
a research project as it allows the researcher to place arguments from books and papers
drawn from different time periods together, allowing them to make an informed judge-
ment about the contemporary relevance of research cited.
Data collection is often difficult, expensive, stressful and time consuming for the new
researcher. Szabo and Strang (1997) encourage people who are new to research, such as
students, to consider secondary analysis because it is a more convenient approach than
collecting primary data. As such, you might want to consider if there is an existing
dataset that you can draw upon rather than collecting data yourself. In addition, there
are some research issues that can only be effectively conducted by using other people’s
data; for example projects that look at some health-related issues. Angst and Deatrick
(1996) for example, conducted a piece of secondary research that investigated how
children with chronic illnesses and their parents were involved in decisions about the
appropriateness of care the child received. This form of data is described as aggregate
data in that it is collected from individual people that cannot be identified individually
from the data set. Often such data is derived from the records of medical professionals,
tax returns or arrests and convictions. Data collection in relation to income, crime trends
or other historical data is also often more effectively researched by secondary data.
Hakim defines secondary data analysis as:
‘any further analysis of a survey or social dataset that presents interpretations,

conclusions or knowledge additional to or different from those presented in the
first report on the enquiry as a whole and its main results’ (1982: 12).
The central point is that researchers do not gather the data themselves: the data were
originally collected for another purpose. Cowton (1998) writing in the Journal of Business
Ethics argues that criticisms of methods of data collection, such as poor questionnaire
design, have prompted a number of researchers, such as Dalton and Metzger to argue
that:
‘Virtually every empirical inquiry of issues relevant to applied business ethics involves
the asking of questions that are sensitive, embarrassing, threatening, stigmatizing,
or incriminating’ (1992: 207).
One possible way forward, suggests Cowton, is not to become entangled in the diffi-
culties relating to the collection of good primary data, but rather to use secondary data
analysis.
%VSLIFJNPOTVJDJEF 61
Durkheim on suicide
One of the most influential studies in the social sciences that made use of official
statistics is Emile Durkheim’s study of suicide published in 1897. Durkheim noticed
that the rate of suicide in any country is fairly stable from one year to the next. If the
decision to take one’s own life was a purely personal one then we would not expect
to see stable rates of suicide but erratic, trendless fluctuations from one year to the next.
Protestants have higher suicide rates than Catholics; single people are more likely to
kill themselves than married people; older people are more likely to kill themselves
than younger people, although younger people are more likely to make suicide attempts.
Durkheim attempted to identify social forces that are external to the individuals and
which put pressure on individuals to take their own lives. Durkheim’s definition of
suicide is an interesting one:
‘the term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from
a positive or negative act of the victim, which he knows will produce this result. An
attempt is an act thus defined but falling short of actual death’ (1897: 44).
In Durkheim’s analysis people have a need to conform, a psychological need for

attachment and our ideas and actions are shaped by their relationship to the conscience
collective, a set of common expectations or collective representations that come together
to form the basis of a normative order within a given community. Once a conscience
collective has been established, ideas about shared and acceptable ways of behaving
within a community become internalised and the conscience collective exercises a con-
straint upon people. The conscience collective is an example of what Durkheim referred
to as a social fact: one that is seen to be external to the individual and that exercises
constraint. For example, social facts give guidance on ‘the right way’ to behave in any
given circumstance. The decision to take one’s own life is shaped by the relationship
one has with the conscience collective at the time of the decision. If a person is too integ-
rated into the conscience collective they are at risk of committing suicide; similarly if a
person is not integrated into the conscience collective they are also at risk of committing
suicide.
Durkheim identified four types of suicide. Egoistic suicide is a type of suicide that
has its origins in excessive individualism where a person escapes the influence of
the society and its moral regulation. In contrast, altruistic suicide has its origins in a
person’s over-integration into the conscience collective, a person feels that it is their
duty to kill themselves and examples would include suicide bombers, or a captain
who went down with his ship. Thirdly, Durkheim identifies anomic suicide. For
Durkheim anomie is defined as a state of ‘normlessness’ brought about because a per-
son is either unaware of a set of norms or moral obligations or is in a position where
they are faced with two competing sets of norms. In either case the end result is an
increased risk of suicide. Finally, Durkheim identified fatalistic suicide in which a person
is subjected to excessive regulation; he identified the suicide of slaves or prisoners as
examples.
Critics have argued that Durkheim was wrong to accept suicide statistics at face value
because the statistics are a reflection of the interpretation of a sudden death by a coroner
and should not be treated as a fact. Coroners have their own theories of what makes a
sudden death a suicide and these theories may be arbitrary and unsupported by any
evidence. Some coroners, for example, are of the opinion that if a person dies from
drowning whilst swimming alone and their clothes are neatly folded this indicates a
suicidal tendency. Suicide statistics, like all official statistics, contain errors and omissions.
Some sudden deaths will not be suicides but may be defined by coroners as suicides
and other sudden deaths may be suicides but are wrongly defined by coroners as
having another cause.
Durkheim was fully aware that suicide statistics are a reflection of the attitudes and
beliefs of the people who compile them. As he made clear:
‘But as Wagner long ago remarked, what are called statistics of the motives of suicide
are actually statistics of the opinions concerning such motives of officials, often
of lower officials, in charge of this information service. Unfortunately, official
establishments of the fact are known to be often defective even when applied to
obvious material facts comprehensible to any conscientious observer and leaving
no room for evaluation’ (1897: 148).
So why did Durkheim use suicide statistics when he knew there were errors of inter-
pretation leading to wrongful inclusion and wrongful omission? Simply stated, he
had no alternative. If you were to reflect for one moment on the other methods of data
collection he could have used, there is no better alternative. Could Durkheim have
interviewed people who had attempted suicide and survived? People who attempt suicide
but survive have a set of characteristics that people who successfully commit suicide
do not share. Successful suicides tend to be people who are older, often with serious
illness or disease, often in pain, often live alone and often use violent means, such as
shooting or jumping off a high building where the outcome of the action has a very
good chance of success. Parasuicides (people who make unsuccessful suicide attempts)
are more likely to use methods that are less likely to achieve death successfully, such as
drug overdose.
A documentary analysis could have given Durkheim an insight into the motives
of people who had committed suicide. Durkheim did draw upon the work of Brierre
de Boismont (1865) who analysed the personal papers of 1507 individuals who had
committed suicide to supplement his analysis.
However, one issue remains. Coroners are unlikely to have had Durkheim’s definition
of suicide in mind when they were defining a sudden death as a suicide. In research
methods terms, coroners were using a set of indicators to define a sudden death as a
suicide that does not adequately reflect how Durkheim would have operationalised the
variable (suicide) if he had had the opportunity to do so.
%BUBCBTFTBOEEBUBTFUT 63
Crime statistics
The annual crime statistics are well reported on television and in newspapers. The
Home Office makes crime statistics available free of charge to anyone via its website:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/
crime-research/hosb1011/. However, the statistics do not tell the whole story of the nature
or extent of crime. Like all statistics there are wrongful inclusions and omissions. Many
crimes go unreported for a number of reasons: people may not realise that a crime has
been committed against them, such as a person hacking into another person’s broad-
band; a crime might be considered too trivial to be reported; a crime might be committed
by a family member who you do not want to prosecute; a person may be ashamed of
being a victim of a certain crime (e.g. rape), etc.
The British Crime Survey (BCS) is an annual sample survey of the population that
has been conducted every year for over 10 years. The BCS gives people the opportunity
to give details of any crimes that have been committed by them and crimes they have
been a victim of. This survey gives a picture of what is often referred to as the ‘dark
figure of crime’ in that it is a more accurate reflection of the extent of crime in the UK.
Topics surveyed in the BCS include:
s PERSONALEXPERIENCESOFCRIME
s ATTITUDESTOWARDSTHEPOLICECOURTSANDTHE#RIMINAL*USTICE3YSTEM
s FEAROFCRIME
s NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH AND OTHER SECURITY MEASURES PEOPLE TAKE TO PROTECT THEIR HOME
and vehicles against crime and fire;
s VICTIMISATIONANDVIOLENCEATWORK
s PERCEPTIONSOFPREJUDICEANDITSRELATIONTOCRIME
s LEGALANDILLEGALUSEOFDRUGS
s SEXUALVICTIMISATION
One of the issues that emerges from the BCS is that fear of crime is much greater than
becoming a victim of crime. Details of the BCS are also available for free via the Home
Office website.
Databases and data sets

Databases provide an important resource for the social science researcher. They allow
you to identify trends over time; assess the applicability of primary research findings;
identify social factors; and add to the validity of primary data. Also secondary analysis
can be enhanced when data sets are combined. There are methodological and technical
issues to be addressed when combining the data sets. Are the two or more data sets
conceptually compatible? You also have to keep in mind that the research questions
used in the original study are usually different from the research questions addressed in
secondary analysis, or may use different variables and/or indicators. Durkheim’s critics,
for example, have pointed out that his definition of suicide may differ significantly from
the definitions used by coroners when deciding the cause of a sudden death. This means
that conceptually what the official statistics show may be incompatible with Durkheim’s
definition. Race, for example, is often defined differently in different data sets. This
means that in secondary analysis the researcher has to ensure that the variables and
indicators used in the original data set fit with the definition of the variables and indi-
cators used in the secondary analysis. If they do not this suggests that the empirical
indicators in the original data set do not adequately reflect the theoretical variables
used in the secondary analysis. In the last analysis, you must justify the validity and
reliability of the indicators used in the original data set.
Thinkpiece
It is possible to make an initial judgement about the quality of a webpage by
looking at the nature of the organisation that hosts the website. The type of host
can be identified by the last two or more letters of the website address.
.ac.uk – in the UK this identifies that the webpages were produced on behalf
of an educational institution such as a university or further education college.
In the USA .edu rather than .ac.uk is used.
.com – indicates that the webpages were produced on behalf of a for profit or
commercial organisation.
.org – indicates that the webpages were produced on behalf of a not for profit
organisation.
.net – is a software framework that allows the Windows operating systems to
interface with the internet.
.gov – indicates that the webpages were produced on behalf of a government
agency or department.
Question
Would you be more willing to accept as valid information that originating from
a university or government department than you would from a commercial pro-
vider? Give the reasons for your answer.
Conceptual and technical instruments

Cicourel (1964) looked at crime statistics and Douglas (1967) looked at suicide
statistics and both concluded that official statistics were of limited value to the social
scientist because while they appeared to be factual in nature they were, in reality, based
upon the subjective understanding or commonsense theories of the people who com-
piled them. Hindess (1973) investigates the way in which information is collated and
aggregated into official statistics in order to evaluate the claim that official statistics are
of limited value for social science research. Hindess also looked at the instruments used
in the production of official statistics. He identified two set of instruments used in their
production: conceptual instruments, which were the way in which the issue was defined
by the official who collated the material, and the technical instruments, which were the
methods used for the collection and compilation of the statistics.
For a death to be classed as a suicide or for an action to be defined as a crime the
coroner or police officer has to follow policies and procedures that are not necessarily
based upon their own personal opinion or belief. These policies and procedures can be
identified as the rules by which information is classified as belonging to one category
rather than another. This process can be described and evaluated, and a judgement
made as to the reliability and ability of the policies and procedures to generate valid
data. The more effective the categories are at reflecting real world events, the more valid
and reliable the statistics produced.
In addition to compatibility of variables and indicators, there is a number of other
issues that researchers need to take into account when using secondary data: how was
the date collected, is the context of the research known, was the data collected ethically,
is the sampling procedure known?
Categories of secondary data

The development of the internet has revolutionised access to secondary data giving
researchers a time advantage when having to meet deadlines. Researchers have numerous
secondary databases available for use in their research projects.
Governmental and regulatory bodies

A good starting point for the UK researcher who wants to use official statistics within
their research project is to look at Social Trends. This is an excellent reference source
that brings together data from government departments and other organisations. It
is divided into 13 chapters: crime and justice, education and training, environment,
expenditure, health, households and families, housing, labour market trends, income
and wealth, lifestyles and social participation, population trends, social protection, and
transport. The government provides researchers with free access to the past 10 years of
Social Trends and issues can be accessed via www.ons.gov.uk.
The main advantage of using secondary data is cost. In the UK the Office for National
Statistics (ONS) collects a huge amount of data that is readily available via its website
to researchers, usually at no cost. ONS conducts over 100 business and household
surveys in an effort to produce information to improve people’s understanding of the
economy and society in the UK. All that the ONS asks is that any data are referenced and
the source acknowledged so you should visit the ONS website http://www.ons.gov.uk
and explore the wealth of data available.
ONS data include data derived from the decennial national Census and data from
sample survey research, such as the following:
1. Integrated Household Survey (IHS) is a composite household survey combining the

answers from a number of household surveys conducted by the ONS, including the
Living Cost and Food Survey (LCF), the English Housing Survey (EHS), the Annual
Population Survey (APS), the Life Opportunities Survey (LOS) and the General
Lifestyle Survey (GLF) (formerly the General Household Survey).
2. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a quarterly survey of 60,000 households in Great
Britain selected by a systematic random sample. The purpose of the survey is to
provide information about the labour market in the UK to identify trends in the
labour market and evaluate labour market policies. The sample population for
the LFS is resident UK citizens aged 16 and over. The sampling frame for the LFS is
provided by the Post Office and is a list of all addresses in the UK receiving less than
25 articles of mail a day; a sample of people in hospital is also conducted from NHS
hospital records.
The data are collected by a series of structured interviews conducted in five phases.
Every 3 months approximately 12,000 individuals aged 16 or over are selected at
random and they are interviewed on behalf of all adults in the household. The
same people are interviewed in 5 successive 3-month periods; after the fifth interview
that group of 12,000 households drop out of the sample and are replaced by a new
sample of 12,000. Respondents are initially interviewed in person when first included
in the sample but in the later phases of the survey they are interviewed by telephone.
There is a whole range of other Labour Market Statistics also available to the researcher.
3. The Family Expenditure Survey (FES) was a survey of household income and expen-
diture on goods and services, conducted by random sampling all households in the
UK. The survey was initially designed to provide information on spending patterns
for the Retail Price Index. Every person aged 16 or over in the sample was asked to
keep a diary of their daily expenditure for two weeks. Information was also collected
on rent and mortgage payments and other large items of expenditure. In the last year
it was conducted (2000–01) 6637 households were included in the sample.
In April 2001 the FES was replaced by the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS).
4. With the EFS household expenditure is coded on the basis of a set of codes known
as the European standard Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose
(COICOP) – see Figure 4.1.
01 - FOOD AND NON-ALOCHOLIC BEVERAGES

01.1 - Food
01.2 - Non-alcoholic beverages
02 - ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND TOBACCO
02.1 - Alcoholic beverages
02.2 - Tobacco
03 - CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR
03.1 - Clothing
03.2 - Footwear
04 - HOUSING, WATER, GAS, ELECTRICITY AND OTHER FUELS
04.1 - Actual rentals for housing
04.3 - Regular maintenance and repair of the dwelling
04.4 - Other services relating to the dwelling
04.5 - Electricity, gas and other fuels
05 - FURNISHINGS, HOUSEHOLD EQUIPMENT AND ROUTINE MAINTENANCE OFTHE HOUSE
05.1 - Furniture, furnishings and decorations, carpets and floor coverings and repairs
05.2 - Household textiles
05.3 - Household appliances
05.4 - Glassware, tableware and household utensils
05.5 - Tools and equipment for house and garden
05.6 - Goods and services for routine household maintenance
06 - HEALTH
06.1 - Medical products, appliances and equipment
06.2 - Outpatient services
06.3 - Hospital services
07 - TRANSPORT
07.1 - Purchase of vehicles
07.2 - Operation of personal transport equipment
07.3 - Transport services
08 - COMMUNICATIONS
08.1 - Postal services
08.2/3 - Telephone and telefax equipment and services
09 - RECREATION AND CULTURE
09.1 - Audio-visual, photographic and information processing equipment
09.2 - Other major durables for recreation and culture
09.3 - Other recreational items and equipment, gardens and pets
09.4 - Recreational and cultural services
09.5 - Newspapers, books and stationery
09.6 - Package holidays
10 - EDUCATION
11 - RESTAURANTS AND HOTELS
11.1 - Catering services
11.2 - Accommodation services
12 - MISCELLANEOUS GOODS AND SERVICES
12.1 - Personal care
12.2 - Personal effects
12.3 - Social protection
12.4 - Insurance
12.5 - Financial services
12.6 - Other services
Figure 4.1 $0*$01o*OEJWJEVBMDPOTVNQUJPOFYQFOEJUVSFPGIPVTFIPMET

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The census
In England and Wales the census is designed and conducted by the Office for National
Statistics (ONS). Simply explained, the census is a count of the population and the
identification of key characteristics such as age, gender, race, marital status and religion.
The data are collected by the use of a postal questionnaire. In the UK there has been a
census every 10 years since 1801. Completing the census questionnaire and returning
it by the due date is compulsory and people who fail to complete and return the ques-
tionnaire can be fined £1000. All the questions on the questionnaire are compulsory
except the question on religion. The answers people give are turned into statistics.
Personal census information is only released to the Public Records Office for social and
historical research after 100 years. The information is used by central government and
local authorities to plan public services.
Data archives
The United Kingdom Data Archive contains several thousand databases of information
that are of interest to social science researchers. The archive is based at the University
of Essex and its website is www.data-archive.ac.uk/home. The archive was opened in
1967 with the support of the then Social Science Research Council and the Economic
and Social Science Research Council (ESRC) has continued this support. Although
there are several thousand databases within the archive that researchers can access via
the internet some of the most well used include:
s 4HE %CONOMIC AND 3OCIAL $ATA 3ERVICE %3$3 THIS NATIONAL DATA SERVICE ALLOWS
access to a wide range of important quantitative and qualitative social and economic
data that are of interest to researchers across the social sciences.
s $ATAFROMTHEDECENNIAL#ENSUSOF0OPULATIONINCLUDINGTHESUBSETSOFSMALLAREA
statistics can be found at census.ac.uk. Via the archive researchers can access the
ESRC Census Programme, which provides access to data from the 1971, 1981, 1991
and 2001 UK censuses for researchers in UK higher and further education.
s 4HE (ISTORY $ATA 3ERVICE ($3 PROVIDES A RANGE OF DIGITAL RESOURCES TO SUPPORT
historical research.
s 4HE3URVEY2ESOURCES.ETWORK32. GIVESTHERESEARCHERACCESSTOA1UESTION"ANK
from the mid-1990s onwards.
s 3INCE THE ARCHIVE HAS ALSO HOSTED THE 3ECURE $ATA 3ERVICE AN INITIATIVE SUP-
ported by the ESRC to give researchers safe, secure and free access to sensitive or
confidential data whilst at the same time protecting the privacy of individuals and
organisations.
Another online archive that is of great value to the social researcher is the Manchester
Information and Associated Services (MIMAS), based at the University of Manchester.
Via its website (http://mimas.ac.uk) researchers can access data from the Census Dis-
semination Unit (CDU) that includes free access and support to the UK Census Aggregate
Statistics. MIMAS also holds the Archives Hub, which allows researchers to search across
a large quantity of archives held at nearly 200 institutions across the UK.
Also at the University of Manchester is the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey
Research (CCSR) (http://www.ccsr.ac.uk). This large archive contains the Samples of
Anonymised Records (SARs) database. The database is composed of samples of indi-
vidual records from the 1991 and 2001 Censuses.
The SARs contain a record for each individual, with the identifying information removed
to protect confidentiality. The SARs data sets allow the researcher to conduct an analysis
of small sub-groups at national or local levels over the full range of Census categories
such as housing, education, health, transport, employment, ethnicity and religion.
In addition to the Census and data archive surveys, published legal judgments are
also an important source of insight into many issues and decisions by bodies such as the
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), and are also potentially useful for research purposes.
The ASA surveys the media to check the compliance rate and identify any potential
problems. Their research is more often than not focused on areas of advertising that
have a history of problems. Researchers can download the ASA’s research reports from
its website: www.asa.org.uk/Resource-Centre/Reports-and-surveys.aspx.
British Social Attitudes Survey

The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA) is a sample survey of 3600 randomly selected
respondents aged 18 or over. The survey has been conducted every year since 1983 by
the National Centre for Social Research. The survey collects information about people’s
attitudes and opinions on a wide range of economic, financial, social, political and
ethical issues, such as public expenditure, fear of crime, childcare and other areas of
PUBLICPOLICY1UESTIONSAREALSOASKEDABOUTACTIVITIESSUCHASNEWSPAPERREADERSHIP
political affiliation, religion, charitable giving, participation in the labour market and
educational attainment. The results are published as a book.
The main sponsor for the survey is the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, which is one
of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts.
The press
Newspapers, the internet and television are useful sources of data. Newspapers and
television often commission opinion polls that are a valuable resource for the researcher.
Newspaper articles can be a used as source of ‘facts’ about something to which the
researcher may have no direct access or, newspaper articles and television news can be
treated as a researchable resource.
Published academic research

One method is simply to reanalyse the data that other researchers have collected and
published. Meta-analysis is form of re-analysis that involves drawing data from several
research projects that investigated the same research questions and pooling the results
drawn from the studies. One of the most famous longitudinal studies that researchers
have drawn upon over the years to very good effect is the National Child Development
Study (NCDS).
The National Child Development Study (NCDS) 1946

The National Child Development Study (NCDS) is a continuing longitudinal study
that has followed more than 5000 people born in the first week of March 1946 from
BIRTH INTO ADULTHOOD 4HE INITIAL DIRECTOR OF THE RESEARCH *7" $OUGLAS ORIGINALLY
wanted to survey all 15,000 children born that week but financial constraints meant that
he needed to take a sample of 5362 children, with a 50 per cent split between manual
and non-manual family backgrounds. Over the course of the research the researchers have
remained in contact with 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the initial sample, often with
only an intermittent loss of contact. Complete data exist for 70 per cent of the initial
sample. In the first survey there was a detailed description of maternity services and
child-rearing. Information has been collected by questionnaire, interview, school records
and teacher’s assessments to get an understanding of adolescence, parental involvement
in education, and the impact of home background on educational attainment. Later
phases of the study include data on family relationships, religious beliefs, employment,
housing, leisure and membership of organisations. The aim of the study is to provide
a better understanding of human development over the lifespan of a person.
There have been eight surveys of all members of the birth cohort. The first three
surveys were conducted by the National Children’s Bureau in 1965, 1969 and 1974. In
1985 the study was transferred to the then Social Statistics Research Unit (SSRU), now
the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), the fifth survey was conducted in 1991, the
sixth in 1999–2000, the seventh in 2004 and the final survey in 2008–09.
Data from the NCDS is hosted by the Economic and Social Data Service and is avail-
able for use by researchers by accessing www.esds.ac.uk/findingData/ncdsTitles.asp.
National Child Development Study (1958)

Wedge and Prosser conducted a similar longitudinal research project for the National
Children’s Bureau in which they surveyed all the children born between 3 and 9 March
1958 and followed them through their school careers. They produced a book called
Born to Fail (1973) in which they attempted to identify the factors associated with
educational underachievement from the data collected, starting in 1958 and ending in
1969. However, as the cohort of 18,559 children aged and became adults the data set
has been used by researchers to test a range of interesting hypotheses.
*AMES 3ARGENT AND $AVID "LANCHmOWER FOR EXAMPLE USED THE DATA SET TO
identify if there was a link between obesity and hourly earnings amongst people of
23 years of age. From the data collected from the 12,537 respondents who could be
traced, they found no relationship between obesity and earnings for males. For females
however there was a statistically significant inverse relation between obesity and earnings
Advantages and disadvantages of secondary analysis 71
independent of parental social class and ability test scores conducted when the cohort
were children.
The Economic and Social Data Service also provides a list of and links to all the
research projects that make use of the National Child Development data set for research
purposes, this can be found at www.esds.ac.uk/longitudinal/access/ncds/usage.asp.
Historical data
This form of research can involve data collection from either primary or secondary
sources in an effort to find information that allows the researcher to draw a more
accurate inference about the issues they are investigating. The representation of the
past can be drawn from published and unpublished documents, records, biographies,
asking people about their personal observations and experiences. Many people con-
duct historical research as an end in itself, but it is also of value to researchers who
are investigating contemporary issues. Historical data gives the researcher an under-
standing of trends, an indication of social change in the area, an indication of relevant
variables that have an impact on the issue to be investigated, suggests something
about how current practice in the area evolved and gives an indication of how other
researchers have explored the issue under investigation in the past.
The History Data Service (HDS) brings together and maintains a national historical
archive of social and economic historical data produced by academic historians and
distributes this information in digital form. Since 2008 the HDS has been hosted by
the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex. HDS also provides online advice to
researchers on how to make more effective use of historical data in their research. Access
to the data is free to students but to make use of the archive students have to register
via the website: http://hds.essex.ac.uk/history/about/introduction.asp.
Advantages and disadvantages of secondary analysis

In addition to the pragmatic reasons for using secondary data, such as the time advant-
age it gives to the researcher, Hakim has suggested that when the researcher relies on
secondary data rather than collecting their own data this can benefit the development
of theory:
‘One advantage of secondary analysis is that it forces the researcher to think more
closely about the theoretical aims and substantive issues of the study rather than
the practical and methodological problems of collecting new data. The time and
effort involved in obtaining funds for and organising a new survey can be devoted
instead to the analysis and interpretation of results’ (1982:16).
Smith (2009) has identified the benefits and the principal objections to the use of
secondary data analysis in social research. On the benefits side she makes the following
points:
s 5SINGSECONDARYDATAPROVIDESTHERESEARCHERWITHACCESSTODATAONASCALETHATTHEY
could not collect themselves, it allows researchers who do not have the technical
skills to conduct surveys with high-quality, valid and reliable data sets; secondary
data can be analysed and replicated from different perspectives and as such provides
opportunities for the discovery of relationships not previously considered.
s 3ECONDARY DATA IS SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED MEANING THAT IT IS A PRODUCT OF DElNITION
and negotiation between the people and organisations that collect it. Transforming
this data into a numeric form does not reflect its complexity and there is a loss of
information as a consequence.
s 3ECONDARYDATAISFULLOFERRORSFOREXAMPLE@!CCORDINGTOTHE0,!3#;0UPIL,EVEL
Annual School Census] 2005, 6479 pupils were permanently excluded from school
in 2003/04. This is far fewer than the 9880 reported by the then Department for
Education and Skills (DfES) in their Statistical First Release (DfES 2005). The reasons
for such discrepancies in the data are not entirely clear’ (Smith 2009: 91).
s 3ECONDARYDATAFROMOFlCIALGOVERNMENTSOURCESINPARTICULARISNOTVALUENEUTRAL
but reflects the interests of those in power.
s 3ECONDARYDATAANALYSISOFTENINVOLVESTHEANALYSISOFDATATHATHASBEENCOLLECTED
with a very different purpose in mind.
Thinkpiece
‘The argument that this data is socially constructed and can therefore serve
no real purpose in helping understand the social world is simply untenable.
Secondary data can provide a window to the social world, it can help identify
trends and inequities which further enquiry, often using in-depth research
methods, can explore’ (Smith 2009: 99).
‘Surely it is difficult to argue that researchers studying the challenges facing
pupils who are permanently excluded from school would not benefit from
understanding which young people are being excluded from which types of
schools and over which particular periods of time? Secondary data analysis
can tell us about what is happening in society about which inequalities persist,
however, it cannot tell us why these inequalities exist – that requires in-depth
approaches to which secondary data analysis is the ideal complement’
(Smith 2009: 100).
Write a summary of what you think are Smith’s main points in these two passages.
Do you accept or reject her arguments? Give reasons for your answer.
Conclusion 73
Conclusion
Official statistics have huge practical advantages for the social scientist; they are high in
both validity and reliability, for example birth rates. However, some official statistics,
notably unemployment statistics, suicide statistics and crime statistics, have attracted
criticism on the grounds that they are less valid. The government has changed how it
defines a person as unemployed several times, some sudden deaths are wrongly recorded
and the police do not always record crimes. Government statistics are easy to access
saving the researcher both time and money and are often recorded in standardised
categories, at regular intervals, allowing the researcher to identify trends in the data.
Secondary sources of data

Over the course of her research methods module, Erica has discovered how useful
the National Statistics Office webpages can be when searching for secondary data.
When she looked she found that Social Trends, for example, contains a great deal
of information about zoos as a visitor attraction and how many people visit zoos
over a given time period. Although Social Trends does not contain information
that is directly relevant to the research project, there is however a range of other
reliable sources, such as inspection reports, that contains multiple data sets and
makes use of both mixed qualitative and quantitative data that are relevant to
the question. Relevant organisations that produce reports that may contain useful
information include:
s :OOS)NSPECTORATE
s 7ILDLIFE)NSPECTORATE
s 230#!)NSPECTORATE
s 3TATE6ETERINARY3ERVICE
s 2#632IDING%STABLISHMENTS)NSPECTORATE
s /FlCEFOR3TANDARDSIN%DUCATION)NSPECTORATE/FSTED
s (ER-AJESTYS0LANNING)NSPECTORATE
You may not want to use these reports as the basis for your research because there
is an assumption that research projects involve the researcher collecting their
own original data. However Erica may still want to make use of secondary data
as part of her literature review. As said in the chapter, secondary analysis allows
her to place arguments from books and papers drawn from different time periods
together allowing her to make an informed judgement about the contemporary
relevance of research cited.
Bibliography
!NGST $" AND $EATRICK *! @)NVOLVEMENT IN HEALTH CARE DECISIONS PARENTS
and children with chronic illness’, Journal of Family Nursing, 2(2): 174–95.
Boismont, A.B.D. (1865) Du suicide et de la folie suicide, Paris: Librairie Germer-Baillière.
Cicourel, A.V. (1964) Method and Measurement in Sociology, New York: Wiley.
Cowton, C. (1998) ‘The Use of Secondary Data in Business Ethics Research’, Journal of
Business Ethics, 17: 423–34.
Dalton, D.R. and M.B. Metzger (1992) ‘Towards Candor, Cooperation, and Privacy
in Applied Business Ethics Research: The Randomized Response Technique (RRT)’,
Business Ethics Quarterly, 2(2): 207–21.
$OUGLAS* The Meanings We Give to Suicide0RINCETON.*0RINCETON5NIVERSITY
Press.
Durkheim, E. (1897) Suicide: A Study in Sociology TRANSLATED BY *OHN 3PAULDING AND
George Simpson, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hakim, C. (1982) Secondary Analysis in Social Research: A guide to data sources and methods
with examples, London: George Allen and Unwin.
(EATON* @3ECONDARYANALYSISOFQUALITATIVEDATASocial Research Update, 22.
Hindess, B. (1973) The Use of Official Statistics in Sociology: A critique of positivism and
ethnomethodology, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
(INDS036OGEL2*AND#LARKE 3TEFFEN, @4HEPOSSIBILITIESANDPITFALLSOF
doing a secondary analysis of a qualitative data set’, Qualitative Health Research, 7(3):
408–24.
3ARGENT * AND "LANCHmOWER $ @/BESITY AND 3TATURE IN !DOLESCENCE AND
Earnings in Young Adulthood: Analysis of a British Birth Cohort’, Archives of Pediatrics
and Adolescent Medicine, 148: 681–87.
Smith, E. (2009) ‘What can secondary data analysis tell us about school exclusions in
England?’, International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 32(1): 89–101.
Szabo, V. and Strang, V.R. (1997) ‘Secondary analysis of qualitative data’, Advances in
Nursing Science, 20(2): 66–74.
Wedge, P. and Prosser, H. (1973) Born to Fail?, London: Arrow Books/National Children’s
Bureau.
5 Interviews

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Introduction
The interview is one of the most popular methods of data collection in the social
sciences. Simply expressed, this is because in everyday life one of the most common
ways of getting people to give us information is to ask them for it. Interestingly, inter-
views are also used for data collection in a wide range of other situations far beyond
data collection for research projects: for example television interviews, police interviews,
job interviews, therapeutic interviews with doctors, nurses and counsellors etc., market
research interviews, the PhD viva, and so on. Clearly, for a diverse range of people and
organisations in a wide range of situations interviews are seen as a valid and reliable
method of collecting information from people. The assumption appears to be that in
a face-to-face encounter people are more willing to provide detailed information about
themselves when asked: conversation is an essential aspect of human behaviour.
You might want to reflect for a moment on how effective the interview is in terms
of selecting an employee, or in collecting evidence to solve a crime. In terms of data
collection for research projects in the social sciences there are a number of different
types of interview that can be placed on a continuum from a very formal structured
interview, in which the researcher reads from a list of questions in the same order, using
the same words and the same tone of voice to each respondent, to a very unstructured,
informal or in-depth interview where the researcher has a list of issues or concerns that
76 Chapter 5 Interviews
they want to discuss with the respondent and the interview process takes the form
of a guided conversation. There are a range of other types of semi-structured interview
between the structured and unstructured interview. With the semi-structured interview
the researcher has a list of formal questions they want to ask the respondent but other
issues, concerns or questions might arise over the course of the interview. This chapter
will outline and evaluate the different types of interview, explain how to compile the
interview schedule or interview guide, and how to conduct the data analysis. The chapter
also contains a discussion of online interviews and group interviews/focus groups; the
problem of poor response rate; the reluctance of respondents to provide full and truthful
answers; and a discussion of prompting and probing.
Issues to be aware of
The interview is a form of conversation, usually involving two people, initiated by the
researcher for the purpose of collecting data that can be used to support the aims of a
research project. Respondents are encouraged to talk about the issues that are raised by
the researcher. However, in everyday life sometimes when two people meet for the first
time, one individual may take a dislike to the other and this dislike will shape the con-
versation that they have. This issue of mutual dislike can also affect research interviews,
so although interviewing is a very popular method of data collection one common
failing identified with the interview is the potential for researcher bias. Cicourel (1964)
identifies several issues that need to be addressed when conducting an interview:
1. The respondent may feel uneasy about aspects of the questions asked and avoid
certain issues altogether or avoid giving full answers.
2. Communication may break down because the meaning and significance of what is
been said is not shared.
3. The respondent may choose to withhold information, such as personal information
from the researcher.
Everyday life is constrained and in our everyday conversations we do not always give
full and frank responses to the questions we are asked. Clearly then because the process
of interviewing is based upon the conversation, it is not immune from the strategies
and deceptions that affect our conversations in everyday life.
In the interview, respondents provide us with information about themselves, but
this information is rarely a collection of facts. The information gathered from interviews
often takes the form of spontaneous personal narratives based upon the respondent’s
personal opinion, observations and assumptions about the world.
Surprisingly, interviews conducted with the same group of respondents, drawn
from the same group of people in the population, about the same issues, are often very
different in quality and content. This may be because of differing levels of trust, social
*TTVFTUPCFBXBSFPG 77
distance or other factors that are outside the control of the researcher. Maintaining
politeness, for example, often results in people telling lies. I have eaten some awful
food at dinner parties but to avoid upsetting the host when I am asked if I enjoyed the
meal I will always reply ‘yes’. And I pretend to be sincere! Similarly, in an intimate
relationship we may lie to a partner to protect them in some way.
Probing and prompting
All researchers aim to produce valid and reliable research findings but in order to do
this we need our respondents to give us full and frank answers to our questions. If
respondents do not provide us with full and frank responses we do not have a com-
plete picture of the issues we are investigating and the validity of our findings is damaged.
Fielding (1993) has identified four possible reasons as to why people do not always
give full and frank responses to interview questions.
1. Rationalisation – respondents have a tendency to give rational reasons for their

actions, withholding reasons that are more emotional or petty.
2. Lack of awareness – some people may find it difficult to find the appropriate words
to express their thoughts or may not have the information that a full response to the
question requires.
3. Fear of being shown up – all people have a preferred self-image and if a full and
frank response to a question could potentially damage that preferred self-image the
respondent may decide not to give a full account.
4. Overpoliteness – some respondents may be flattered by their inclusion in a sample
and may feel that it is rude to give an answer that they feel the researcher is not
looking for.
Prompting and probing are two of the most popular techniques used to overcome
these problems. Prompting is simply encouraging the respondent to give a fuller answer
to a question. This can be done by repeating, rephrasing the question or simply asking
the respondent to say more about some aspect of their response. Indirect questioning
is also useful when dealing with sensitive questions. If you were to ask a person ‘Are
you a racist?’ they are unlikely to answer ‘yes’ and go on to give a full account of the
role that racism plays in their life. However, if you were to ask an indirect question
such as ‘Why do you think other people are racist?’ a respondent is more likely to give
a frank answer. The respondent can give their account of a racist’s motivation whilst
pretending to speak on behalf of another person.
Probing can be either verbal or non-verbal, such as nodding your head whilst the
respondent is speaking; taking a word from the response and repeating it back to the
respondent in an effort to encourage more comment on the word selected; making noises
such as um or ahh; using silence at the end of a response to encourage the respondent
to say more; completing a person’s sentence; or using pictures or other visual clues to
assist the respondent.
Interviewer bias
Interviewer bias is one of the most common threats to the validity of research projects
that use interviews as their main method of data collection. This bias can come from a
number of sources:
s THEQUESTIONSTHEMSELVESCANBELEADING
s THERESEARCHERMISREADSTHERESPONSEANDIMPOSESAMEANINGONTHERESPONSETHAT
the respondent did not intend;
s MISDIRECTEDPROBINGANDPROMPTINGnGETTINGTHERESPONDENTTOSAYSOMETHINGTHAT
is not a true reflection of their stance;
s AT THE WRITING UP STAGE RE DRAFTING THE transcript (verbatim account of what the respond-
ent said) or only selecting those parts of the transcript that support the researcher’s
argument.
Structured and unstructured interviews
Kvale and Brinkmann (2008) outline two very different conceptions of the interview
process which are described as the data-mining concept of the interview and the traveller
approach to interviewing.
With the miner metaphor, the objective information or meanings are assumed to
be a buried resource in the mind of the respondent and the interviewer is a miner who
digs for nuggets of knowledge out of a respondent’s pure experiences to unearth this
valuable resource. This is the most common approach to interviewing and views the
interview solely as a method of data collection. As researchers we ask interviewees to
provide reports or a description of a feeling, state, attitude, belief or event that they
have witnessed in the world and then the researcher has to fit the responses into coding
categories or themes. Selected sections of the interviewee’s answers are quoted in the
research report as data. Any form of subjectivity from the researcher should be eliminated
as this damages both the validity and the reliability of the data.
In contrast, the traveller metaphor is based upon the original Latin meaning of
conversation as ‘wandering together with’, in which we ask questions and encourage
our respondents to tell their own life stories and explore their taken-for-granted values
and customs in order to gain a fuller understanding of the meaning of the respondent’s
life. In this approach the emphasis is on interpretation. The interviewe process is like
a traveller on a journey to a distant country who wanders across the unknown terrain
without maps and the journey leads to the discovery of stories that can be retold upon
returning home. The traveller approach places a great deal of emphasis on interpretation
and understanding of the interviewee’s stance. Interviews help researchers to understand
more fully a respondent’s own perspective.
How to conduct the interview 79
How to conduct the interview

If you decide that the interview is the method of data collection you want to use for
your research project there are a number of important phases that you need to fulfil
before data collection can begin.
First you need to think about the purpose of the research project, what questions you
want to explore, and what your aims and objectives are. If you are interested in finding
out factual information from your respondents that is not intrusive, not highly personal
or sensitive you might consider asking closed questions. A closed question is one in which
respondents are asked to choose from a limited range of responses that you provide
for them to choose from. With this approach the respondent is given a question and
is asked to choose from a limited range of answers provided by the researcher. Closed
questions can include questions about age, race, gender and income, for example:
s !REYOUMALEORFEMALE
s (OWOLDAREYOUnnnETC
s (OWMUCHDOYOUEARNPERYEARannn
60,000+
One problem here is that although you may not believe the above questions are
sensitive, the respondents may think otherwise.
Thinkpiece
Why do you think some respondents may be sensitive about their income or
indeed lie about the true amount? If you have already compiled a questionnaire
then try and identify the most controversial questions.
Alternatively, if you are interested in gathering data about what people think and feel
about a given issue, or what meaning people attach to a given issue, or you are generally
unsure about how people are going to respond then you will have to ask open questions.
An open question is where respondents are not given a set of responses to choose from
but can answer the question however they wish.
The advantage of a closed question is that by providing the respondent with a
question and a choice of response, the data have already been categorised before being
collected. Once the respondents have answered all the questions the researcher simply
counts the responses given in order to generate the findings. The closed question format
assumes that the researcher is so familiar with the area under investigation that all the
possible responses from the respondents can be anticipated. If respondents want to
answer a question with a response that the researcher has not anticipated there will be
no response provided by the researcher for the respondent to choose. If the respondent
is unable to choose an appropriate answer from the range of responses this will damage
the validity of the findings. Many researchers attempt to overcome this problem by
providing an open category or ‘other’ response category that the respondent can choose,
usually with the opportunity for the respondent to explain more fully their response
in their own words. It is perfectly reasonable for an interview schedule to contain a
number of closed and open questions.
As a researcher you need to give some thought to both the question format and the
response format:
s !RETHEQUESTIONSGOINGTOBEOPENQUESTIONSCLOSEDQUESTIONSORACOMBINATIONOF
both?
s (OWDOYOUWANTPEOPLETORESPONDTOTHEQUESTIONSYOUASK
s $OYOUWANTRESPONDENTSTOGIVEASIMPLEYESORNORESPONSEOR
s $O YOU WANT PEOPLE TO GIVE FULLER RESPONSES THAT ALLOW YOU TO EXPLORE THE
respondents’ feelings?
The closed question response may be simple, but it is not simplistic. Closed questions
can be used to collect data on people’s attitudes, beliefs, opinions, fears, aspirations
and much more. Even very sensitive questions can be asked with the inventive use
of a closed question format. As researchers we can provide a respondent with a closed
question that takes the form of a statement and ask the respondent to choose an appro-
priate response from a scale of possible responses.
Example
Question 1 Please read the following statement and tick the response that most
closely reflects your own view: ‘The British government should give priority to
reducing unemployment over concerns about the environment.’
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Question 2 Please read the following question and tick the response that most
closely reflects your own view: When travelling on public transport how would
you feel if a young man of Asian heritage, wearing a beard, traditional clothes
and carrying a backpack sat next to you. Would you be?
Very concerned for your personal safety
Fearful
Neither concerned nor unconcerned
Not fearful
Not at all concerned for your personal safety
Coding and data analysis: structured interviews 81
Where do the questions come from on an interview schedule?
The questions asked by a researcher should emerge from the aims and objectives of the
research project. The responses to the questions asked should provide the researcher
with the information necessary to achieve fully the aims of the research project. Some
of the questions asked in an interview are based upon our personal knowledge of the
field. Ideally your questions should reflect key issues that are discussed by academics
within the field. In other words, your review of the literature in the area should suggest
important issues that need to be addressed in the questions asked. Your research pro-
ject will need to contain a methodological justification. This justification should be
more than simply a list of advantages and disadvantages of the choice of method used,
but if the word limit for your project allows, should also contain a justification for each
question asked. Ideally you should be in a position to justify each question asked by
being able to point to relevant research in the area.
Many of the variables we use in the social sciences are very abstract and are only
found at a conceptual level. Variables need to be operationalised: this means that we
need to find an appropriate indicator that demonstrates how the variable impacts on
the field that we are investigating. If we take poverty as our variable we need to identify
one or more indicators of poverty. Each indicator should be clear and unambiguous
as a measure of poverty. You might want to reflect for a moment on suitable indicators
that you could use to measure poverty. Educational researchers often use a child’s receipt
of free school meals as an indicator of poverty, as the child’s family has to meet a range
of criteria in relation to low income in order to claim free school meals.
In summary, as a researcher you need to have a clear set of questions contained
within your interview schedule that reflect the aims of the research project and the
relevant major issues in the published research within the field. Questions need to
reflect the variables or central theories and concepts in the area and each variable needs
to be operationalised by the use of appropriate indicators that are found within each
question asked.
Coding and data analysis: structured interviews

Analysis and interpretation are the processes of making sense of our collected data.
Analysis essentially means taking apart the responses to our questions in order to
reconstruct them in a way that allows us to create a meaningful explanation of why
events unfold in the way they do. This involves drawing an inference or arriving at a
conclusion that is a defensible explanation of why people responded to our questions
in the way they did.
The way in which we analyse data is very different for open questions than it is for
closed questions. With the structured interview, especially where a significant number
of closed questions have been asked, the researcher conducts the data analysis once the
data collection is complete. In contrast with in-depth interviews the data analysis and
data collection can take place at the same time.
As we have seen, with the closed question format respondents are given the question
and a choice of answers and they are expected to choose the response that comes closest
to their own personal response. The great advantage of the closed question format is
that because the potential responses we give respondents are already organised into
categories that reflect the aims of the research project and key issues in the area, data
analysis is much simpler than with the open question format.
In order to collect a valid set of responses from respondents, the interviewer attempts
to achieve ‘equivalence of stimuli’. This means that we ask the same questions, using the
same words, in the same order, with the same tone of voice to each respondent. This
allows the researcher to claim that any differences between respondents’ answers to the
questions is due solely to the respondents’ differing opinions, attitudes or beliefs and
is not a product of interviewer bias. With data from closed questions most researchers
identify the central tendency from the responses given for each question. The central
tendency is simply the most popular response given by the sample of respondents, or the
average response given by respondents. The average is usually calculated by calculating
the mean response.
The mean is simply the average of the numbers and we calculate the mean by adding
up all the numbers and then dividing the total figure by the number of numbers we
counted. For example:
7 + 12 + 8 = 27
27 divided by 3 = 9
You will find out more about the mean and other statistical measures in Chapter 8.
Once the researcher has identified the central tendency in the array of data the task
is to explain why people responded in the way that they did. As with all data analysis
explanation building is a creative process. However, two of the most common forms
of analysis and interpretation that are ideal for explanation building from interview
data are correspondence and pattern matching (see Chapter 6).
In-depth interviews
The in-depth interview can be viewed as an extended conversation for the purpose of
data collection. If the researcher is skilled at conversation the approach can be effective
in gaining an insight into feeling states, attitudes and beliefs that are often hidden.
With the in-depth interview the researcher has an interview guide rather than an
interview schedule. The interview guide may contain some specific questions that have
emerged from the reading of the relevant literature in the area, but it will also contain
puzzlements. Puzzlements are ideas or unclear perceptions that the researcher has about
*OEFQUIJOUFSWJFXT 83
the area of investigation. They may not take the form of clearly worded questions but
it is hoped that the interviewee’s subjective experience of the field can shed light on the
issues we are unclear about. Puzzlements can be very useful in exploratory interviews
when the researcher is still at the stage of working out the aims and objectives of the
research project and developing an understanding of the field.
When in-depth interviews are used as the primary method of data collection, they
tend not to be standardised. Respondents are asked new or supplementary questions to
highlight or more fully explore points they have made in previous answers. Puzzlements
can emerge during the interview itself and as such the interviewer often has to decide
which ideas or points they want to pursue more fully with the respondent whilst the
interview is in progress. The in-depth interview is regarded as a useful research method
to use when the subject matter is very personal, sensitive or complicated. In their
analysis of Latino marriages Harris et al. asked the following open ended questions of
their respondents: ‘How would you describe a strong marriage?’, ‘What is essential for
a strong marriage?’, ‘How did you learn about what it takes to have a strong marriage?’,
and ‘What would be the most helpful in supporting Latino couples to have a strong
MARRIAGE
In the in-depth interview the researcher needs to develop a rapport with respondents
and as a consequence the researcher is never passive. If there is any doubt or uncertainty
about a response the researcher simply asks another question but never just lets an
unclear answer remain unchallenged.
Data analysis
As you can imagine the task of analysing this data is far more time consuming than
finding the central tendency from responses to closed questions. As Harris et al. explain
their data analysis involved the following:
‘the researchers first became immersed in the interview data by independently

READINGALLTHERESPONSESTHATINCLUDEDAPPROXIMATELYPAGESOFSINGLE SPACED
transcript. From this reading the themes of friendship, trust, and love were identi-
fied. With the existing research about European and Latino marriage and family life
IN MIND THE RESEARCHERS INDEPENDENTLY LOOKED FOR HOW THESE COUPLES TALKED
about friendship, trust, and love and the role they played in their Latino marriages’
n
The categories of friendship, trust and love are said to have emerged from the data.
In other words, they are the ideas or organising principles that the respondents used
when they talked about a strong marriage. Why the respondents talk about marriage
in this way requires us to build an explanation. Like all good researchers Harris et al.
draw upon other research in the first instance to see if there is an existing explanation
for why people have responded in the way that they have. If no adequate explanation
can be found in the literature then as researchers we have to construct our own account
of why respondents think and act in the way that they do. This explanation building
process may be subjective in nature but if our explanation appears to explain why
respondents think and act in the way that they do then it is an appropriate inference.
Using open questions

Crain (2001) in her study of religious educators also used open questions and
gives a very full account of how she does this:
‘I begin each interview by telling about my interest in how people come to
faith, how they think about God and how their lives have brought them
to this point. I often say, “I experience you as a faithful person, one who is
trying to live in a way that will be pleasing to God. I see you coming to this
church. Tell me about your life so that I will understand why you are here.”
I also let the person know that I have time to really listen. I might say, “We
have an hour or so. I want to hear your story.” I use a small tape recorder.
I tell the person, “The tape will be transcribed by my secretary and then I’ll
send the transcript to you. You may then take out anything that you want to.”
Several times, in the midst of an interview, the interviewee has asked me to
turn off the tape when he or she told me something off the record. I have
always honored that request very faithfully. Having made these clarifications,
I sit back and wait. I let the person begin wherever he or she wishes. I watch
and listen and respond with “Uh huh” and “Really?” and “Mmmn” quite often.
I try to be an active listener, telling the person that I am interested, but not
providing comments or categories. I want to let the person shape the story
because those choices tell me a lot about what is most important and how
the person thinks. I want to let the interviewee choose categories and language
for the story. If I talk very much, I will inadvertently supply vocabulary and
emphases which are mine, rather than belonging to the intensely personal
epistemology of the interviewee’ (2001: 391).
To summarise, Crain gives clear instructions to the respondent, such as tell me your life
story in one hour. However, the respondent is free to answer the question in whatever
manner they wish, although they may be prompted to give fuller responses by Crain
using words such as ‘Uh huh’ and ‘Really?’ and ‘Mmmn’. Themes or categories emerge
from the respondents themselves and as more people are interviewed the themes are
more clearly defined or new themes or categories emerge as comparison is made
between different groups of respondents. The data are collected with the use of a tape
recorder and later transcribed. It is important to note that in similar research projects
a respondent’s transcribed story may not be a word-for-word account. The life story
may be restoried by a researcher: this means that some researchers will change aspects
of the verbatim account to make it grammatically correct.
*OEFQUIJOUFSWJFXT 85
Content analysis
Once a transcript had been produced Crain’s data analysis took the form of a content
analysis, as she explains:
‘Analysis requires another whole set of skills. We have developed a method using
six different colors of highlighting pens, making finding certain passages easier. For
instance, pink has been used for statements that clearly point to a developmental
stage. Blue highlights statements about the institution of the church. Then, when
you are thinking about a certain theme that your participants have used such as
images of God, you can search out all the yellow highlighting and quickly find
these references’ (2001: 392).
Steps in content analysis

Content analysis is a clear and often effective approach to data analysis. The steps
involved are as follows:
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s )NVENT A SET OF ANALYTICAL CATEGORIES n IN A WRITTEN TEXT THESE MAY BE SPECIlC WORDS
s #OUNTTHENUMBEROFTIMESORINTHECASEOF#RAINSRESEARCHTHEAMOUNTOF
space given to each indicator as it appears in the text. (Crain did this by using
coloured marker pens on the transcript to identify the key words.)
s 4HEAMOUNTOFSPACEDEVOTEDTOATHEMEINTHETEXTWILLTELLYOUSOMETHING
about its significance.
s /NCEYOUHAVECOUNTEDALLTHEKEYWORDSDRAWANINFERENCE
With this approach the researcher categorises comments made by respondents in the
interview. The researcher then marks the topics or categories identified within the tran-
script with the coloured marker pens and engages in creative and sensitive aggregation
of the data in an effort to draw an appropriate inference and construct an explanation.
This approach to explanation building may be regarded by some people as subjective
– but for many researchers there is no better way to make sense of the complexities of
people’s responses to in-depth interview questions.
Narrative analysis
An alternative approach to data analysis of a transcript is to engage in a form of narrative

analysis. The purpose of the narrative analysis is to understand the narrative (people’s
spoken word) as a whole. The transcript is scrutinised to identify its central meaning,
allowing the researcher to identify themes. Researchers examine the transcript in order
to find an expression that reflects the fundamental meaning of the narrative as a whole.
Passages that are thematically representative of the narrative, and reflect a common
understanding amongst the respondents, are used in the final research report, to give
the reader a clear insight into the respondents’ perception of the issues. This approach
was adopted by Kallioniemi:
‘The analysis of the research material was started after the seventh interview with
preliminary categories being constructed from the material. All the research material
was looked at to obtain an overall impression. After this every single interview was
analysed separately. Then they were reduced to the general ideas of students who
were interviewed and their different lines of emphasis were determined. In analysing
the material the researcher defined the units of interpretation with the help of key
questions. The units of interpretation could be used to find one or more meanings.
These units of interpretation could not be defined beforehand, although they could
be found when the researcher had read and analysed the material’ (2003: 190).
This form of analysis of the transcript can be prone to errors such as a category error where
we wrongly place one observation into the wrong category or simply misunderstand
something that we read or hear. In addition, the researcher’s perspective, personal or
political biases can shape or influence our understanding of the data we have collected.
Thinkpiece
It is commonly assumed that if the interviewer and interviewee share important
demographic characteristics such as gender, age, ethnic and social class back-
ground the more likely it is that this will encourage more honest, full and frank
responses. Reinharz (1992) and Harding (1987) argue that for some topics, only
female researchers should interview women.
Anne Oakley (1981) investigated the experience of a group of women who
were giving birth to their first children. Her argument was that the first pregnancy
has a significant impact on the lives of women, their careers, relationships with
husbands/partners, housework and sense of self. Oakley wanted to find out if the
feelings she had had about becoming a mother for the first time were common
amongst other women. Oakley asked open and often very personal questions
about the experience of being pregnant, the birth and shared her own thoughts,
feelings and reflections about her own experiences with the women.
Questions
1. You may want to reflect on how you would feel in an interview with a person
who did not share your gender. Are there issues that you would not be willing
to discuss with a researcher of the opposite sex?
2. Could a man have conducted Anne Oakley’s research into pregnancy and
motherhood and obtained the same quality of data?
$PMMBCPSBUJWFJOUFSWJFXJOH 87
The funnel
One approach developed by Brannen (1988) to gather sensitive personal accounts is
known as the funnel. We invite our respondents to answer questions about a very broad
or general area of investigation such as ‘family life’. However, over the course of the
interview we gradually sharpen the focus of our questioning to look at our area of
interest, which will be a sensitive issue related to family life such as domestic violence
or child abuse. The assumption is that although a person may be unwilling to consent
to be interviewed on this subject, by skilful use of questioning it may become possible
to get very full and personal responses to our questions.
Thinkpiece
The ethics of in-depth interviewing
Does the use of the funnel – or any other approach that involves the respondent
consenting to answer general questions about an area of investigation, when
the researcher’s intention is to allow detailed questions about a sensitive issue
to emerge over the course of the interview – raise any ethical issues or concerns
about informed consent?
Collaborative interviewing
In order to move away from the potential ethical issues raised by the funnel, Laslett
AND 2APOPORT DEVELOPED AN APPROACH TO IN DEPTH INTERVIEWING KNOWN AS
collaborative interviewing. This approach has been used in feminist research. With col-
laborative interviewing the interview guide is shared with the respondent so that the
respondent knows the questions to be asked over the course of the interview. Interviews
tend to be longitudinal in nature, in other words there are a series of several inter-
views with the same respondent over a period of time. At the start of the interview the
respondent is asked to reflect on the previous session and can ask for information
to be added or removed from the account given. The approach also recognises that
with sensitive subjects a respondent may feel unhappy giving potentially damaging
or embarrassing personal information to a stranger. To overcome this imbalance,
collaborative interviewing attempts to create a much fuller rapport between the inter-
viewer and the respondent. Both the interviewer and the respondent share personal
information about each other in the interview so that the data collection process has
the feel of a conversation.
Selecting the sample

With structured interviews that involve collecting information from a sample drawn
from a large population it is usual for researchers to outline their sampling procedure.
If we want to argue that our findings are representative of the population we need to
have a representative sample of the population. Chapter 12 on the sample survey looks
in detail at the process of sampling including: sampling frames; choosing an appropriate
sampling frame; sampling procedure; probability sampling; sampling interval; non-
probability sampling; stratified sampling; quota sampling; and sample size. Chapter 12
will also look at the use of appropriate statistical techniques to draw conclusions from a
set of data; the observed values of variables are called statistics or statistical characteristics,
where we attempt to infer from what we have observed (the sample) to what we have not
(the whole population).
At this stage it is important to note that a random sample, or probability sample, as
it is also known, is very systematic in nature. As researchers we select the sample in
such a way that each person in the population we are interested in has an equal chance
of being selected: this is commonly referred to as randomised selection. A random
sample does not simply involve stopping people at random and asking them if they
would like to answer a few questions – this approach is known as convenience sampling
or opportunistic sampling. This form of sampling should be avoided as it does not
produce a representative sample of the population. In a nutshell, to conduct a random
sample you need to:
s IDENTIFYTHEPOPULATIONYOUAREINTERESTEDINRESEARCHING
s IDENTIFYORlNDALISTOFALLTHEPEOPLEINTHEPOPULATIONYOUAREINTERESTEDINnTHIS
is the sampling frame;
s SELECTASAMPLINGINTERVALBYARANDOMMETHODSUCHASSELECTINGARANDOMNUMBER
(The sampling interval is the gap (interval) from the first person you select from the
sampling to the next, and you keep selecting people at the same interval until you
come to the end of the list of names.)
With in-depth interviews it is often the case that the population that you are interested
in are hidden from public view or that no list of people in the population you are
interested in is available to you. In cases like this researchers often have to use some
form of non-probability sampling procedure such as snowball sampling. You approach a
known member of the population you are interested in and ask if they would like to
participate in the research project. In addition you also ask if they could approach other
people from the population and ask them if they would like to volunteer to participate
in the sample. The idea is that the sample gradually grows larger and although we can
never be sure that our snowball sample is representative of the population we are inter-
ested in this procedure does give us a group of people from the population we are
interested in. Snowball sampling is much more effective if the researcher can enlist a
sponsor who can reassure the people who are approached that the research is legitimate.
Group interviews and focus groups 89
Harris et al.’s research made use of a sponsor and they briefly describe what the sponsor
did as follows:
‘The second author on this article, who was also the principal investigator on the
project, contacted two leaders of Latino organizations and two Catholic priests who
had large Latino memberships. These two leaders and two priests helped identify
COUPLESWHOHADSTRONGMARRIAGES
In the chapter so far we have assumed that interviews are conducted between one
researcher and one respondent. There are however forms of group interview or focus
group that you might find useful.
Group interviews and focus groups

A focus group can be defined as a group-based in-depth interview, the main aim of
which is to explain and understand, the meanings, feelings, beliefs and attitudes that
influence the behaviours of individuals who are assumed to share a common culture,
problem or issue. Participants in a focus group are selected by the use of purposive
sampling. In other words, the individuals may not be representative of the population
we are interested in but they are from the specific population we are interested in.
They all have knowledge of the area we are investigating and as such we can reasonably
expect that the group will be ‘focused’ on the topic for discussion. If group members
feel comfortable disclosing personal information to other group members they will
often question each other and/or raise issues that you as the researcher may not have
been aware of. In addition, the social interaction within the group often exposes differ-
ences in perspective between group members. Potentially the method can generate data
that are deeper and richer than that collected from one-to-one interviews. However,
the difficulties involved in maintaining confidentiality and anonymity mean that a
high level of trust is required from group members in order to maintain the ethics of
the data collection process.
In terms of the practical steps for data collection, one issue that needs to be
addressed is whether to choose group participants who are already known to each
other. On the one hand this could encourage more honest responses but on the other
hand issues within the group that are not related to the topic under discussion can
affect the dynamics within the group. There are a number of important roles that need
to be filled if the group discussion is going to be ordered. One is the group facilitator
or moderator who has the role of managing the discussion and making sure that all
participants get an opportunity to engage in the discussion. In addition, even if you agree
with the group that the group discussion can be tape recorded you should still employ
a note taker to record the non-verbal interaction within the group. As the researcher
you also need to decide on the number of people you want to include in the group.
The more people who are involved in the discussion the more data will be generated.
However, the more people involved the more difficult it becomes to complete a
transcript or keep order in the room.
Online interviews
In the chapter so far we have assumed that interviews are conducted between the
researcher and the respondent face to face, in real time. There is no reason why
interviews have to be conducted face to face: synchronous (real time) interviews and
asynchronous (non-real time) interviews can be conducted online.
Not only is the internet very popular as a source of information and as a form of
communication between friends and colleagues but by making use of social network-
ing sites it is possible for people from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, over
great distances and who have never physically met face to face to have associations and
social contact online. With synchronous interviews the respondent and the researcher
have to be online at the same time usually via MSN messenger or a chat room. The most
common form of asynchronous interview is by the use of email. However, there are
other forums such as bulletin boards or online discussion groups. With the asynchronous
email interview the researcher sends an email to the respondent and asks if they would
be willing to participate in the research project. Once the respondent has agreed to
participate, the researcher then sends an email with the questions to the respondent
who then completes the questions and returns the completed answers. The interview
can take place over a period of time with several exchanges of email.
Advantages of email interviewing

s 0EOPLEAREFAMILIARWITHEMAILANDITISMUCHCHEAPERTHANHAVINGTOTRAVEL
and meet people face to face.
s 4HEUSUALLYTIME CONSUMINGTASKOFWRITINGATRANSCRIPTISSIGNIlCANTLYREDUCED
because answers can be cut from the main body of the email and pasted into
a Word document.
s %MAIL CAN BE SENT AND RETURNED QUICKLY OVER LONG DISTANCES TO PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT
time zones.
s 1UESTIONSCANBEANSWEREDATTHECONVENIENCEOFTHERESPONDENT
s 4HE METHOD IS IDEAL FOR LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH AS RESEARCHERS CAN ASK SUPPLE-
mentary questions in response to the answers given.
s 4HERESPONDENTHASTIMETOREmECTONTHEIRANSWERS
s &OCUSGROUPSORGROUPINTERVIEWSCANALSOBECONDUCTEDBYEMAILBYASKING
respondents to reply-to-all when responding to questions.
Online interviews 91
s *OINSONAND0AINE .GUYENAND!LEXANDER AND7ELLMANAND

Gulia (1999) have all suggested that respondents are more willing to be open
and honest with strangers online than in face-to-face interviews.
s 3HY PEOPLE WHO MAY NOT AGREE TO A FACE TO FACE INTERVIEW ARE PERHAPS MORE
willing to participate.
s "IASES THAT MIGHT EMERGE IN A FACE TO FACE INTERVIEW BECAUSE OF DIFFERENCES
between the respondent and the researcher in terms of gender, age, race or
disability status are diminished.
s 3NOWBALL SAMPLING IS MORE EFFECTIVE ONLINE AS IT IS POSSIBLE TO EMAIL ORGANISATIONS
or support groups associated with the population we wish to interview.
However, many researchers might consider the disembodied, anonymous and textual
internet environment to be unsuitable for qualitative research, especially if the research
project requires us to collect sensitive and personal information. There are potential
disadvantages that researchers have to take into account.
Disadvantages of email interviewing

s 2EmECTION DRAFTING AND REDRAFTING RESPONSES CAN INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD
that respondents will give rational or socially acceptable reasons for their
actions or beliefs in their responses which damages the validity of the research
findings.
s 4HERE IS LIMITED OPPORTUNITY TO PROMPT AND PROBE RESPONDENTS AS THEY CAN
simply delete or ignore emails.
s 4HEAUTHENTICITYOFTHEDATAISPOTENTIALLYQUESTIONABLEWHENGATHEREDUSING
online interviews.
s 2ESEARCHERSHAVETOACCEPTWHOAPERSONCLAIMSTOBEATFACEVALUEANDWHEN
satisfied of this then there are additional ethical problems to overcome.
s )T MAY BE MORE DIFlCULT FOR RESEARCHERS TO MAINTAIN THE CONlDENTIALITY AND
privacy of the respondents.
s 4HEREAREADDITIONALPROBLEMSMAINTAININGTHESECURITYOFONLINEDATA
s &INALLY THE BORDER BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACES ONLINE NEEDS TO BE
addressed. If a person contributes to a blog or posts a comment on a website
can we use that information without the author’s informed consent? The
information may be in the public domain but you may still need permission
to use it for research purposes.
A fuller account of online synchronous and asynchronous interviews can be found in

"ECK $AVIS et al. (2004); Egan et al. (2006); Hamilton and Bowers (2006);
*AMES *AMESAND"USHER
Conclusion
It is important to keep in mind that a good interview online is very similar to a good
face-to-face interview, in that there are a number of stages that you have to go through
before you start the data collection process:
s (AVEACLEARIDEAOFTHETYPEOFINFORMATIONYOUWANTFROMTHERESPONDENT
s 3ELECTANAPPROPRIATEGROUPOFPEOPLEORSAMPLEOFPEOPLETOINTERVIEW
s (AVEACLEARPREAMBLEINWHICHYOUEXPLAINTOTHERESPONDENTWHATTHERESEARCHIS
about; confidentiality; who will see the information they give you; how the informa-
tion will be used; and if the research report will be accessible by the public.
s 'ETPERMISSIONANDETHICALAPPROVAL
s 1UESTIONS SHOULD BE RELATED TO KEY CONCEPTS AND VARIABLES n THIS INCLUDES OPEN
questions, closed questions and mixed questions.
s !SKNON SENSITIVEQUESTIONSlRSTnTOPUTTHERESPONDENTATEASE
s !TTHEENDOFTHEINTERVIEWREmECTONHOWTHEINTERVIEWWENT$IDYOUGETCOMPLETE
or valid responses?
s #HOOSEANAPPROPRIATEMETHODOFDATAANALYSIS
Should Erica use the interview as her method of data collection?

From her reading Erica knows that if she wanted to use the interview as her main
method of data collection the first stage is for her to think about the purpose of
the research project, what questions she wants to explore, what her aims and
objectives are for the project and who she is going to interview.
As we now know, zoos have a moral as well as a legal obligation to provide
visitors with education and information on biodiversity and sustainability.
Erica’s aim for the research project is find out how well or how badly zoos
fulfil their legal obligations. But how can she find the information she needs?
Who can she interview? One option would be to interview people who inspect
zoos to find out how well zoos are fulfilling their obligations. Bodies such as
the Zoos Inspectorate, the Wildlife Inspectorate or the RSPCA Inspectorate could
be approached. But she could find this information from the reports these bodies
have published, so instead Erica decides to interview visitors.
One problem is that there is no available sampling frame, no list of zoo
visitors that Erica can use to conduct random sampling. She could interview
people who were leaving zoos and ask them questions about their knowledge of
biodiversity and sustainability. Social Trends, which is available via the National
Statistics Office, gives some information on the number of zoo visitors and some
of their demographic characteristics such as age. Erica could use this information
to design a quota sample: a sample that although not selected by a systematic
#JCMJPHSBQIZ 93
sampling procedure should generate a population that has the characteristics and
features of a sample selected at random, with, for example, the appropriate num-
bers of females and males, children, retired people, parents and grandparents.
Erica is of the opinion that she should try to find out some factual information
from her respondents about what they know about biodiversity and sustainability.
Moreover, because Erica is also of opinion that this information is not intrusive,
not personal and not sensitive she decides to ask closed questions in which the
respondents are asked to choose from a limited range of responses that she will
provide for them.
After all she has read in the chapter that the great advantage of the closed ques-
tion format is that because the responses she provides the respondents to choose
from are already organised into categories that reflect the aims of her research
project, the data analysis should be much simpler. There are still problems for
her to overcome. Devising closed questions about biodiversity and sustainability
is not an easy task especially when many of the respondents are children. Erica
also knows that ideally her questions should reflect key issues within the field
that academic research has addressed.
She decides to approach the interview as a quiz to be conducted with volunteer
respondents as they leave the zoo. She decides to choose one or more zoos, read
the signs, other information and educational literature that the zoo provides
visitors, and design a collection of factual questions that have a right or wrong
answer. This should provide her with factual information on the knowledge that
visitors have about biodiversity and sustainability.
Erica writes a preamble in which she introduces herself, explains that she is
doing a research project about biodiversity and sustainability and asks people if
they would mind participating in the ‘quiz’.
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"ECK #4 @"ENElTS OF 0ARTICIPATING IN )NTERNET )NTERVIEWS 7OMEN (ELPING
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"RANNEN* @4HESTUDYOFSENSITIVESUBJECTSThe Sociological Reviewn
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!.*OINSON+9!-C+ENNA40OSTMESAND5 $2EIPSEDS Oxford Handbook
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Research’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 37(9): 68–77.
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the Polity’ in R. Shields (ed.) Cultures of Internet: Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living
Bodies, London: Sage.
Oakley, A. (1981) ‘Interviewing Women: A Contradiction in Terms’, in H. Roberts (ed.)
Doing Feminist Research, New York: Routledge.
Reinharz, S. (1992) Feminist Methods in Social Research, New York: Oxford University
Press.
Wellman, B. and Guila, M. (1999) ‘Net Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities
as Communities’, in P. Kollock and M. Smith (eds) Communities and Cyberspace, New
York: Routledge.
6 The case study

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research project
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t UIFTUBOEBSEDSJUJDJTNTPGUIFDBTFTUVEZBQQSPBDI
Introduction
The case study is one of the most appropriate methods of data collection for a researcher
who is working alone on a project with a limited amount of time and resources. In brief,
the case study approach is an in-depth investigation into a case and a case is simply the
focus of our research. The purpose of the case study is to gather a great deal of detailed
information about that one single case.
This means that case studies are often very broad in nature and as a researcher
you need to make it clear to your reader what your focus or ‘unit of analysis’ (the
specific thing you are investigating) will be in the study. Case studies can have a focus
on a geographical location, such as William Foote Whyte’s study of an Italian American
community he called Cornerville; or an in-depth investigation of a decision such as
Graham Allison’s study of the Cuban Missile Crisis; or a personal history such as Harold
Garfinkel’s study of Agnes the transsexual.
According to Yin (1989) a case study is an empirical inquiry that is used to investigate
issues of concern within a real life context. Very often as researchers we are unsure if
people’s motivation to act is shaped by the context in which they find themselves or if they
have free will to act as they choose. As Yin suggests, within the case the boundaries
between personal motivation and context in which the action takes place is not clear:
96 Chapter 6 The case study
‘the case study allows an investigation to retain the holistic and meaningful
characteristics of real-life events – such as individual life cycles, organizational
and managerial processes, neighbourhood change, international relations, and the
maturation of industries’ (Yin 1989: 14).
Traditionally case studies have been associated with qualitative methods of data collection.
Interpretation is always a central element of the case study approach, and the motiva-
tion and meanings of the respondents have to be directly recognised by the researcher.
In addition, as a researcher you have to be aware that there is often a high cost to the
case study approach not only in terms of time and money. There are many potential
ethical concerns with this approach, as this form of social research involves some invasion
of personal privacy. The case study approach can often be subjective and like other
forms of qualitative inquiry the researcher has to be aware of when they are offering a
personal and subjective view of the case. However, case studies allow the researcher to
identify issues that emerge from the respondents and issues that are imposed on the
respondents from outside of the case.
Yin suggests that the case study is central to the ethnographic approach to research
but it is possible to conduct a case study without leaving the library or even leaving
your house.
In summary, the two principal uses of case study research are to obtain:
1. descriptions, and
2. interpretations of others.
It is for these reasons that case studies are most commonly used by researchers who are
engaged in qualitative research projects.
Qualitative methods
Qualitative research has been defined as ‘any kind of research that produces
findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of
quantification’ (McLeod 1994: 77).
Denzin and Lincoln define qualitative research as:
‘multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to
its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in
their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret phenomena
in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety
of empirical materials – case study, personal experience, introspective, life
story, interview, observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts – that
describe routine and problematic moments and meaning in individuals’ lives’
(1994: 2).
'PSNTPGDBTFTUVEZ 97
Forms of case study

It is not uncommon with case studies for the researcher to use several methods of
data collection at the same time; this is because very often researchers are interested in
collecting information or evidence from several sources. A case study can be either:
s ANINSTRUMENTALCASESTUDYOR
s ANINTRINSICCASESTUDY
The instrumental case study

This involves research to gain an understanding of some wider phenomena or relation-
ships within the world. Willis (1977) for example, investigated the behaviour of 12
‘lads’ in a single-sex secondary school in order to understand more fully the Marxian
analysis of class formation. Although Willis suggests that the 1970s was a period of
upward social mobility in which any single individual had the potential to make use
of the education system to move up the class ladder into a professional or managerial
occupation, not all school children could be upwardly mobile. So Willis wanted to
understand how and why working class children got working class jobs.
Willis worked behind a coffee bar in a youth centre that was attached to a secondary
modern school in the Midlands. He identified the group of 12 ‘lads’ who were to be the
focus of his study and then sought permission from the school to observe the ‘lads’ in
school. Willis observed two subcultures within school. First there were the earholes, who
accepted the teachers’ definition of the role of the school, who worked hard in class,
wanted to do well in public examinations and accepted the authority of the teachers.
Willis explains that this group was called the earholes because they were always listening
to the teachers. The other subculture observed by Willis was known as the lads. This
group did not accept the teachers’ definition of the role of the school, they did not work
hard in class, they wanted to leave school at the earliest opportunity without taking
public examinations and continuously challenged the authority of the teachers.
Willis gives a very detailed account of the school lives of the lads in which he
describes and explains the masculine shop floor culture that the lads used within the
school environment. The types of behaviours that the lads engaged in such as ‘taking
the piss’ and ‘having a laugh’ at the expense of the teachers and the earholes was the
same sort of behaviour that he was to later observe when the lads got jobs in factories.
However, Willis’ focus is not solely on processes and events within the school, he was
interested in how the wider processes of class formation found in capitalist societies
could be observed in the behaviour of the lads.
The intrinsic case study

This occurs when the researcher conducts the case study because they want to know
more about the case itself. In other words, the case itself is of primary, not secondary
interest.
For many researchers describing and understanding the concrete experiences of

people is the focus of their study. With the intrinsic case study what is important is the
understanding of the nature of the experience that each individual person has within
the case. Later in this chapter there is a discussion of Foote Whyte’s 1943 study Street
Corner Society. This is a very good example of an intrinsic case study as Whyte was only
interested in looking at the behaviour of the people in the Italian American community
he observed, without attempting to relate his observation to wider social processes.
Researchers such as Willis (1977) who attempt to identify and describe common
themes often miss the meaning of the action for the individual. The aim of many case
studies is not to be able to make generalisations about a large population but to pro-
vide a highly valid account of one ‘case’. The aim of the intrinsic case study is to allow
the researcher to aim for particularisation not generalisation.
In the intrinsic case study the data should lead to generation of the theory, whilst
with an instrumental case study we have to interpret our observations on the basis of
a particular theoretical framework. In the case of Willis this framework was the Marxist
analysis of class formation.
In summary, with the instrumental case study the research process starts with a given
theory that the researcher wants to find evidence to help prove or disprove. With the
intrinsic case study the researcher is interested in finding out more about the case as an
end in itself rather than looking for evidence to help prove or disprove a given theory.
Styles of case study

Yin (1989) identifies three distinct ‘styles’ of case study research:
1. the descriptive case study,

2. the explanatory case study,
3. the journalistic case study.
In all three styles of research, the case study does not involve any form of systematic
‘sampling’ of the population as the first stage of the research process, although it may be
possible for the researcher to claim that the case under investigation is in many respects
a ‘typical’ case. Rather, the first obligation of the researcher is to provide an in-depth
understanding of one selected case.
The descriptive case study

In his account of the descriptive case study Yin discusses the example of Foote Whyte’s
1943 Street Corner Society – a study of an Italian-American community the latter calls
‘Cornerville’.
This study was one of the first to make use of a technique of data analysis that
was later to become know as grounded theory. (You might find it useful to look at the
Styles of case study 99
methodological appendix that Foote Whyte added to the 1955 edition of his book for
more details.) In this approach, the researcher has no hypothesis or guiding theoretical
assumptions about the case, but simply allows the data to ‘speak for itself ’. As data are
collected they are placed into appropriate categories or folders, such as data on family
life, religion, crime, the local economy etc. Then as the categories get bigger, or become
saturated they are sub-divided into sub-folders on different types of family, different
types of religion etc. Over the course of the research process correlations or links sug-
gest themselves within the array of data, for example relationships between types of
family and different types of crime. The emphasis is on open-mindedness and a form
of theory building in which a theory then emerges from the data.
Grounded theory has become one of the most important techniques for the process
of explanation building within the ethnographic approach to research. Grounded
theory was developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and the process of explanation
building involves the creation of categories for the collection, organisation and analysis
of observational data. Glaser and Strauss explain: ‘In discovering theory, one generates
conceptual categories or their properties from evidence; then the evidence from which
the category emerged is used to illustrate the concept’ (1967: 23). What is significant
for researchers about grounded theory is that you can start a research project without
a clear and detailed hypothesis but still generate important findings and coherent
explanations of events.
As we can see in Foote Whyte’s research discussed here, by simply but systematically
observing and categorising behaviours it is possible over time to infer or suggest links
or relationships between the categories of observed data and a theory or hypothesis can
present itself to the researcher.
Grounded theory
Grounded theory is useful for research projects where there is little existing the-
ory or research in the area. The grounded theory approach involves the systematic
collection and interpretation of data within the research context. As researchers
we collect data and place it in categories that we feel are appropriate for under-
standing the nature of the action within the context. As more data is collected our
categories become full or ‘saturated’, we redefine our categories or sub-divide
our categories until we are convinced that we can a derive a relationship between
two or more categories of data. This inferred relationship between two or more
of the categories of data forms the basis for a systematic and substantive theory.
Critics of the approach suggest that it lacks reliability because both the choice
of the initial set of categories (open coding) and the redefined categories (axial
coding), and drawing an inference by suggesting a relationship between categories
to generate a theory, can be a highly personal process that relies heavily upon the
researcher’s creativity and imagination. The steps taken in the process of explana-
tion building cannot be clearly described for another researcher to follow and
reproduce the study.
The Cornerville study is also significant because Foote Whyte gained access to Cornerville
by using a sponsor or gatekeeper named Doc. Foote Whyte initially met Doc by chance
during one of his failed attempts to gain the trust of the people who lived in the
community. Foote Whyte explained what the research project was about and gained
Doc’s approval. Doc was well known in the area, and could introduce Foote Whyte to
respondents and provide reassurance to the respondents about the research project.
Thinkpiece
You as a researcher might consider making use of a sponsor or gatekeeper such as
Doc. However, Foote Whyte does not explain how to identify or recruit a potential
sponsor. Reflect for a moment on how you might do this.
Many students are surprised by the level of concern and distrust generated by data
collection. If a student wanted to look at management styles, leadership or motivation
in the workplace many respondents may be concerned that the data collected might
be used to undermine their position. The sponsor or gatekeeper can help to alleviate
many of these concerns.
The explanatory case study
In his discussion of the explanatory case study Yin discusses the 1971 example of Allison’s
Essence of Decision Making: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, the Soviet Union
started to build nuclear missile installations on the island of Cuba. There followed a
very tense exchange of views and opinions between American President John F. Kennedy
and Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev. At the time the USA had missiles that could reach
the Soviet Union, however, Soviet missiles could only strike European targets. By placing
missiles on Cuba, the Soviet Union would have strategic advantage in the Cold War.
On hearing the news, President Kennedy blockaded the island and demanded that the
missiles be removed. Khrushchev responded by saying that the missiles would only be
removed if the USA removed its missiles from Turkey and agreed to not invade Cuba as
it had attempted in 1961. Kennedy appeared to reject the request to dismantle missiles
in Turkey but agreed to the request to not invade Cuba. However, a blockade of the
island is still in place (currently until 14 September 2012). The Cuban Missile Crisis was
the closest that the USA and the former Soviet Union came to a nuclear conflict.
In this case, the unit of analysis is a series of decisions made by the key participants
in the conflict. Allison was interested in understanding why a given decision was made
at the time rather than one of the alternative decisions that were also available at the
time. Why any particular decision was made at a given point in time could be the focus of
a case study. You could investigate an historical decision by looking at newspapers and
other documents. For example, why were comprehensive schools introduced? Why did
the British government decide to privatise the water supply? Or it can be a decision
&NJDWFUJDBQQSPBDIFT 101
made by a local authority: why was a children’s playground redeveloped, why was a
school closed or its name changed?
Thinkpiece
Undergraduates are often expected to conduct a research project whilst on a work-
related placement with an employer. It is sadly not uncommon for students to start
a work placement with a host organisation that goes out of business during the
period of the placement. Put yourself in the position of a student doing a work
placement-based research project that is formally assessed, with a host organisation
that goes out of business. You have been on placement for 7 weeks of a 10-week
placement; you have conducted a number of interviews and collected some of the
questionnaires you distributed to the staff. The university allows students four weeks
to write up their findings after the 10-week placement comes to an end.
Questions
1. What would you do?
2. Draw up a list of advantages and disadvantages to conducting a case study into
the decision of the host organisation to stop trading? (You might consider
looking into the motives of the management of the host organisation, outlining
the consequences for employees and customers, and consider other courses of
action that could have been taken.)
The journalistic case study

The third type of case study that Yin describes is the journalistic case study. Yin gives
the example of Bernstein and Woodward (1974) All the President’s Men. With this form
of case study the researchers behave in the same manner as investigative journalists in
that they search for a news story to investigate. In the case of Bernstein and Woodward
they uncovered that President Richard Nixon had been involved in an attempt to steal
presidential campaign details from the Democratic Party headquarters. The journalists
were assisted by a secretive informant who was known to them as Deep Throat. Many
years later the identity of Deep Throat was revealed to be W. Mark Felt, who at the time
of the scandal was second-in-command at the FBI.
Emic v. etic approaches

Emic issues are issues that emerge from inside the case. To fully understand the views of
people who are ‘inside’ the case we have to make use of a technique known as verstehen.
This is a process of subjective understanding that involves the researcher putting them-
selves in the position of the respondent and looking at the world through the eyes of
the respondent. We can only do this if we learn how to suspend our judgements of the
activities we observe and to recognise our personal biases. Other researchers have referred
to this approach as suspending the natural attitude or making strange the world of lived experience.
In 1962 Howard Becker published his influential book The Outsiders. This book
is an analysis containing two case studies, one of a dance musician and the other of a
marijuana smoker. Becker opens his case study of the marijuana smoker by looking at
the history of marijuana use in the USA including the attempts by the US authorities
to restrict consumption of the drug by enacting the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Becker
explains how individuals progress from beginner, into occasional user, into a regular
recreational user of the drug. A person has to learn to appreciate the effects of the drug
as enjoyable. This progression is described by Becker as a moral career; individuals
become treated as deviants or outsiders and become socialised into a subculture with
marijuana use as a central element. In the same book Becker (1962) investigates the
lives of Chicago dance musicians who because of their unconventional lifestyles are also
regarded as forming a deviant subculture. Again individuals have to learn how to con-
form to the norms, values, dress code and language of the dance musicians’ subculture
in order to be accepted as part of the group.
Becker provides his reader with two very good examples of case studies of life histories
that describe and explain the notion of a moral career, which simply means how a person
learns to become recognised as the performer of a distinct role.
The etic perspective often draws upon external perceptions of the group under investi-
gation. Such perceptions might come from the government or may be widely discussed
in other social science research. In contrast, emic issues are issues that emerge from within
the case, in other words these are issues that emerge from the people we are investigating.
Thinkpiece
Pros and cons of the two approaches
Nicolaidou and Ainscow describe their sense of the emic and etic approaches in
the following way:
‘During the pilot study, we came to realise that the “etic” issues that we as
“outsiders” had adopted through working with the available literature, were
at times inconsistent with the “real world” we were investigating (Stake 1995).
Therefore, following Stake’s advice, we decided to “amend” the knowledge
we had previously gained and allow for “emic” issues to emerge, giving way
for deeper understanding to be achieved. This increased our belief that the
methodological design for the actual research project had to be emergent,
and to a minimum extent theoretically driven, since this might not allow
us to decipher the deeper levels of those taken-for-granted assumptions with
which we wanted to engage’ (2005: 233).
Question
Outline and list the pros and cons for each of the emic and etic approaches.
The critical incident approach 103
Points to consider
There is no, simple, one way to conduct a case study. As a researcher you must
decide the stance you are going to take in relation to the case:
s $O YOU INTEND TO PARTICIPATE PERSONALLY IN THE ACTIVITIES YOU OBSERVE WITHIN
the case?
s (OWDOYOUINTENDTOPRESENTYOURSELFTOTHEPEOPLEWITHINTHECASEEXPERT
neutral observer or critical analyst?
s 7HATLEVELOFINTERPRETATIONAREYOUGOINGTOPROVIDEABOUTTHECASE
s 4OWHATEXTENTSHOULDYOUADVOCATEAPOSITIONORAS"ECKERASKS@7HOSSIDE
are you on?’
The critical incident approach

Critical incidents are often ‘highly charged moments and episodes that have enormous
consequences for personal change and development’ (Sikes et al. 1985: 230).
For Brookfield (1995) the incident in a critical incident form of case study is an
episode experienced by a person as significant through a process of critical reflection
on the episode. What makes a given incident significant or critical is the impact that the
incident has on the respondent either personally or professionally. Brookfield goes on
to explain that critical reflection is about hunting for underlying assumptions that are
the basis of the knowledge, values and beliefs we take for granted.
The study of a critical incident is a widely used form of case study method recognised
as an effective exploratory and investigative tool. It is a useful exploratory tool in
the early stages of research and as we shall see below the technique can have a role to
play in building theories or models. Flanagan (1959) argues that the study of critical
incidents has its roots in the Aviation Psychology Program of the US Army Air Forces
(USAAF), which was used to select and classify aircrews in the Second World War. The
aim of this research was to systematically study pilots’ behaviour in order to identify
the critical requirements needed for their effective performance and provided the basis
for the development of selection tests.
Flanagan (1959) defined a critical incident as any complete and observed activity
that could be used to allow us to make a judgement about the motive and intention
of the individual person and enable us to identify the consequences of their action. For
Flanagan the study of a critical incident:
‘does not consist of a single rigid set of rules governing such data collection. Rather
it should be thought of as a flexible set of principles that must be modified and
adapted to meet the specific situation at hand’ (1954: 335).
Thinkpiece
Think of an incident that has affected your personal and/or professional
development:
Questions
1. Is the incident explained by a given theory that you are familiar with?
2. Does the incident have implications for other practitioners?
The study of critical incidents flexibility is demonstrated in its focus on:
s STUDYINGEFFECTIVEANDINEFFECTIVEWAYSOFDOINGSOMETHING
s IDENTIFYINGTHEHELPINGANDHINDERINGFACTORS
s COLLECTINGFUNCTIONALORBEHAVIOURALDESCRIPTIONSOFEVENTSORPROBLEMS
s EXAMININGSUCCESSESANDFAILURES
s DETERMINING CHARACTERISTICS THAT ARE CRITICAL TO IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF AN ACTIVITY OR EVENT
(Flanagan, 1954).
Herzberg et al. (1959) used the critical incident methodology to study work motivation.
Other critical incident research has included:
s PERCEPTIONSOFPROBLEMSFACINGWORKGROUPS$I3ALVOet al. 1989);

s MANAGERSBELIEFSABOUTTHEIRROLESASFACILITATORSOFLEARNING%LLINGERAND"OSTROM
2002);
s THEEXPERIENCEOFUNEMPLOYMENT"ORGENet al. 1990).
As researchers we can use critical incidents as a basis for reflection on action and this
implies going deeper into what we consider to be the motives of people involved in the
incident, raising consciousness and generating knowledge. Brookfield (1995) suggests
that reflection is bringing our preconceived ideas to the edge of what we take for granted.
According to Fook and Napier (2000) critical reflection implies understanding our
structural position, searching for connections between personal and political issues that
help us redefine personal troubles as part of a range of public issues. Critical incidents
are often ‘highly charged moments and episodes that have enormous consequences for
personal change and development’ (Sikes et al. 1985: 230).
How to employ the critical incident approach
If you want to conduct a research project using a critical incident approach what do
you need to do? First, you need to identify an incident that is critical for you or your
respondents. Secondly, you need to describe the incident. Thirdly, you need to place
5IFPSFUJDBMBOEFNQJSJDBMHFOFSBMJTBUJPOT 105
the incident within a context of relevant theory and research. This means that you search
for relevant research that might help to explain why individuals behaved in the way
that they did during the incident. Finally you need to draw a conclusion.
Theoretical and empirical generalisations

The description of an incident can have important theoretical implications. As we
collect descriptions and interpretations of critical incidents from the respondents we
can look for similarities and common themes within the accounts that respondents
give us. The inference we draw from each described incident can add to the validity
of a given theory. Even when cases are not typical of all cases in the field, the critical
incident approach still allows us as researchers to make theoretical, rather than empirical,
generalisations. In the same way that Willis (1977) could not generalise about all
schools by looking at one group of 12 ‘lads’, he could use the case of the 12 ‘lads’ and
the processes they go through to get working class jobs to add to the validity of the
Marxian theory of class reproduction. A critical incident approach cannot be used
to make:
s ANempirical generalisation (i.e. we cannot say that all cases are the same as the one
case we have investigated), but it can be used to make
s Atheoretical generalisation (i.e. when we say that out discussion of the one case is
explained by a given theory and as such our analysis of the case adds to the validity
of that given theory).
Angelides and Ainscow argue that the investigation of critical incidents can be ‘used to
disclose concealed taken for granted assumptions and beliefs which constitute mani-
festations of culture’ (2000: 149). The purpose is not to produce an objective and
value-free account but rather to construct a coherent and informed narrative that draws
upon the research in the area to supplement personal observation of the incident
and explain the wider socio-political consequences. The aim of the critical incident
investigation is not to generate an objective account but rather to generate an account
rooted in ‘conscious partiality’. Critical incident research is not conducted in order to
generate spectator knowledge but to provide the reader with a view of the events and
the significance from the perspective of the individual involved in the incident, in
order to raise the consciousness of others who find themselves in the same position as
the individual who experienced the critical incident.
However, if you choose to investigate a critical incident in, for example, your place of
work, you have to remember that there are problems doing research in your own practice
setting. On the one hand, there is the ethical problem of a potential betrayal of trust,
but on the other hand a researcher has to have a high degree of familiarity and mutual
personal knowledge to produce valid research findings.
Application to qualitative interviews

The critical incident approach can also be used with a qualitative interview. This approach
allows the researcher to gain an insight into an event from the perspective of different
participants. The data provided by respondents in critical incident research is discursive in
nature and can be subjected to a form of narrative analysis by creating a set of analytical
categories drawn from the data and created via a form of grounded theory. Narrative
analysis is explained and discussed in Chapter 9. By the use of probing and prompting,
comparisons can be drawn between the alternative perspectives, motives and intentions
of the different respondents who witnessed an incident. This provides a more valid
picture of the incident as a form of data triangulation is used within the data analysis.
Triangulation
Triangulation involves the replication of the study. There are three forms of triangulation:
s Method triangulation in which the research uses a different method of data collection
on the same group of respondents.
s Data triangulation where the same researcher uses the same method of data collection
on a different group of respondents.
s Investigator triangulation in which a different researcher uses the same method on
the same group of respondents. The underpinning idea is simply that if the results
of the repeated study are similar to the results of the initial study, then this suggests
that the research is valid.
The methodological appendix to Willis (1977) gives a very full account of the process
of triangulation he engaged in whilst conducting his influential case study.
Criticisms of the case study approach

The standard criticisms of the case study approach are as follows:
s 3UBJECTIVITYANDBIASnCASESTUDIESAREOFTENVERYPERSONALACCOUNTSOFEVENTSAND
incidents that could be described and understood differently by different researchers.
s ,ACKOFRIGOURnCASESTUDIESAREOFTENVERYLONGANDDETAILEDACCOUNTSWITHNOREAL
focus and limited analysis.
s )NABILITYTOMAKEGENERALISATIONSFROMSINGLECASESnTHECASESTUDYGIVESUSAVERY
detailed and interesting account of one case, but it is only one case. The case study
does not allow us to make statements about large populations.
s &INDINGSAREDISORGANISED
Analysis and interpretation of the case 107
These points apply to all forms of badly conducted research projects and so, as with
all other forms of research, we have to take steps to ensure that our research is seen
to be both valid and reliable. Before we go on to discuss the ways in which case study
research can indeed be valid and reliable it is worth saying something about generalis-
ing research findings to a wider population.
Analysis and interpretation of the case

Analysis and interpretation are the processes of making sense of our collected data.
Analysis essentially means taking something apart – we take our observations, impressions
etc. apart in order to reconstruct them in a way that allows us to create a meaningful
explanation of why events unfold in the way they do.
There is no particular moment when data analysis begins. The first stage of a case
study is to produce a thick description. This is a very full account of where the social
actions take place such as buildings, rooms etc. and an account of the individuals who
are active participants in the case. The thick description allows readers to make their
own interpretation by making a comparison with their own experience of cases that are
similar to the case under investigation. If successful, a good thick description will give
our research a feeling of face validity; the case study has a valid feel from the point of view
of the reader. The thick description in the case that Willis (1977) investigated reminded
me of my own school days, so for me the case has a high degree of face validity.
In the final analysis you will need to produce some findings from your case study
and explain the meaning of your findings to the reader. This involves drawing an
inference. The commonsense observation that ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ is a state-
ment that draws the inference that if smoke is observed then it is almost certainly
caused by the existence of a fire. Drawing an inference is the process of arriving at a
conclusion that is a defensible explanation of the case. Inference is integral to the pro-
duction of information.
In summary, at the end of a research project that makes use of a case study approach
you need to be in a position to present your findings in such a way that provides the
reader with a description and meaningful explanation of events within the case.
In most research projects the researcher collects the data and conducts the data
analysis once the data collection is complete. With some case studies and ethnographic
studies data analysis and data collection take place at the same time. There is no one rule
that states you must complete the data collection before the data analysis can begin.
Very often whilst conducting a case study the researcher may be given information
verbally by respondents in an informal manner; these verbal exchanges can be included
in your research. But how do you incorporate them in your data analysis?
Fleming et al. (2003) suggest four key steps for conducting data analysis within a
case study that uses verbal exchanges or narrative (people’s spoken words) as its data
source:
1. The purpose of the analysis is to understand the narrative as a whole therefore

we should examine the text of what people say in order to find an expression that
reflects the fundamental meaning of the narrative as a whole.
2. Each sentence should be scrutinised to identify its central meaning: this allows the
researcher to identify themes.
3. Each sentence is related to the meaning of the whole narrative, providing a com-
prehensive understanding of the whole narrative.
4. Finally the researcher needs to identify passages that are representative of the narrative,
where there appears to be a common understanding between the researcher and the
participants. These passages are used in the final research report, to give the reader a
clear insight into the case.
Correspondence and pattern matching

Correspondence and pattern matching are two of the most common forms of data
analysis. The approach can be adopted with a wide range of research methods and is
not restricted to case studies or ethnographic research but there are several points to
keep in mind.
With any set of findings there will usually be an oversupply of possible explanations
as to why people behave as they do within the case. The most common technique used
for drawing an inference in social research is to classify observations or data into cat-
egories that we can use to comment on the meaning of the data collected. One possible
approach to data analysis with a case study is known as pattern matching in which data
from the case is related to theoretical positions identified in the literature review.
As researchers we need to produce information that discriminates or specifically
allows us to differentiate the kinds and quantities of ‘things’. We allocate the things
that we observe into a given category until we can say something meaningful about our
observations as a ‘class’.
Whilst we categorise our observations we make tallies and engage in imaginative or
intuitive aggregation of the data in an effort to construct an explanation. This approach
to explanation building may be regarded by some as subjective – but for many researchers
there is no better way to make sense of the complexities of the case.
Pattern matching takes the form of an index or gap approach to data collection and
data analysis. To describe this form of data analysis as an index or gap approach is simply
to suggest that on the basis of your literature review, you should have an understanding
of what your findings should look like. This understanding of what your findings
should look like is based upon assumptions you have made from your reading of other
people’s research in the area. If we think about our assumptions of the expected find-
ings as a list of points, or an index, then we need to look for similarities and/or differ-
ences between what we expected to find and what we really did find. The differences or gaps
between what we expected to find and what we really did find need to be explained.
$PSSFTQPOEFODFBOEQBUUFSONBUDIJOH 109
Pattern matching 1
In their analysis of culture in ‘failing’ schools, Nicolaidou and Ainscow (2005)
quote a member of staff as saying: ‘“they” are pushing new ideas down our throat’.
This observation is then placed in a context and supported by reference to other
research in the area from Reynolds (1991) to support the inference made: ‘In this
context, “they” tended to refer to either the LEA or the head teacher, and may
have provided a basis for avoiding change. The rejection and denial of the decision,
and the re-directing of blame, was to some degree led by a defensiveness towards
the “threatening messages” (Reynolds, 1991: 101) the schools were said to have
been receiving from the outside’ (2005: 237).
Thinkpiece
It is important to keep in mind that pattern matching is a creative activity in
which you have to search for other authors’ work and use it in such a way that
it supports the argument that you are developing. Before you read on can you
identify any potential faults or flaws in the process of pattern matching?
Although it may appear as a rather circular argument, the logic of pattern matching
is that we compare a predicted pattern of outcomes of our findings on the basis of our
literature review. A predicted pattern of findings is derived from our literature review
and the pattern is then used as a benchmark to compare what have found in the field with
what we expected to find from our reading of the literature in the area. If our findings
reflect what we expected to find, this suggests that our research is valid. If we find some-
thing we did not expect to find and we are happy that our review of the literature is
complete and that our methods of data collection are reliable, then we may have found
something that other researchers have not seen before. In other words, potentially we
have made a new contribution to knowledge.
Pattern matching 2
Pattern matching ‘involves a correspondence between a theoretical or conceptual
expectation pattern and an observed or measured pattern’ (Trochim 1985: 576).
Pattern matching is often used to measure ‘construct validity’ – the degree to
which observations reflect theory: ‘if within-case observations are repeatedly con-
sistent with a cross-case finding, researchers have stronger grounds for believing
the cross-case finding is valid’ (Rueschemeyer cited in Mahoney 2003: 361).
Avoiding errors and using verification procedures

This process can however, be prone to errors so as researchers we need to take steps to
do what we can to limit the error effects as errors damage the validity of our findings.
If the people reading our work can identify errors in our work this questions the
strength of our argument.
The main errors are either:
s Random errors – these are errors that are not systematic and not predictable, such as
a category error where we wrongly place one observation into the wrong category or
simply misunderstand something that we see or hear.
s Non-random errors – these included such things as personal or political biases
that shape or influence our decision making about the data we have collected, most
notably a researcher’s perspective that is used to decide the set of categories in the
first instance and to allocate observations to a given category.
Creswell (1998) identified eight verification procedures for enhancing the validity and
reliability of research findings:
1. prolonged engagement and persistent observation,

2. triangulation,
3. peer review,
4. negative case analysis,
5. clarifying researcher bias,
6. member checking,
7. thick and rich description,
8. external audit.
Creswell suggests that ‘qualitative researchers engage in at least two of them in any
given study’ (1998: 203).
Prolonged engagement and persistent observation
Ideally with case study research the researcher should have a long engagement with
the case. If possible a case study should take place over several years, as in the case of
Foote Whyte’s case study of Cornerville that we met earlier in this chapter. This long
engagement with the case provides opportunities for the researcher to make certain that
they are not engaged in any misinterpretation. Although there is also the possibility of
the researcher going native (i.e. when the researcher loses their identity as a researcher
and becomes a participant in the case). Research projects where this happens tend not
to get published, but Lurie provides a very well informed fictional account in her novel
Imaginary Friends (see Chapter 7).
Avoiding errors and using verification procedures 111
Triangulation
This is an approach that involves the replication of the study in order to enhance the
validity and reliability of a research project.
Peer review
This approach is where the researcher employs a qualified critical friend. This role is
usually taken by a colleague whose role is to ask: ‘hard questions about methods,
meanings, and interpretations’ (Creswell, 1998: 202). The process of peer review, if
done well, will involve independent scrutiny by our critical friend and this should
identify issues and problems that we have overlooked.
Negative case analysis
In most research projects there will be small amount of information from a minority of
respondents that does not support our argument. These data are often disregarded by
researchers as deviant data. Negative case analysis is an investigation into this deviant
data to see why people have responded in a fashion that is different from the majority of
respondents and what significance, if any, the minority view has for the overall findings
of the research project. Potentially negative case analysis can enhance our data analysis
by giving us a much fuller account of why people respond in the way that they do. This
approach demands that the researcher questions the central assumptions of the research
in order to reconsider and/or re-define the central question of hypothesis.
Clarifying researcher bias
All of the above techniques are more effective if the researcher keeps a log or journal
as this can provide opportunities to check for and address researcher bias. A research
log is, in essence, a diary that encourages researchers to reflect on their processes of
data collection and data analysis. It is important to be honest in the process of data
collection and data analysis in order to avoid or resolve ethical issues, and to be aware
of bias in the way in which you select data and/or make sense of the findings. All of
these issues can damage the validity and reliability of your research project.
Member checking
Respondents should be asked about their views in relation to the data analysis, the
researcher’s interpretation of events and the conclusions reached. This approach
was adopted by Willis (1977) in his influential study Learning to Labour, in which the
12 ‘lads’ who were the focus of the study were asked for their views about the research
before the findings were made public. If respondents disagree with your interpretation
presented in your research report then this raises important ethical issues. You either
have to abandon the research project, or revise your findings so that they more fully
reflect the views of the respondents. Alternatively, you have to include in your discus-
sion of the findings the fact that the respondents do not fully accept the conclusions
reached and attempt to explain why your account is more valid and more reliable than
that of the respondents themselves. This may appear to be a very patronising stance to
take but it is often the case that the researcher can adopt a more objective and balanced
approach to the issues under investigation.
Thick and rich description

In many case studies with a distinct ethnographic feel, authors often open their research
report with a thick or rich description. This is a very full account of where the research
was conducted, the respondents and the behaviour that was observed. The purpose
of this description is to enhance the face validity of the research project by allowing
the reader to draw comparisons between the findings of the research and their own
personal experience.
External audit
This is most commonly found in publicly funded pieces of evaluation research.
Government departments review the research projects that they have commissioned in
order to a make a judgement as to the quality of the findings and whether the project
has delivered value for money.
Conclusion
The purpose of the case study is to gather a great deal of information about the case. This
means that a case study can be a study of a geographical location, an in-depth investigation
of a decision, a personal history or even a television documentary. Within the case study,
multiple methods of data collection are used because multiple sources of evidence are
often employed. However, traditionally case studies have been associated with qualitative
methods of data collection and within this approach grounded theory has become one
of the most important techniques for explanation building. The standard criticisms of
the case study approach are that it tends to be subjective or biased, lacks rigour in terms
of the case study design, the findings cannot be used to make generalisations about
large populations, and the findings can be disorganised. In this chapter we have looked
at a range of approaches to enhance the validity and reliability of your case studies.
Conclusion 113
Should Erica conduct a case study?

Erica made a list of zoos in the UK:
London Zoo
Bristol Zoo
Paignton Zoo
Newquay Zoo
Chester Zoo
Colchester Zoo
Twycross Zoo
Edinburgh Zoo
Belfast Zoo
Marwell Zoo
Dudley Zoo
Welsh Mountain Zoo
Blackpool Zoo
Blackbrook Zoo
Hammerton Zoo
Anglesey Sea Zoo
Battersea Park Childrens Zoo
Dartmoor Zoo
Linton Zoo
Whipsnade Zoo
She did not realise how many zoos there were in the UK and she has some
doubts as to whether it’s possible to survey all the zoos. She is also confused over
the difference between ‘wildlife park’ and ‘zoo’. Given that she has a deadline
to meet and limited resources Erica decides that it is too expensive and time
consuming to visit every zoo in the UK so decides to conduct a case study of
her local zoo.
Her case study is going to be an instrumental case study in which she would
read through the policy documents that outline the legal obligations in relation
to zoos’ responsibility to provide visitors with education and information on
biodiversity and sustainability. Erica still likes the idea of conducting interviews
in the form of a quiz to be conducted with volunteer respondents as they left the
zoo. She is still of the opinion that the quiz will provide her with factual informa-
tion on the knowledge that visitors have about biodiversity and sustainability.
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7 Ethnographic
approaches

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Introduction
Ethnography is an approach to social research that usually has a focus on studying
small groups of people in their natural setting in order to gain a fuller and clearer
understanding of the meanings of their actions. This chapter will outline and evaluate
the ethnographic approach.
Ethnography is built upon an intimate first-hand observation and understanding
of the research setting. However, one of the key problems for any ethnographer is
gaining access to the group they wish to study. There is much more to access than
meeting people face-to-face, we need to gain access to their subjective perceptions of
the world. Entering any field setting is never easy and one can never guarantee that
you have become accepted. For this reason some researchers have decided to engage in
covert research, often using participant observation lasting several years. There are clear
benefits to being at close quarters with familiar informants but you must keep in mind
that ethnography is an intensely personal research process. It involves close human
contact in which the researcher can gather first-hand information directly from the
118 Chapter 7 Ethnographic approaches
respondent about their human meaning systems. As such there are ethical issues about
trust as well as methodological issues about validity and reliability that affect ethno-
graphy to a much greater degree than other methodological approaches.
For the ethnographer, social action is any action that has an intention behind it and
understanding the intentionality of respondents is central to the ethnographic approach.
Although ethnography can be conducted in a rich variety of settings it is always con-
cerned with understanding the meaning of social action; in particular understanding
the motives and intentions of people within a given situation.
We present ourselves in everyday life by performing roles. For Goffman (1959) people
have two aspects of self, an official self that we present to the outside world when we
perform a role and an inner self that is the real person behind the role performance. It
is not uncommon for ethnographers to assume that people are social actors who per-
form roles within the social world in a similar fashion to actors on the stage or screen.
Following the work of Goffman in the 1960s this approach to understanding the per-
formance of a role within a situation has become known as dramaturgical work. The
ethnographer assumes that the performance of a role by any social actor, including their
motives and intentions, can be understood or read in the similar way to the motives
and intentions of actors on the stage or screen. Goffman suggests that as researchers
we should treat the social actions we observe as anthropologically strange. This is an
approach in which the ethnographer simply treats the research setting, including the
people and their behaviour, as if they are observing them for the very first time. This
sounds very abstract so let us look at an example of ethnographic research.
Ethnographic research
Atkinson (2004) conducted an ethnographic research project into the Welsh
National Opera (WNO). Atkinson’s guiding theme of the research was to look
at the dramaturgical work of the singers and other people who made the opera
work. Atkinson’s ethnography involved ‘close and detailed observation of a series
of opera productions in the rehearsal studio and in the theatre, with particular
emphasis on the everyday work of the opera producer’ (2004: 148). He was
interested in what he described as ‘the mundane work of producing and repro-
ducing the opera’ (Ibid.).
Atkinson argued that the producer of an opera needs to have an embodied
charismatic authority and their conception of what form the opera will take gives
the performers a clear understanding of how to perform in their roles, but there
is still an amount of detailed negotiation during the rehearsal period:
‘The actions of the performers are frequently “directed” through two
mechanisms: vocabularies of motive, and significant gestures’ (2004: 152).
These practical actions are interpreted by the participants and form a socially
shared frame of reference that help them make sense of the situation. The role of
the producer is to transform a set of conceptual ideas into practical, embodied
Ethical issues and trust 119
action on the stage by demonstrating the gestures, gaze and movement required
from the performers:
‘Consequently, the director is engaged in a recurrent process of attributing
motives to characters, suggesting intentions to the performers and searching
for analogies whereby to help create the characters and actions’ (Atkinson
2004: 154).
One of the problems with ethnographic research, argues Atkinson, is that:
‘When social processes are massively familiar, it can be hard to achieve a
productive degree of intellectual distance and so render them anthroplogi-
cally strange. Intellectual insight and originality is likely to come from mak-
ing the familiar strange and the strange familiar, and hence, from a widened
perspective on the possible range of research sites and topics that illumi-
nate . . . practices’ (2004: 148–9).
Why would the ethnographer attempt to render something anthropologically
strange? As we have suggested to render something anthropologically strange simply
means that the ethnographer treats a research setting, including the people observed
and their behaviour, as if they are observing them for the very first time. This
allows ethnographers to view practices that are sometimes very familiar to the
researcher in a more objective manner. This approach has other names such as
making strange the world of lived experience and is a common approach that ethno-
graphers use to make their work have a more objective feel.
Ethical issues and trust

A number of ethnographers such as Humphreys (1970) believe that more objective
and better quality data can be collected if the researchers do not inform the respondents
that they are collecting data about their activities. However, most of the literature in
the field is opposed to ‘concealment’; the practice of being a covert participant observer
whose aims are unknown to the respondents is believed to be unethical. In contrast, a
number of ethnographers such as Davies (1963), Erikson (1965), Gold (1958), Shaffir
and Stebbins (1991) argue that the distinction between covert and overt research is
misguided as: ‘deceptive practices are as inherent in field research as they are in daily
life’ (Shaffir and Stebbins 1991: 29).
One of the ethical concerns with ethnography is the issue of trust. This is especially
the case when the people we are researching are well known to us, for example if we
choose to conduct research on our colleagues at work. In Chapter 1 we discussed action
research and a related approach known as practitioner research. These approaches to
research are closely related to ethnography in that they draw upon action and reflection.
In action research, teacher researchers often reflect directly on their own teaching
situation and experience; such research begins and builds on teacher knowledge and it
has a clear focus on classroom issues. Action research builds on the normal process of
evaluation, bridging the gap between the practitioner and the researcher. Such research
can sharpen the practitioner’s critical awareness.
With action research in an educational context, for example, teachers often conduct
research projects in their own school or college, in their own practice setting with their
colleagues and pupils, but does this raise the problem of a potential betrayal of trust?
In terms of producing a valid and reliable account, for the ethnographer it is easier to
recognise and interpret the behaviour, rituals, practices etc. of people with whom one
has already established a high degree of trust. All ethnography involves the generation
of trust between the researcher and the group under investigation. There has to be
familiarity and mutual personal knowledge. The most difficult aspect of the ethno-
graphic approach is successfully achieving a shared subjectivity, looking at the world
through the eyes of the respondents, empathy etc. These qualities are much more likely
to be achieved with people that we know.
Verstehen
Verstehen is a technique that helps the researcher to gain access to the perceptions,
motivations and thoughts of the people they are investigating. People commonly share
discourses about themselves – this form of self-talk is made up of verbal indicators about
their own distinct identity – and such discourse can be seen as identifying practices.
People who share a common culture can read these indicators of the self and gain an
understanding of the person’s motives and intentions.
At a practical level verstehen involves the researcher putting themselves in the
position of the people they are observing and attempting to look at the world through
their eyes in an effort to more fully appreciate their perspective of the world. Goffman
(1962) conducted an influential study of a ward in a mental hospital. In this study
Goffman suggested that the behaviours of patients were often rational responses to
the irrational situation they found themselves in. Patients often engaged in hoarding
behaviour, where they would keep hold of their personal possessions such as food,
tissues etc. Outside of the mental hospital this behaviour would be regarded as abnormal
but because the patients did not have a secure place to keep these things it was rational
to keep them on their person at all times.
The ethnographer often has to put themselves in the position of the other to under-
stand their behaviour and verstehen is based upon the assumption that it is possible
for the researcher to put themselves into the respondent’s social and cultural context in
order to reconstruct or ‘re-experience’ the world as the respondents do in an attempt to
understand the underpinning rationale behind their thoughts, feelings and motivation
in an effort to understand their behaviour.
Verstehen 121
Levels of understanding
For Weber (1922) there are two levels of understanding in the process of verstehen.
Firstly there is what Weber calls adequacy at the level of meaning, which involves provid-
ing a very full description of the actions and behaviours the researcher has observed.
From this the researcher moves on to the second level of understanding, which Weber
refers to as causal adequacy, in which as researchers we draw an inference as to why the
people observed are behaving in the way that they do.
Abel (1948) explains that this approach to verstehen, involves the internalising
of behaviour we observe in a given situation and then attempting to categorise that
observed behaviour. It also involves the application of a behavioural maxim that allows
the observer to make a connection with other things they have personally experienced.
The behavioural maxims are created by reflecting upon our personal experiences and
making generalisations. Underpinning this is the idea of an emotional syllogism, the idea
that other people’s emotions function in the same way as our own. For Abel, verstehen
is useful for developing an interpretation of a context of where the research takes place
but it is not an experimental technique and as such it cannot generate data to validate
a given theory or hypothesis.
Hermeneutics
Verstehen is used to say something about the meaning of behaviour that we can
directly observe. The ethnographer finds meaning by identifying a cultural pattern
through a process of interpretation of the socio-cultural phenomena observed. Within
the social sciences this approach is known as hermeneutics. However, this approach
raises an important question: how do we perceive the personal and subjective
meaning and intentions behind an observed social action? For Munch there exists:
‘A whole series of inferences and imputations . . . involved in this process’ (1957: 26),
including inference by analogy, probability and ‘the percepts obtained from immediate
sensation of data are complemented by percepts obtained from previous experience of similar
data. This is not only a legitimate procedure in empirical science but a necessary con-
dition for the establishment of any scientific generalization’ (1957: 30, italics in the
original).
The advice that Munch is giving the researcher is that people’s behaviour is often
a reflection not only of their personal and subjective meaning but also a reflection of
the social and cultural situation in which they find themselves. By comparing people’s
behaviours in similar circumstances and making use of other similar research in the
field the researchers are investigating it should be possible to differentiate between
intentional behaviours that have their origin in personal belief and motivation and
behaviours that are a reflection of the contextual pressures brought to bear on an indi-
vidual in a given circumstance.
Empathy and shared feeling

Lipps’s Grundlegung der Ästhetik (1903) developed what Harrington (2001) refers to as a
‘naive empathy theory of understanding’. Lipps discusses the feelings that we have when
we observe an acrobat on a tight-rope, we relive the experience of the acrobat in a sense
that is real for us. This ability to put ourselves in the position of the other is central to
understanding art and literature as well as understanding the behaviour of others. For
Weber, however, such feelings are not objective knowledge as they do not give us access
to the thoughts and feelings of the acrobat and we are not on the tight-rope.
However, is it possible to read a person’s inner feeling state or a person’s motiva-
tions from their outward expressions such as facial expressions and body language?
Ethnographers often assume that through a process of ‘thick description’ or very full
description, and without taking any moral stance on what they observe, we as researchers
can understand things about an individual’s inner feeling states from our reading of
outward signs, such as body language and facial expression. Outward signs are mean-
ingful in that they mean something to the observer in that they allow the observer to
grasp their inner meaning.
Scheler (1912) in his book The Nature of Sympathy describes this process of drawing
an inference about an individual’s inner feeling states from our reading of outward
signs as nacherleben, and it is used by poets and novelists to create a shared feeling or
ethical agreement about the quality of the experience but without generating feelings
of sympathy for the people described. This occurs in the same way that we understand
a unique sentence spoken by a stranger by reference to linguistic codes, grammatical
rules and shared vocabulary in order to make sense of what we hear. We make a com-
parison between our own life experiences, social conventions, social rules and the
experiences observed in order to draw the appropriate inference. A number of theories
of the comic take their starting point from the assumption derived from Lipps, that the
psychological mechanisms of laughter are rooted in unexpectedness. People do or say
things in a way that is contrary to the accepted way of responding.
Social action
Social action, that is action that has an intention behind it, is shaped by how individual
people interpret or understand other people in terms of the social situation they find
themselves in. To adequately interpret or understand other people in terms of the social
situation in which they find themselves the researcher needs a conceptual framework
that is adequate enough to allow an interpretation of the significance of what is happen-
ing within a situation. The process of socialisation involves the ongoing processes in
which people assimilate the culture of a wider community, and a central aspect of this
process is learning to comprehend the common stock of ideas in order to understand
the projected actions of ourselves and others. As Cooper explains:
Tertiary understanding 123
‘Those who do not have a mastery of the shared normative concepts and common
stories will be culturally impoverished and will not understand the point of the
stories which are told, in much the same way that an ignorant or dull-witted person
may not see the point of a joke’ (2000: 388).
The argument here is that because the researcher has gone through a process of social-
isation in which they have come to develop an understanding of the culture then this
gives them the conceptual framework and abilities that allow them to read the meaning
of people’s behaviour.
There is a connection between social actions that are individually chosen on the basis
of highly personal motivational factors and practice which we recognise because we
make sense of it by drawing upon a wider frame of reference. To some extent we are all
products of the culture in which we are socialised; we are brought up to recognise certain
behaviours as meaning certain things in a given context. This allows us to categorise
behaviour or place a unique social action that we observe into a commonly shared
cultural frame of reference in order to understand it.
Some researchers make a distinction between erklären (explanation) and verstehen
(understanding). This means that researchers not only describe actions but also look for
clues to decide on the ‘content’ of the action. Researchers do this by attempting to dis-
criminate between certain kinds of action. For example, if the action was an intentional
action (i.e. any action that has an intention behind it; so if I trip up in the street this is
not a social action because I did not intend to do it) and if so what type of intention
(such as actions that are underpinned by achieving a goal, by a value, by a strong emotion
or by custom or tradition).
According to Smelser and Baltes human agents tend to:
‘(1) act in accordance with what they believe and desire, and (2) believe what
they have reason to believe to be true, and desire what they have reason to value
to identify a phenomenon as an action implies reference to the contentful mental
states (beliefs and desires) of the agent. These states must, according to the prin-
ciples of behavioural and attitudinal rationality, be roughly in tune with the action
and with what the agent believes to be true and desirable. This does not, however,
commit us to accept that the agent’s interpretation of the action has a privileged
authoritativeness. But neither has ours’ (2001: 14–15).
Ethnography is based upon the assumption that many of the ways that social action
is classified by people cannot be fully understood from outside of the ‘natural’ setting
in which the action takes place.
Tertiary understanding
For Runciman (1983) good social science descriptions of people’s behaviour should be
authentic and give the reader a feel and a flavour of what it is like to be one of the
people who are being described. Runciman was concerned with moving beyond the
two levels of understanding identified by Weber and added a third level, which he calls
tertiary understanding. The aim of tertiary understanding is to provide an understanding
of the lives of the people we are investigating as authentically as possible.
In order to do this, argues Runciman, we need to adopt the same techniques that
poets and novelists use. Authenticity should enhance the reader’s experience. Runciman
gives the example of Flaubert’s novel Madam Bovary, which he describes as: ‘a para-
digm of descriptive authenticity’ because of Flaubert’s ability to ‘redescribe what the
life of a person like Emma Bovary was like better than such a person could describe
it to herself ’ (1983: 237). Flaubert was able to achieve this because a real life Emma
Bovary would not have an informed knowledge of the wider social forces that shape
the circumstances in which she would find herself in. Flaubert had a better knowledge
of the period and milieu.
Madam Bovary is a work of fiction but people like Emma Bovary do exist in the world.
Flaubert guides the reader through Emma Bovary’s thinking and decision-making
processes. Emma Bovary is a fictional person we have never met because she does not
exist, yet because Flaubert gives such a full account of her motives and intentions
this allows us to fully grasp why she behaves in the way that she does. By reading
Flaubert’s account we have a greater understanding of the real people we investigate in
our research projects who behave like Emma Bovary. Literature allows us to develop an
understanding and a practical knowledge of things we have not directly experienced.
Picasso’s picture Guernica, for example, portrays the horror of the Spanish Civil War in
human terms that I can understand but which I have thankfully never experienced at
first-hand. Not only does the work have a strong emotional content for me personally
but it sheds light on how individuals in general suffer during a violent political conflict
such as the Spanish Civil War.
Art and literature provide people with the sources of interpretation and elucidation
that help us to shed light on our own personal experiences and thought processes. The
fictional characters in literature expand the range and variety of our experiences and
provide us with a greater understanding of the factors that motivate people in a given
set of circumstances. Art and literature appear to enhance our awareness and help
to expand our perceptual and interpretative skills by identifying universal aspects of
motivation in descriptions of individual social action, deepening our social and moral
understanding.
The social researchers that Runciman points to as providing examples of good
research practice in this area include William Foote-Whyte, Erving Goffman and Oscar
Lewis. All three of these authors provide their reader with accounts that include vivid
and illuminating details, with effective use of analogy that allows the reader to make a
connection between the written account and their own personal experience. Without
this detail it would be difficult for the reader to ‘bring to life’ the description given.
As Runciman explains:
‘Their success in each case rests on the choice of vivid or illuminating detail which
can be related to the appropriate equivalents in “our” culture’ (1983: 263).
Guidelines to ensure authenticity 125
Descriptive inference calls upon the imagination of the researcher to make use of
metaphor and simile to give the reader a clear account of what it was like to be one
of the respondents: ‘a sense of what “their” experience was like for them’ (Runciman
1983: 274).
Definitions
What is a metaphor?
A metaphor is a figure of speech used to compare two things, saying that one is
like the other. Richards (1936) was interested in understanding the interpretative
process itself, and he identified two aspects of the metaphor:
s THETENORWHICHISTHESUBJECTORTHINGTOWHICHATTRIBUTESAREASCRIBEDAND
s THEVEHICLEWHICHISTHESUBJECTORTHINGFROMWHICHATTRIBUTESARETAKEN
What is a simile?
A simile is also a figure of speech used to compare two things that are unalike,
usually with a word such as “like”. Bauman (2000) describes the contemporary
world as liquid modernity, by which he means that society does not have a rigid
structure and it is more like a liquid in its composition.
Guidelines to ensure authenticity

We need to choose people to investigate who are representative of the wider popula-
tion that we are interested in, including the divergent points of view that might be
common amongst the population. For Runciman there are a number of pitfalls that
we have to overcome in order to give an authentic ethnographic account of people’s
behaviour:
1. Avoid giving incomplete accounts of the people we describe: this means not dismiss-
ing something that is peripheral to our research interests but is of great significance
to the group.
2. Avoid oversimplification: this arises when researchers do not take into account the
complexity of people’s beliefs or practices.
3. Avoid ahistoricity: as researchers we should keep in mind that a set of behaviours and
ideas belong to the given period of time and place in which they were described.
4. Avoid suppression: this can arise when a researcher chooses not to include something
in a description because it may damage their preferred image of the people under
investigation.
5. Avoid exaggeration: this involves placing a greater emphasis on one aspect of the
description than it deserves.
6. Avoid ethnocentricity: this involves imposing our own ideas from our own culture,
background or milieu on to what we observe at the expense of the respondents’
opinions and beliefs.
7. Avoid derogation: which involves the pejorative description of a person or group.
8. Avoid hagiography: or too favourable an impression of the person or group described.
A difficult problem for the ethnographer to overcome is the interface between the
researcher’s own values and prejudices and those of the respondents. This requires the
uncovering of meaning. One of the central skills of an ethnographer is the interpretation
and understanding of the respondent’s frame of reference, intentions and motivations.
To successfully achieve this ‘mutuality of understanding’ the researcher needs to have
a full understanding of the context in which the behaviour is taking place. If you are
a person who shared the context in which the behaviour was taking place, your sub-
jective meanings and the subjective meaning of the respondents should have a degree
of commonality about them.
The process of developing a ‘mutuality of understanding’ can be started before the
data collection gets under way. The researcher can develop some understanding of the
concepts, beliefs and values that inform the practices of the respondents by reading
other ethnographic accounts. This should not prevent your research from allowing you
to formulate your own subjective feeling about what is happening in the field, but it
raises the issue of the imposition problem: imposing an established social science idea or
perspective onto the behaviour you are directly observing.
In much ethnographic research the researcher steps back from influencing the beha-
viour of the respondents/participants in order to gain a more valid picture of the actions
of the people under investigation. However, many researchers choose ethnography
because they want to break down the distinction between the ‘observer’ and the ‘observed’
and allow the research process to become a co-operative or collaborative enterprise. Some
ethnographers view traditional objective research as an exploitative monologue, in which
the respondents give information to the researchers and get nothing back in return. In
contrast ethnography gives a privileged place to the ‘discourse’ of the respondents –
in this case meaning ‘the other as us’ – in the generation of research findings.
Learning the ropes

The ethnographer has to achieve an understanding of how the respondents comprehend
their world. This was given the term ‘intimate familiarity’ by Lofland (1976). One of
the central elements of this comprehension is ‘learning the ropes’, outlined by Shaffir
and Stebbins (1991) in the following way:
s lELDRESEARCHREQUIRESANUNDERSTANDINGOFTHEINTERPRETATIVEPROCESSTHATSHAPESAND
guides human behaviour;
.BSHJOBMJUZ 127
s lELDRESEARCHERSHAVETOTHINKUSINGTHESYMBOLSOFTHERESPONDENTS
s DATACOLLECTIONISDONEWITHSENSITIVITYTOTHELOCALCULTURE
Most importantly claim Shaffir and Stebbins:
‘Researchers who show a respect for those studied and a willingness to consider
their views and claims seriously discover that others are prepared to teach them the
ropes’ (1991: 86).
All of this is very time consuming, however, as Fetterman (1989) points out:
‘The longer an individual stays in a community, building rapport, and the deeper
they probe into individual lives, the greater the probability of his or her learning
about the sacred subtle elements of the culture: how people pray, how they feel
about each other, and how they reinforce their own cultural practices to maintain
the integrity of their system’ (1989: 27).
Ethnography involves drawing upon the interpersonal skills of the researcher. The
longer the researcher can stay in the field, observing and interacting with people, the
more competent the researcher will become at reading the culture of the respondents.
Marginality
The longer a researcher stays in the field and the more the researcher interacts with the
respondents the more influence their presence can have on respondents’ behaviour,
ideas and actions. What the ethnographer wants to avoid is respondents’ behaviour
becoming an ‘artefact’, product or outcome of the research process, with people behav-
ing in the way that they do because they are part of a research project. Marginality is a
technique that ethnographers use to position themselves within the field in such a way
that they can observe and collect data but without significantly influencing people to
behave in ways that they would not have done if the researcher was not present.
Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) argue that marginality in both perspective and
in the social position of the researcher can help to enhance the naturalistic feel of the
research. Most justifications for the ethnographic approach stress the benefit of margin-
ality in research and suggest that there are benefits to interacting on a friendly basis with
the ‘respondents’, as dialogue with them will generate research findings. The central
question is: how is it possible to reconcile the two? How can the researcher be both
‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ at the same time?
This raises another important methodological issue that the ethnographer has to
overcome. Interviews are a very useful research tool. However, interviewing people with-
out their knowledge or consent, within the context of a covert participant observation,
raises both ethical and practical issues. One view is that people will not respond to a
series of questions about key aspects of their natural setting. People might regard such
questioning as odd and would either not respond to the questions, or not provide
answers that reflect their true thoughts or feelings. The researcher needs to think about
the role they are going to play in the field: how they are going to present themselves
to the respondents in order to allow the respondents to feel comfortable and provide
the information required to fulfil the aims of the research project? This is commonly
known by ethnographers as the ethnographic presence.
Developing an ethnographic presence

Within an ethnographic research project the ethnographic presence the researcher
adopts or the stance they are going to take whilst doing the research, will help them
develop what Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) call a ‘creative insight’ – some researchers
simultaneously adopt the role of insider and outsider:
‘intellectually poised between “familiarity” and “strangeness”, while socially he or

she is poised between “stranger” and “friend”’ (1983: 100).
Many ethnographers, such as Hammersley and Atkinson have argued that it is not
possible to eliminate the effects of the researcher from the data, because we are part of
the world that we study.
Going native
All research methodology textbooks contain a section on ethnographers ‘going native’.
This describes a situation in which the ethnographic researcher becomes so involved in
the lives of the people whom they are investigating that they forget about their role as
active researchers. Going native is almost universally regarded as a bad thing because
by becoming so closely associated with the people under investigation the ‘researcher’
not only loses their role as researcher–observer but their account of what is happening in
the field becomes no different from that of the other respondents. In contrast, however,
it is possible to develop the argument that failure to gain access to the group is also
a serious methodological issue. Researchers who ‘go native’ become at one with the
personal cultures of the people they are investigating, their motives and intentions. By
going native, knowing one’s self and exploring one’s own thoughts, this is like exploring
the motives and intentions of the group. The ethnographer has to have a sound grasp
of the language or discourse of the group in order to understand their behaviour.
Discourse 129
Imaginary Friends: the problem of ‘going native’

It is very difficult to identify a research project in which the researcher has gone
native, because such projects tend not to be published. However, Alison Lurie
(1967) has written a very entertaining and well informed fictional account of
a covert participant observation of a small group known as the Truth Seekers
who live in the small town of Sophis in upstate New York. Tom McMann and
Roger Zimmerman join the Truth Seekers in order to investigate the dynamics of
the group. Verena, the leader of the group, is believed to be in contact with Ro
from the distant planet of Varna and receives messages that she scribbles on
paper and then outlines their significance for the group members. The Varnians
are much more advanced than the people of Earth and have evolved beyond
physical bodies. The novel outlines the issues of research ethics, especially when
the researchers are identified by one of the group members as academics. The
novel also explores the level of involvement in the decisions of the group that
the researchers should involve themselves in and the relationship of trust with
group members.
McMann encourages Verena to identify a date when the Varnians will visit Earth
and give salvation to the Truth Seekers. On the evening of the expected arrival
Verena receives a message from Ro of Varna explaining that he will transfer into
the body of the most intelligent member of the group, who is identified as Tom
McMann. McMann accepts the role, becomes a true believer and goes native. Alison
Lurie traces the transition from McMann’s initial clear and objective research
strategy to becoming the leader of the group, the physical vessel that holds the
spirit of Ro in a very convincing manner.
Although this is a fictional account of the process of going native it demon-
strates that the ethnographer’s ethnographic presence can become so appealing
to the respondents that the researcher becomes central to the activities of the
group under investigation.
Discourse
Discourse is the way in which people speak and think about aspects of the social
world that they are concerned with. It contains the organising principles that people
are socialised into over a period of time and which they use in their everyday lives to
make sense of the world around them. Although he never engaged in any ethnographic
research, Foucault was highly influential in developing an approach to discourse that
many ethnographers make use of. Foucault argued that discourses do not simply reflect
social reality but shape and maintain prevailing perceptions of reality and dominant
viewpoints. When looking at any ‘discursive formation’ Foucault would attempt a
genealogical investigation into why, at a particular point in time, one set of sentences
about a particular topic is more likely to occur. Moreover, people are positioned as
‘subjects’ within a discursive practice; as such discourse can also shape the identity and
a person’s sense of self.
This approach to discourse analysis was further developed by Fairclough (1992),
in order to identify the discursive strategies used by a group in its attempt to have
its version of reality produced and reproduced within the group. Fairclough developed
the approach of a framework of discourse that could be analysed by the use of several
interlocking concepts:
s Themes: discourse themes, also including assumptions that underlie the choice of
theme.
s Presuppositions: information treated as given or implicit in the text or spoken
word.
s Interdiscursivity and intertextual relations: relations between other texts to form
an intertextual chain by the formation of links with other discursive formations.
s Modality: the degree of certainty that a speaker/writer has about the truth content
of the discourse and the generality of the discursive formation. As Morrish explains:
‘Modality within an utterance can be revealed by a number of devices in the text,
e.g., tense (present tense suggesting universal validity), plurality (plurals suggest
generalization about a category), negation, and adverbial choice’ (1997: 336).
Morrish quotes Hodge and Kress (1993) who argue that modalities are used to
protect utterances from criticism.
s Transitivity: the understanding that the speaker/writer has about who or what is
responsible for bringing about any given situation within the discursive formation.
s Lexical choice: the categories that a speaker/writer makes use of within a discursive
formation.
If the ethnographer is to understand fully the meanings of the interactions they observe
they must have a grasp of the way in which people think about those aspects of the
social world that the ethnographer is investigating. Coming to terms with and under-
standing the discourse of the people the ethnographer is investigating will give the
ethnographer insight into the organising principles that people draw upon in their
everyday lives to make sense of the world around them.
Practice – the unit of analysis

The unit of analysis for any ethnographic study is the practice of the people we are
investigating. The ethnographer is interested in what people do and why they do it.
This will almost certainly involve exploring their sense of self and how they conduct
themselves on a day-to-day basis. For the ethnographer there is a need to give a much
Practice – the unit of analysis 131
greater emphasis to the notion of ‘practice’, moving away from sterile debates about
agency and structure and towards an understanding of personal experiencing.
But what is practice? My understanding of practice is that it is ‘guided doings’; in
other words when people carry out a social action they do so by drawing upon a
set of existing ideas and beliefs that guide their choice of social action. We are still
free to choose any action that we wish in any circumstances, but if we want to avoid
behaving in a way that is considered by others as inappropriate we need to be guided
in our actions. Ask yourself: what do you understand by the term medical practice?
What do you understand by the term football practice? The term ‘practice’ in both
examples suggests that the person’s social action is guided by a body of ideas, skills
and knowledge. If we can understand the underpinning body of ideas, skills and
knowledge that guide a person’s practice this will give us a great insight into under-
standing their social actions.
Practice
A number of authors have explored the notion of practice in detail. For example:
‘A practice may be identified as a set of considerations, manners, uses,
observances, customs, standards, canon’s maxims, principles, rules, and offices
specifying useful procedures or denoting obligations or duties which relate
to human actions and utterances. It is a prudential or a moral adverbial
qualification of choices and performances, more or less complicated, in which
conduct is understood in terms of a procedure’ (Oakeshott 1975: 55).
Human behaviour is at the same time both constrained and constraining. Moreover, it
is human behaviour that is the cause of both the constrained and constraining nature of
human behaviour itself. Constraining the behaviour of others is a practice, and living
your life, as a constrained person, is a practice. Our lives are constituted by practice,
and it is practice that ethnographers spend their time investigating.
For the ethnographer, mind, action and the body are socially established. Our
identity and our sense of self are formed through the practices we are involved in.
Individuals define themselves in relation to others; their reactions to our behaviour,
sentiments and opinions that they impose upon us, and on how we come to terms
with the conditions of our life. Practice is the platform and material for this social
construction. What makes structures appear to be factual entities, which have a life
that is independent of the people who constitute them, is the energisation that people
bring to their dispersed practices. For example the practice of ordering, describing
and following rules, convincing others that rules, routines and principles should be
followed.
Notions of practice
Three notions of practice can be identified:
1. Learning how to do an activity and improving upon it – this implies ‘under-
standing’ that a practice can also be improved. Understanding involves a range
of cognitive activities: describing and questioning; the ability to identify a
practice in our own behaviour and in the behaviour of others; the ability to
provoke and respond to a practice in a way we judge to be appropriate.
2. Following rules, conventions and instructions – again the ability to identify
rules and routines is itself a practice that can be improved.
3. Making things happen, identifying goals and the resources needed to achieve
those goals.
The definition of the situation

For the ethnographer the social structure of any group is created by the group members
themselves. The way in which people within a group define the situation they are in
comes to form a set of informal but tangible rule-like structures that ethnographers refer
to as the definition of the situation. The situated activity of people, what they do on a
day-to-day basis in their everyday lives, is constructed out of practices. In ethnographic
research practice is the stuff that structures are made of. Practice is not habitual action,
although it may become routine. Practices are reciprocal within any group. Moreover,
we make use of practice to explore the unknown. This allows us to be involved in the
production of meaning, as we have the ability to draw upon resources that are around
us rather than accepting life as it is. What is important for ethnographers is that the
practice that we engage ourselves in is only consciously thought about during times of
personal transition, in which people ask themselves questions such as: ‘What am I doing?’
or ‘Why do I choose to live my life like this?’ This is the ethnographer’s focus.
The issue here can most clearly be seen in relation to gender. Our notion of what
constitutes ‘femininity’ and what ‘masculinity’ are socially constructed, but so too are
notions of male and female. Such concepts only have currency because people practise
their masculinity and their femininity. Moreover, people locate themselves within an
‘appropriate’ masculinity or femininity, I would assume, in terms of how comfortable
they feel about it. Such categories should not be used to categorise people; rather such
terms should be used to describe activities that people choose to engage themselves in.
The categories ‘male’ and ‘female’ can only ever be what people choose to make of them.
As social scientists we have a tendency to identify, or invent, a set of categories, such as
‘class’, ‘male’, ‘female’ etc. which we do not adequately define or explain. Then we go out
into the world and gather evidence which we arbitrarily fit into the category. However,
the justification for the category is never given and never attempted.
Schatzki argues that: ‘What a person does on any occasion depends not on practices,
but instead on (1) the understanding he has of his situation . . . and (2) the motives
3FEFGJOJOHUIFDPODFQUPGATJUFFUIOPHSBQIZPOUIFJOUFSOFU 133
(“sentiment”) out of which a particular action conducive to the wished-for condition

is “chosen” ’ (1997: 96).
The problem with this is that both understanding and choosing are practices. Schatzki
underestimates the role of practice in human society. For the ethnographer any group
of people or social formation is built upon people supporting others who choose to
share common practice.
Redefining the concept of ‘site’: ethnography on

the internet
All of the ethnographic studies we have reviewed in the chapter so far have been tradi-
tional, face-to-face contact between a researcher and a group of respondents. However,
nowadays a significant amount of our communication is mediated via mobile phone,
email, blogs, Twitter and social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace.
Traditionally, ethnographers have conducted their research projects within a physical
location or site, but many communities now do not interact in a physical space but
are virtual, global communities that exist only in cyberspace. In addition, many people
have access to digital cameras with internet access and post material often of a very
personal nature on both social networking sites and YouTube. Collecting information
online has, however, the practical benefit that data such as people’s responses to
questions are already transcribed and can be saved as a document.
Interestingly, just like traditional face-to-face ethnography, several internet ethno-
graphies are both covert and potentially unethical, have a focus on sex and deviance,
and attempt to gain a sympathetic understanding of marginal groups in the population.
For example:
s 3HARPAND%ARLE COVERTLYINVESTIGATEDOVER@REVIEWSOFSEXWORKERSBY
their male clients on a website to discover the perceptions that men had of the
women who provided the services they purchased.
s -AGNETS INVESTIGATED THE WEBSITE SUICIDEGIRLSCOM A COMMERCIAL SITE THAT
featured nude photographs of heavily tattooed women. The data were collected from
online forums and email interviews with customers.
s 3LATER INVESTIGATEDTHEONLINEEXCHANGEOF@DIGITALLYENCODEDSEXUALLYEXPLICIT
material’ which they refer to as sexpics. The data were collected covertly from chat
rooms made up of users who exchanged pornographic photographs and other
pornographic computer files between them via the online community.
As Murthy explains:
‘respondents generally provided different, sometimes more personal, responses

through the internet, compared with face-to-face interviewing and standardized
questionnaires, confirming Miller and Slater’s (2000: 183) conclusion of the some-
times greater “intimacy” of data collected online’ (2008: 842).
However, if the data are collected without the informed consent of the respondents we
need to ask ourselves if they should be used. Journalists may use information from
Facebook, blogs etc. that they have collected covertly but social researchers have ethical
standards that they are expected to adhere to and that also covers data collected online.
As Murthy explains, many people who have been investigated by the use of online
ethnography are vulnerable or marginalised groups and as researchers we should keep
in mind the potential harm our research may cause. However, Murthy argues that
social networking sites can be useful to ethnographers in the following ways:
‘1. they are virtual “gatekeepers” with chains of “friends” who are potential research
respondents;
2. they contain vast stores of multimedia material regarding even the most marginal
social movements or groups;
3. ethnographers can “invisibly” observe the social interactions of page members,
gleaning a previously unavailable type of ethnographic data;
4. pages can be created by social researchers with the explicit purpose of conduct-
ing research online (e.g. focus groups watch an embedded video and comment
on it);
5. the structure of relationships on the sites is a useful research method itself
with, as Garton et al. (1999: 78) argue, the content, direction, and strength of
the relationship “strands” a fruitful approach;
6. pages can be created by social researchers to disseminate useful information to
the public, an approach taken by the creators of the “Cure Diabetes” MySpace page’
(2008: 845).
However, Beaulieu (2004) suggests that there is a body of research that argues that
‘computer mediated communication’ is not a rich enough form of interaction to
sustain meaningful social relations because of the absence of face-to-face interaction
and a geographical place or locale where the interaction takes place. In contrast, many
ethnographers also suggest that ‘cyberspace’ is a site of unique and meaningful forms
of sociality.
The internet allows the ethnographer to engage in fieldwork by adopting a new
persona or switching roles, but again although this is common practice for people who
contribute to lists and blogs, as part of a research project it raises the issue of deception.
There has been some research into websites for people with anorexia and other eat-
ing disorders. So called pro-ana sites allow people to interact globally with like-minded
people and can often be a greater source of information, advice and influence than
immediate family or friends. LeCompte (2002) asks a number of questions about this
changing nature of the site for ethnography. What happens when ethnography is no
longer grounded in real geography? This question raises the important issue of whether
the ethnographer can still search for patterns of behaviour in everyday life.
3FEFGJOJOHUIFDPODFQUPGATJUFFUIOPHSBQIZPOUIFJOUFSOFU 135
Thinkpiece
The ethics of investigating pro-ana websites
Hammersley and Treseder (2007) have investigated pro-ana sites: these are web
pages that actively promote and encourage people to become anorexic and bulimic,
and provide detailed advice to assist their readers. These sites often reject the idea
that these eating disorders are a health problem, rather they adopt a human rights
stance and view the adoption of an eating disorder as a lifestyle choice. Hammersley
and Treseder give their readers a taste of these sites’ content:
‘We have to expose society to the positive aspect of ana. The awareness of our
needs, our ability to face criticism, our infinite strength, our determination
and our indominable wills. Please don’t bend under pressure. Keep ana alive
and well. If you’re anorexic, keep losing weight at all costs. Never let anyone
force you to eat’ (2007: 291–2).
The pro-ana attitude includes the following set of beliefs:
s @-YLIFETIMEGOALISTODIEFROMSTARVATION
s 4HEMOREWEIGHT)LOSETHEBETTER)FEEL
s 4HERESNOSUCHTHINGASTOOTHIN
s %ATINGISASIGNOFWEAKNESS
s 0ERFECTIONISACHIEVEDTHROUGHRESTRICTING
s !NOREXIAWILLMAKEYOUbeautiful.
s .OONECANDOWHAT)WE DO
s 0ROTRUDINGBONESMAKEYOULOOKawesome.
s !NOREXIASHOWSyou are superior.
s #RITICSOFANOREXIAAREJEALOUSORFAT
s .OMATTERWHEREYOUGOyou’re still thin.
s .OMATTERWHATYOUDOyou’re still thin.
s )AMINCONTROL!,7!93
s .OONECANTAKEANAFROMMEno one!
s %XTREMEEMACIATIONISAGOODSTART
s )FYOUARENTANOREXICYOURETHEENEMY
(Hammersley and Treseder, 2007: 291–2)
Questions
1. Can we investigate websites without the permission of the people who manage
and maintain their content?
2. Even if we accept the argument that web pages are in the public domain, are
there any ethical issues in engaging in a blog for the purposes of data collection
without informing the respondents of your research?
3. Are there any ethical problems in having an email exchange with a person who
is unaware that their responses may be quoted in a research project?
Thinkpiece
Review what has been written here and write a list of the pros and cons of
internet ethnography. This should help you to decide if this approach really is
one for you.
As we shall see in other chapters there are many advantages to data collection via the
internet. However, the researcher who is considering this method needs to keep in mind
that internet access in the UK is much lower amongst socially disadvantaged groups than
it is amongst the rest of the population.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have outlined and evaluated some of the key aspects of the ethno-
graphic approach to social research. For Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) ethnography
has two distinct meanings: a set of methods used to collect data and a written account
that makes use of ethnographic methods of data collection.
We have seen that ethnography is based upon a number of assumptions about social
action. Social action is at the centre of the social context in which it is observed and
as such ethnographic fieldwork involves face-to-face interaction with the respondents:
‘immersing oneself in a collective way of life for the purpose of gaining first-hand know-
ledge about some facet of it’ (Shaffir et al. 1980: 6). Social action can only be understood
by exploring the meaning of an action for social actors themselves (verstehen). The
respondents suggest the initial categories or organising principles for the data analysis,
and it is from this that the ethnographer goes on to further shed light on key concepts
and create an explanation as to why people behave in the way that they do.
Should Erica conduct an ethnographic study?

Interviews and questionnaires are perhaps the two most popular methods of data
collection across the social sciences. Erica has already given a great deal of
thought to conducting an interview in the form of a quiz that should allow her
to find out the level of factual knowledge that zoo visitors have when leaving the
zoo. After reading this chapter on ethnography, Erica is concerned that simply
collecting information from people about their factual knowledge of biodiversity
and sustainability is only part of the story and it does not explore the meanings
and feelings that zoo visitors have about biodiversity and sustainability, and how
these feeling states may have changed as a consequence of their visit to the zoo.
#JCMJPHSBQIZ 137
There are a number of practical problems with her quiz idea. Many of the zoo
visitors are children who may not have the language skills or abilities to fully under-
stand or answer questions about biodiversity and sustainability. Erica is also
concerned that the children may not understand issues about animal reproduction.
Erica considers the practical problems and the potential advantages she may
encounter if she opted to conduct an ethnographic piece of research. First, who
is she going to collect data from? She could approach the head teacher of a local
school who is planning a trip to the zoo for a group of students. She could ask the
head teacher to write to parents asking them if they would give their permission
for their children to be included in Erica’s research.
She could also visit the zoo and conduct a ‘thick description’ or very full descrip-
tion of the zoo and the educational and informational resources provided for visitors.
Finally, Erica could meet the students before the zoo visit and talk to them about
their knowledge of biodiversity and sustainability. During the visit Erica could
speak to, listen to and observe the children to identify if their understanding of
the issues had changed.
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8 Observation,
participant
observation and
observational
inference

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reconstruction
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Defining participant observation

Participant observation is a form of ethnographic research in which the researcher has
direct human contact with the people under investigation. The approach is normally
associated with qualitative case study-based research projects, in which researchers
entrench themselves in a social group, often for long periods of time, to collect data
140 Chapter 8 Observation, participant observation and observational inference
primarily from the standpoint of the people under investigation. Researchers often
attempt to identify systematic patterns of behaviour derived from the subjective under-
standing of the respondents in order to draw an inference about social groups. The
approach can also be useful in exploring the actual and existing human meaning system
of a group and can be used to generate a greater understanding of actual human realities
that people experience in their everyday lives.
With participant observation the main instrument of data collection is the researcher
and central to the success of the data collection process and the data analysis is the skill
of the researcher in understanding the people under investigation, in particular the
ability to make the connection between the human meaning system of the researcher
and the human meaning system of the people who are being observed. If we assume
that the social world is subjectively structured and meaningful for the people who
share any given social context then participant observation is potentially a very useful
method of data collection because a researcher also shares the same social context,
often for long periods of time. The researcher can develop a close relationship with the
people who are being investigated and an understanding can be achieved.
This suggests that participant observation is not really a suitable method for collect-
ing data to test a given theory. But it can be used to generate theories, concepts and
hypotheses that include causal explanations that can be tested by more conventional
methods at a later date.
Observation involves collecting discreet or unobtrusive visual data about the world
and ideally the researcher should be in a position to identify an observation as a
fact. The researcher must be in a position to make observations that are both specific
and accurate: this means that the observations made should have the same meaning
for everyone who makes the same observation. Observations can be qualitative or
quantitative in nature.
s Qualitative observations are factual descriptions that do not use numbers, such as
‘Emily has brown eyes’.
s Quantitative observations are factual descriptions that use numbers, such as ‘Emily
has two eyes’.
Some researchers adopt more of an observational role than participant role, whilst
others adopt a more participatory rather than observational approach. According to
Brewer (2000) it is possible to identify four levels of participant observation:
1. Complete participant covert, full participation.

2. Participant-as-observer overt, full participation.
3. Observer-as-participant overt, minimum participation.
4. Complete observer overt, minimum participation (2000: 84).
On the basis of the observations made the researcher should be in a position to draw an
appropriate inference. It is important to remember that an inference is not necessarily
6OEFSTUBOEJOHIVNBONFBOJOHTZTUFNTUISPVHIPCTFSWBUJPO 141
a fact but should be seen as an informed speculation as to why events unfold in the
way that they do. The inferences a researcher makes may not always be correct but they
should always make sense. If you observe that the ground is wet you might infer that
it has rained. If you see a white substance in the sky you might assume that it is cloud,
but it could be smoke from a forest fire.
Participant observation is often used to collect data about hidden groups in the
population, groups that we know very little about usually because they are not easy to
research by more conventional methods of data collection. Such groups include those
engaged in illegal activity or those involved in intimate actions. The approach is also
used when there is a significant difference between the way in which the group views
itself and the perception of the group amongst the general population. Goffman’s book
Asylums (1962) that looked at human interaction on a locked psychiatric ward is a
good example.
Observation provides a descriptive measure of social action. Participant observation
involves understanding what the researcher sees and hears. Rather than imposing
meaning on the participants, the goal of participant observation is to demonstrate
how participants/speakers achieve everyday social actions by acquainting themselves
with the linguistic and non-linguistic components of the participant’s actions, attempt-
ing to identify the organising principles that underpin the role of the participant’s
talk in social interaction. Data analysis focuses on how participants collaboratively
co-construct their actions and conversation by drawing upon different types of textual
evidence from the context in which the conversation takes place. The stages in the
research process involve:
s ADESCRIPTIONOFTHECONTEXTOFTHERESEARCHWHERETHERESEARCHISBEINGCONDUCTED
and who the participants are;
s ADESCRIPTIONOFTHEPATTERNSOFBEHAVIOUROBSERVED
s AN INTERPRETATION THAT SUGGESTS SOMETHING ABOUT THE UNDERLYING ORGANISATION OF
patterns within the contexts in which it is embedded;
s THE UNDERSTANDING OF OBSERVATIONS BY MAKING USE OF A RANGE OF INTERPRETATIVE
approaches: verstehen, sympathetic introspection, humanistic coefficient and sym-
pathetic reconstruction;
s DRAWING AN APPROPRIATE INFERENCE THAT EXPLAINS HOW THE INTERPRETATION OF THE lNDINGS
is related to theoretical and practical issues.
Understanding human meaning systems through

observation
There are four common approaches to understanding the meaning of social action,
including conversation, within a given context:
1 Verstehen (Weber 1922)
We looked at this approach to understanding in Chapter 7. In that chapter it was

argued that researchers who use verstehen assume that it is possible for them to put
themselves in the respondents’ social and cultural context in order to reconstruct or
‘re-experience’ the world as the respondents do and attempt to understand the under-
pinning rationale behind the thoughts, feelings and motivation of the respondents in
an effort to understand their behaviour. For Weber there are two levels of understand-
ing in the process of verstehen:
1. adequacy at the level of meaning: this involves providing the reader with a very full
description of the actions and behaviours we have observed;
2. causal adequacy, in which as researchers we draw an inference as to why the people
observed are behaving in the way that they do.
2 Sympathetic introspection (Cooley 1933)
Sympathetic introspection is a procedure whereby the researcher attempts to analyse the

respondent’s consciousness by putting themselves in the position of the respondent.
For Cooley this approach should be the principal analytical tool of the social researcher
because for Cooley a researcher’s investigation of social actions should be concerned
with understanding the motivational structure that underpins social action; the sub-
jective meanings that social actors attach to the situation in which they find themselves.
This understanding can be achieved through a process of introspection, because researchers
share the equivalent mental processes of the people they are investigating. Cooley
argued that personal or social knowledge is developed through contact with people the
researcher is investigating. By coming to understand their state of mind, thoughts and
sentiments researchers can develop a sympathetic understanding of the motives and
intentions that underpin a respondent’s social action.
Cooley argued that everything that takes place in the social world is connected with
everything else; nothing is isolate in nature including social actors. This means that
every thought we have is linked with the thought of others (such as our ancestors,
friends and acquaintances) and through them to the wider society via our reflective
consciousness. Cooley suggests that our reflective consciousness is a social conscious-
ness, or awareness of society, which consists of reciprocal influence and is inseparable
from self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is not primary or the foundation to social
consciousness.
As social actors we are all capable of introspection, a process by which people exercise
their mind through an infinite variety of experiences that Cooley describes as intellectual–
emotional, simple–complex, normal–abnormal, sociable–private, each time the person
documents what they understand as significant in what they have reflected upon.
The researcher puts him or herself into ‘intimate contact with various sorts of
persons and allowing them to awake in himself a life similar to their own, which he
6OEFSTUBOEJOHIVNBONFBOJOHTZTUFNTUISPVHIPCTFSWBUJPO 143
afterward, to the best of his ability, recalls and describes. In this way he is more or less
able to understand – always by introspection – children, idiots, criminals, rich and poor,
conservative and radical – any phase of human nature not wholly alien to his own’
(Cooley 1933: 99–100).
3 Humanistic coefficient (Znaniecki 1969)
Florian Znaniecki suggests social reality is composed of four systems: social actions,
social relations, social persons and social groups. As social researchers our data analysis
should emphasise the significance of the meaning that participants give to the under-
standing of their own perception of their own experience. Therefore as researchers we
should attempt to reconstruct the experience of the participants and the social context
in which the action takes place in order to understand it. Znaniecki described this pro-
cess as the ‘humanistic coefficient’.
Whereas the natural scientist attempts to find a pattern within the data they collect
that is independent of human agency, independent of the perception and understand-
ing of people; in contrast the social researcher should look to find a pattern in the
social world that is dependent upon the perception and understanding of people.
The humanistic coefficient allows researchers to make sense of the observations they
make, otherwise social actions would appear to be both meaningless and random.
The approach allows the researcher to identify similarities and differences of people’s
perception of events and behaviours. One serious issue with this approach however
is that no two human agents, including social researchers, may view or understand
the social action observed in the same way.
4 Sympathetic reconstruction (MacIver 1942)
MacIver argued that as social researchers we need to look beyond mere description,
beyond mere measurement, beyond the plotting of indices and the finding of correlations
and understand social action. His approach involves the interpretation or understand-
ing of the motives that underpin social action: ‘conjoining motives with the relevant
situations’ in order ‘to discover their causal role’ (1942: 223). The main unit of analysis
for social researchers should be social relations and like all other objects of culture
social relations depend on ‘the imagination of social being’ (1931: 27).
MacIver defined community as an inclusive area of social interactions within which
people share the basic conditions of common life. MacIver’s theory is interactional in
nature. Interaction is the influence of symbolism, language and gestures on culture and
mind. Society ‘consists of beings related to one another’ (1914: 59). Institutions are a
product of subjective shared values rooted in intended relations: ‘A scheme of values
. . . may be likened to a field or force’ (1942: 373). For the interpretation of social
phenomena the researcher should be concerned not with individual action but ‘with
the modes and processes of interindividual assessment’ (1942: 374).
Problems with participant observation

Participant observation research is often described as lacking in both validity and
reliability. The presence of the researcher can influence the participants to behave in
ways that they may not otherwise have behaved. Also the behaviour of the researcher
may change over time, as can the attitude of the participants towards them.
Research bias is also a potential problem. Such bias can be systematic in the sense
that the researcher come to the research context with a number of preconceived ideas
about the participants but also research projects can be disadvantaged by the lack
of awareness of the researcher, or the ethnocentric attribution of meaning, notably
when the researcher gives priority to forms of behaviour that are very different from
the behaviour that the researcher customarily observes away from the research context.
Such behaviour may be insignificant to the people being observed. In addition, over time
the recording and interpretation of the events can change, especially if the researcher
has had to observe a great deal of irrelevant behaviour.
Problems can also arise because of variables over which the researcher has no control,
absence of any significant incidents or the poor quality of the events to be observed.
The timing of the data collection can be significant: important events may occur when
the researcher is away from the field.
Reading and recording observations

An important issue for the researcher that uses observation is how do we read an
observation; how do attribute the correct meaning of the social actions we observe? If the
researcher shares a common meaning system with the people being observed, for example
if school teachers observe classrooms, or footballers observe football matches, then the
sharing of a common culture is an important resource the researcher can draw upon
to make sense of the observation. In our everyday lives we can usually read expressive
behaviours with little or no difficulty most of the time. In addition, we make assumptions
about facial expressions, the clothes that people wear, shoes, length of hair, the meaning
of bodily movements etc. However, if we are observing a culture or context that we are
less familiar with, we cannot rely on reading such taken for granted assumptions.
Researchers can supplement their observations by recording and giving an interpreta-
tion of the conversations that are heard. However, in covert research we cannot formally
interview people. In addition, when people do speak in public they are often constrained
in terms of what they can talk about and will often talk quietly about sensitive issues.
Sampling procedures
The researcher needs to give some thought to their sampling procedure. Although
participant observation tends not to be associated with systematic sampling procedures,
$PWFSUNFUIPET 145
it is important to provide a justification for why the context and participants were
chosen. There needs to be an account provided covering if, how and why the context
and participants are typical of such cases. This will enhance the face validity of the study
and assist the researcher if they want to generalise their findings to a wider section
of the population. Different time periods and different locations can be selected for
observation to allow for a much fuller view of the context and the participants.
Covert methods
A great deal of research involving participant observation has been conducted covertly
where researchers hide the fact that they are researchers and act as if they have another
legitimate reason to be present. Reasons for doing research covertly can involve gaining
access to a group who might otherwise not allow the research to be conducted or to
avoid reactivity effects: effects caused by the presence of the researcher influencing the
behaviour of the respondents, for example Humphreys (1970) that we looked at in
Chapter 7.
Concealment and deception

One of the most well-known research projects that made use of participant
observation is a study by Rosenhan (1973) that involved 8 pseudopatients, sane
people who presented themselves with a false name, at 12 psychiatric institutions
across the USA claiming to have ‘existential symptoms’. They each said that they
had been hearing a unfamiliar voice of the same sex as themselves saying the words
‘empty’, ‘hollow’ and ‘thud’. The words were read by the medical staff in the
institutions as indicating that the person perceived their lives to be meaningless.
Once the researcher had gained access to the institution they behaved ‘normally’
and informed the medical staff that they no longer heard the voice.
The medical notes indicated that the pseudopatients were never detected by
medical staff as imposters. However, many other patients were suspicious of the
researchers and Rosenhan quotes patients making comments such as ‘You’re not
crazy. You’re a journalist, or a professor. You’re checking up on the hospital’.
The length of stay in the institution ranged from 7 to 52 days, all but one of the
pseudopatients was assumed to be suffering with schizophrenia and all were
released on the grounds that they were ‘in remission’, rather than cured. Rosenhan
suggests that because the sanity of the pseudopatients was never discovered this
raises serious issues about the ability of medical staff to differentiate normal from
abnormal behaviour and the validity of psychiatric diagnoses.
Thinkpiece
However, the issues of concealment and deception do raise ethical concerns about
Rosenhan’s research. In a footnote he provides the following justification:
‘However distasteful such concealment is, it was a necessary first step to examin-
ing these questions. Without concealment, there would have been no way to
know how valid these experiences were; nor was there any way of knowing
whether detections occurred were a tribute to the diagnostic acumen of the
hospital’s rumor network. Obviously, since my concerns are general ones that
cut across individual hospital and staffs, I have respected their anonymity and
have eliminated clues that might lead to their identification’ (1973: 258).
Questions
1. Was concealment of the researcher’s identity really necessary in Rosenhan’s
research?
2. Can you think of an alternative approach that Rosenhan could have adopted
that did not involve concealment of the researcher’s identity?
Not simply black and white

In 1960 journalist John Howard Griffin published his book Black Like Me. Griffin
was a white American who lost his sight during the Second World War whilst on
active service. During this period of blindness Griffin reflected on the life of Black
Americans living in the Southern United States. In 1957 his eyesight returned and
Griffin decided to conduct a research project in which he would pass as a Black
American in the Southern United States. He approached Sepia magazine to ask if
they would be willing to finance the research project in exchange for the right to
print his findings in a series of articles. In the weeks that Griffin spent changing his
skin colour by using the treatment for vitiligo, a condition that causes white spots
to appear on dark skin, and exposure to ultra violet rays, Griffin got to know the
areas of New Orleans inhabited by black people. Griffin also got to know Sterling
Williams, an elderly black resident who worked as a shoe shine ‘boy’. Williams
became the point of contact for Griffin with the black community.
Once Griffin had changed his skin colour and shaved his head he attempted
to live his life as a Black American in order to describe and explain the difficulties
Black Americans faced in their everyday lives. From 28 October 1957 Griffin kept
a diary in which he recorded his six-week experience.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s the Southern States practised racial segrega-
tion, with separate cafés, bars, toilets and other public facilities for black and white
Americans. Racial tensions in the Southern United States often boiled over into
violent conflict. Griffin describes the shock of living as a Black American, including
the everyday insults, humiliation and the ‘hate stare’ that he commonly received
from whites whom he had never previously met. He was not viewed as an individual
$PWFSUNFUIPET 147
person but as a black man and activities that he had taken for granted as a white
man, such as using a bathroom in public spaces, became problematical as a black man:
‘I walked up to the ticket counter. When the lady ticket-seller saw me, her
otherwise attractive face turned sour, violently so. This look was so unex-
pected and so unprovoked I was taken aback.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
Taking care to pitch my voice to politeness, I asked about the next bus to
Hattiesburg.
She answered rudely and glared at me with such loathing I knew I was
receiving what Negros call “the hate stare”. It was my first experience with it.
It is far more than the look of disapproval one occasionally gets. This was so
exaggeratedly hateful I would have been amused if I had not been surprised . . .
You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred, not so much
because it threatens you as because it shows humans in such an inhuman light’
(1961: 50–1).
‘Behind the custard stand stood an old unpainted privy leaning badly to one
side. I returned to the dispensing window of the stand.
“Yes sir” the white man said congenially. “You want something else?”
“Where’s the nearest rest room I could use?” I asked.
He brushed his white, brimless cook’s cap back and rubbed his forefinger
against his forehead. “Let’s see. You can go on up there to the bridge and then
cut down the road to the left . . . and just follow that road. You’ll come to a
little settlement – there’s some stores and a gas station there.”
“How far is it?” I asked pretending to be in greater discomfort than I actu-
ally was.
“Not far – thirteen, maybe fourteen blocks.”
A locust’s lazy rasping sawed the air from the nearby oak trees.
“Isn’t there anyplace closer?” I said, determined to see if he would offer me
the use of the dilapidated outhouse, which certainly no human could
degrade any more than time and the elements had.
His seamed face showed the concern and sympathy of one human for
another in a predicament every man understands. “I can’t think of any . . .”
he said slowly.
I glanced around the side toward the outhouse.
“Any chance of me running in there for a minute?”
“Nope,” he said – clipped, final, soft, as though he regretted it but could
never permit such a thing. “I’m sorry.” He turned away.
“Thank you just the same,” I said’ (1960: 85–6).
Griffin conducted conversation with black and white Americans about their thoughts,
feelings and reflections of the racial issue. All but a handful of the people he observed
and conversed with knew that he had adopted the identity of a black man. No per-
mission was sought from any of the respondents. He informed the FBI of his intention
to conduct the research but he did not seek their permission or their approval.
Disadvantages of covert research

Covert research involves deception because it is based upon the purposeful misleading
of subjects by the researcher. Therefore when participant observation involves the
researcher adopting a covert role it is commonly assumed to raise ethical concerns.
Gaining the informed consent of a respondent is seen as a basic ethical principle of all
social research and absence of informed consent from the respondents can be viewed
as an invasion of their privacy.
s %LMS #ASSELL AND(OMAN ALLGIVEABLANKETCONDEMNATIONOF

the approach and argue that there are no situations in which deception is ethically
acceptable in social research.
s #ASSELL ARGUESTHATCOVERTRESEARCHISMETHODOLOGICALLYUNSOUNDANDMORALLY
questionable. In addition to the potential harm caused to respondents covert research
may cause harm to the scientific community, creating a climate of mistrust and making
it more difficult for future researchers to gain access to the respondents in the future.
s #ASSELL ALSO ARGUES THAT COVERT RESEARCH PRODUCES DISTORTED OR BIASED DATA
because the researcher is committed to preserving their false identity, meaning that the
researcher has to spend a great deal of time engaged in the systematic concealment
of their real identity and attempting to avoid been ‘out-ed’ as a researcher rather
than concentrating efforts on data collection and analysis.
s "ULMER (OMAN AND "ULMER ARGUES THAT DECEPTION IS A @GROSS INVASION OF
personal privacy’ and ignores the needs and rights of the respondent.
s "OK ARGUESTHATWHENRESEARCHERSUSECOVERTRESEARCHRESPONDENTSARE@UNABLE
to make choices for themselves according to the most adequate information available,
[and are] unable to act as they would have wanted to act had they known all along’.
s "URGESS ARGUESTHATCOVERTRESEARCHCANONLYPROVIDETHERESEARCHERWITHTHE
opportunity to explore social reality by observation and does not give the researcher
the opportunity to interview respondents or explore group documents.
s #HADWICKet al. (1984) suggest that if the researcher has established close personal
ties with the respondents then the impact of the researcher leaving the field may be
psychologically damaging to respondents, generating feelings of betrayal or exploitation.
Advantages of covert research

The methodological disadvantages of covert participant research are well documented
but some groups do not permit access to researchers, leaving them with the choice of
conducting covert research or abandoning the research project. However, a number
of commentators have also defended the use of covert research:
s (OMAN ARGUES THAT COVERT RESEARCH OFTEN AVOIDS REACTIVITY EFFECTS THAT ARE OFTEN
found when researchers use overt methods of data collection. Covert research can
be less disruptive than overt methods in that respondents are free from the influence
of knowing they are subjects in a research project and the data collected is in a form
4VNNBSZPGWJFXQPJOUT 149
that is free from respondents feeling they have to tell the researcher what the latter
wants to hear.
s "OK AND 7ARWICK DEFEND THE USE OF DECEPTION IN RESEARCH IF THE
deception can be seen to produce unambiguous social benefits that outweigh any
potential for harm to the respondents, such as reducing violence.
s ,AUDER ARGUESTHATINCERTAINRARECIRCUMSTANCESCOVERTPARTICIPANTOBSERVA-
tion is both necessary and acceptable as a method of data collection, for example if
the researcher wants to investigate deviant communities that would be inaccessible
by overt methods.
Lauder (2003) adopted a covert role during a three-year research project on the
Heritage Front, a Canadian neo-National Socialist organisation, that has a history of
violence-based activism and links to terrorist organisations. Lauder argues that far
right-wing groups may view the researcher as a potential member making it impossible
to research analytically.
Observation in overt research projects

In addition to covert studies there a number of overt research projects that make use
of observation to good effect. Hochschild’s study was of emotional labour, a form of
labour in which people are engaged in customer service involving face-to-face or voice-
to-voice contact with the public, where employers attempt to draw upon the emotions
and feeling states of their employees as an organisational resource. Hochschild (1983)
observed Delta Airlines flight attendants at a training school where recruits learnt how
to handle passengers, distribute in-flight meals and enhance the passenger experience.
Hochschild also observed Delta Airlines bill collectors who have to adopt a very differ-
ent stance towards the customer in order to get them to settle outstanding balances
on their accounts. Finally, she also observed the recruitment of flight attendants at
Pan American Airlines, having been refused permission to observe the process with
Delta. From these observations and informal interviews with the people she observed
Hochschild argued that her observations provided ‘a set of illustrated ideas about how
society uses feeling’ (1983: 17).
Summary of viewpoints
In summary, social researchers tend to view overt research as more ethical than covert
research because covert research is assumed to ignore the principle of informed consent.
Research methods textbooks tend to view covert and overt roles within participant
observation research as opposites. However, it would be wrong to simply assume

that overt research is always more ethical than covert research. The overt researcher
role does not always ensure ethical integrity. In addition, McKenzie (2009) argues that
research ethics are a not clear-cut matter, and most overt researchers will use covert
practices such as: withholding information from the respondents; not revealing your
true status to all subjects; engaging in forms of impression management in order to
establish a bond of trust with the respondents in order to get the desired response
from respondents; or observing respondents who are unfamiliar with the ethnographic
approach and therefore not fully aware of the degree to which they are being observed
and hence researched.
Herrera (1999) argues that the benefits of covert research excuse the use of deceptive
methods of data collection.
Thinkpiece
Is deception ethically defensible? (1)
In 1976 Randall H. Alfred published his account of the Church of Satan. In
this research project Alfred pretended that he had converted to Satanism, joined
the Church, volunteered to reinforce his false identity as a believer and went on
to accept leadership roles in order to gain access to more insider information
from Church members.
Should Satanists have ethical rights in a research project? According to Jorgensen
(1989):
‘the participant observer has no more or less of an ethical obligation to
the people encountered in the course of research than she or he would have
under other everyday life circumstances . . . the researcher is not necessarily
obligated to inform people of research intentions, or even protect them from
possible harmful consequences’ (1989: 28).
Question
Do you agree with Jorgensen or not? Give the reasons for your answer.

Herrera (1999) argues that the benefits of covert research excuse the of use deceptive
methods of data collection. According to Herrera (1999) deceptive experiments
are commonplace in social psychology, because when researchers deliberately
misinform their respondents about the purpose of research, results demonstrate
the methodological value of deceiving respondents. Moreover, arguments for and
against deception have advanced very little since the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Focusing on experiments in Psychology, Herrera looks at the work of Vinacke
who: ‘anticipated arguments now familiar, that deception might somehow harm
subjects, or even undermine public trust in psychology. Vinacke also hinted at
4VNNBSZPGWJFXQPJOUT 151
the possible impropriety of deceiving in academic settings or of damage to the

“social fabric”’ (1954: 155). However, Herrera suggests that respondents do not
mind being deceived.
Questions
1. Why would a psychologist feel guilt at having been deceptive?
2. Is some entitlement violated by the deception?
3. Are subjects in psychological experiments threatened more by boredom rather
than deception?
4. How would you respond to these questions?

Brotsky and Giles (2007) conducted a covert participant observation into the inter-
actions that take place on ‘pro-ana’ websites; websites that provide opportunities
for people with eating disorders to share thoughts and ideas. In particular the
researchers wanted to explore the assumption made by many health care profes-
sionals, parents and teachers that such sites are fundamentally anti-recovery. To
do this the researchers attempted to explore the beliefs of people who join such
online communities and the forms of psychological support such websites offer.
The researchers decided to join 12 separate websites, many of which were
password protected, by adopting the identity of a person with an eating disorder.
A number of the websites allowed for online exchanges between people with eating
disorders in real time via chat rooms, instant messenger and bulletin boards.
The first stage is described by Brotsky and Giles (2007) as the induction phase,
where the researcher constructed a plausible persona that enabled her to obtain
access to the website from the gatekeepers and make naturalistic interaction pos-
sible. The second phase is described as the interaction phase, where the researcher
enters the community as a plausible member. Finally there is the exiting phase
where the researcher reflects on the experiences and collects any outstanding data
by follow-up interviews.
‘She began by introducing herself as an authentic pro-ana sympathizer who

was hoping to establish virtual relationships with like-minded individuals,
and continued to participate as naturally as possible across the course of the
investigation. As the investigation unfolded, connections were made and close
relationships developed through ongoing conversations with participants’
(Brotsky and Giles 2007: 98).
Questions
1. There are a number of issues raised by this approach. The first issue is that of
deception: was deception justified?
2. The second ethical issue is that of the absence of informed consent. Do the potential
benefits for doctors and others in the clinical field of the research findings regard-
ing the motivations of people with eating disorders outweigh the ethical cost?
Data analysis
Like other forms of ethnographic research, participant observation involves a disci-
plined approach to data collection and analysis. It is not simply about spending time
with a group of people and collecting anecdotes. We should view data analysis from a
participant observation point of view as an account of accounts, in which the researcher
attempts to place personal observation into a theoretical and conceptual context that
not only corrects the very personal way in which the data were collected but also trans-
forms the unique social actions observed into objective statements that are meaningful
for a wider audience of readers.
Aim of data analysis
The aim of all data analysis is to assemble the data collected in a meaningful fashion
to produce an explanation, allow interpretation and enable an appropriate inference to
be drawn. Most participant and non-participant observers use note taking as the first
step in the data analysis process. As with other forms of data analysis, data analysis
of observations involves coding the data collected; researchers have to sort, sift and
organise collected data. This means that the observations made have to be placed into
some form of conceptual or theoretical framework in order to make them intelligible.
The researcher’s review of the literature will suggest relevant theories and concepts for
the construction of a sound conceptual or theoretical framework.
Finding a pattern
An approach identified by Jorgensen (1989) is called the analytic strategy in which the
researcher identifies and labels what is the essential element of the behaviour observed.
Once the researcher has identified the essential element of the behaviour, the behaviours
observed can be placed into classes or categories. This process is an important step in
identifying a pattern within the observations and also allows the researcher to identify
relationships within the context of the observations.
When conversation is used as part of the analysis key words can be used to identify
the essential element of the conversation, and again once the researcher has identified
the essential element of the conversation by the use of a key word, the key words can
be placed into classes or categories. Again this process is an important step in identify-
ing a pattern and allows the researcher to identify relationships with the context.
Finding a pattern in the data can be very time consuming. As Diesing observed:
‘[The] method involves taking data as they come, and they usually come in scattered,
disconnected fragments. Unlike the experimentalist, who can demand evidence on
a specific question from his subject matter, the participant observer must adapt his
5IFNBUJDDPOUFOUBOBMZTJT 153
thinking to what his subject happens to be doing. He has to observe each causal
interchange as it happens, participate in the ceremony of the day since it may
not occur again for two years, talk to the informants who are available, and get
involved in whatever problems and controversies are prominent at the moment.
At the end of the day he comes home with a wealth of information on a variety of
points, but nothing conclusive on any one given point. Over the weeks and months
his evidence on a given point gradually accumulates and the various points start to
fit together into a tentative pattern’ (1971: 68).
However data analysis is a creative aspect of the research process in which you have to
construct an account or explanation of how and why people behave in the way that
you have observed. As Jorgensen rightly points out:
‘While it is important to consult existing literature, you should not be constrained

by what other people have done. Use your imagination!’ (Jorgensen 1989: 110).
The coding of data from observations can be done in several ways but one of the
most systematic approaches to the analysis of observation is the thematic content
analysis.
Thematic content analysis

The first stage in data analysis is an in-depth description of the context in which
the respondents are to be found; this description will later form the ‘thick description’
or opening chapter of the final research report. Part of this process is defining the
issues to be addressed. According to Gruber and Wallace (1999) the in-depth or thick
description gives the reader a chance to get a sensitive insight into the insider perspective
of the people under investigation.
Data analysis in research projects that use participant observation as the primary
method of data collection often starts with the researcher making field notes. Analytic
ideas will start to emerge from when the researcher first enters the field as will
puzzlements; these are issues and events, or observations, that the researcher does not
fully understand and cannot explain. The initial analytic ideas and puzzlements are
also recorded. At this stage the field notes are rough notes about observations collected
but over time field notes are slowly but surely refined, through a process of reading
and rereading, in an effort to identify regular or recurring themes which are often
initially written in the margins of the field notes themselves. As the research becomes
more familiar with the culture and context of the field, puzzlements can be returned
to and resolved.
Note taking is essential if the researcher is to attempt to make sense of observed
social interactions and transform raw data into findings.
Tips to ensure good note taking

s !FTER MAKING OBSERVATIONS WRITE UP THE NOTES AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE SO THAT
information is not forgotten.
s 7RITING lELD NOTES CAN ENCOURAGE THOUGHT ABOUT THE DATA ANALYSIS AND THE
appropriate inference.
s -AKETWOCOPIESOFTHElELDNOTESONECOPYTOKEEPANDTHEOTHERTOMAKE
notes in the margins and within the text to help identify categories of data,
find patterns, key words, relationships etc. and to encourage analysis.
In some instances, it may be possible seek additional information from the respond-
ents by informal interview, guided conversation or reflective dialogue, or by looking
at documents from the context or field. In Willis’s research Learning to Labour (1977)
he discussed his ideas and observations with ‘the lads’ to check the validity of his
observations, but this is not always possible for many researchers.
Summary
In summary, the thematic content analysis is an interpretative approach to data analysis

of observations. The first stage is that the researcher’s observational notes are transcribed
verbatim. Secondly, the observational notes are read to get a sense of the context. Thirdly,
interactions or words used are identified as significant and are re-defined as meaning units.
The meaning units are described in terms of their manifest (literal descriptive meaning)
and latent content (meaning that requires interpretation of the content).
From the literal descriptive meaning and interpretation, sub-themes or threads of
relevant meaning running through the text can be identified. The themes allow the
researcher to contextually interpret, compare and contrast the interactions observed
with analytic concepts derived from other similar research in the field or other relevant
concepts in an effort to build up an explanation of why respondents behaved in the
way they did.
Conclusion
Participant observation requires the researcher to play the dual roles of observer: the
researcher looking at the respondents from a researcher’s perspective in an effort to
faithfully interpret and record the reality of the situation and the participant who
has a stake in the activities and outcomes of the behaviours being observed. One of
the main strengths of participant observation as a method of data collection is that
because participant observers experience the ‘reality’ of the situation that the respondents
Conclusion 155
experience it allows the researcher to understand the context in which interpersonal

behaviour takes place. This in turn allows the researcher to draw a greater insight into
the respondent’s motives and intentions. Methods with no observational element,
such as a self-administered questionnaire, do not allow the researcher to include non-
verbal behaviours in their data collection. As researchers we have to weigh this strength
against potential weaknesses such as unforeseen bias, selectivity and greater opportun-
ity for the researcher to influence the respondent’s behaviour and potential manipula-
tion of events.
Should Erica use participant observation as her method of data collection?

Erica is concerned that all of the methods she has considered so far will only gather
some of the information she is looking for or run the risk of her imposing her own
meaning on the information that the respondents give her. Perhaps she should
consider conducting a case study that used observation or participant observation
as her method of data collection? She learns from this chapter that the goal
of participant observation is to demonstrate how participants/speakers achieve
everyday social actions by acquainting themselves with the linguistic and non-
linguistic components of participants’ actions, attempting to identify the organising
principles that underpin the role of participants’ talk in social interaction.
If she visits the zoo as an ordinary zoo visitor she could simply follow people
as they make their way around the animal enclosures, observe them reading any
materials about biodiversity and sustainability, perhaps engage in conversation
with them, listen to what they say about the issues and record what they say. If the
visitors do not know who she is or that she is a student doing a research project
they would probably talk to her and each other without feeling the need to give
rational reasons for their comments.
In the back of her mind, however, there is the nagging thought that collecting
data by observing people and pretending to be an ordinary zoo visitor without their
knowledge or consent had an unethical feel to it. Perhaps she needed to give this
some more thought! Is there a more ethical approach that she could adopt?
Erica thinks about inviting a group of people whom she knows well and who
know that she is doing a research project about zoos to join her on a visit to the local
zoo. This will allow her to talk, observe and generally get to know what they think
about the information zoos offer the public on biodiversity and sustainability. She
knows there are issues of poor reliability in this approach but she also knows that
what this method lacks in reliability it makes up for in greater validity. Her family
and friends want Erica to do well in the research methods project but they cannot
give her information they do not have about biodiversity and sustainability, they can
only tell her the truth. This is potentially an excellent source of data for her project.
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on Covert Practices in an Overt Participant Observation Study,’ Sociological Research
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Rosenhan, D.L. (1973) ‘On being sane in insane places’, Science, 179(4070): 250–8.
Vinacke, W.E. (1954) ‘Deceiving experimental subjects’, American Psychologist, (9): 155.
Warwick, D. (1973) ‘Survey Research and Participant Observation: A Benefit-Cost
Analysis’, in Comparative Research Methods, D. Warwick and S. Osherson (eds),
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, pp. 189–203.
Weber, M. (1978 [1922]) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology,
G. Roth and C. Wittich (eds), Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Znaniecki, F. (1969) ‘Florian Znaniecki on Humanistic Sociology’, R. Bierstedt (ed.),
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
9 Biographical and
autobiographical
approaches

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process
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QSPHSFTTJWFSFHSFTTJWFNFUIPE
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t UIFJTTVFTSFHBSEJOHUIFFUIJDTPGEPJOHSFTFBSDIUIBUESBXTVQPOQFSTPOBM
narrative.
Introduction
In biographical and autobiographical approaches to social research, the central
methodological approach is the life story based on the assumption that the narrative
provides access not only to a person’s identity and personality, but to the wider culture.
This approach to social research is based upon the assumption that people are by
nature storytellers and that their stories provide coherence to their life experiences.
All narrative approaches to social research are interpretative in nature and when inter-
views are used as part of the approach this involves dialogical listening, in an effort to
160 Chapter 9 Biographical and autobiographical approaches
become sensitive to the narrator’s voice and meaning. Dialogical listening is a form of
active listening that encourages respondents to fully explore their views via open and
frank conversation with the researcher in an effort to come to a fuller understanding.
According to Plummer (2001) some personal documents are interesting in them-
selves because they tell a good story. Such case histories or life stories can help the
researcher become sensitive to key concepts and ideas in the area. Plummer quotes
Angell and Freedman who explain that:
‘Expressive documents have generally been used in the exploratory rather than the
final stages of the research process. Their greatest value perhaps has been in giving
investigators a feel for the data and producing hunches with respect to the most
fruitful ways of conceptualizing the problem’ (1953: 305).
Even an understanding of our own life story has value for the research process. For
Plummer, auto-ethnography is the systematic ethnographic exploration of the self. The
researcher engages in a process of exploring themselves through conceptually informed
introspection of their own thoughts and feelings. This can be developed into forms
of collective autobiography (Hazlett 1998), as found in feminist research into women’s
autobiographies (Friday 1977; Griffin 1979; Steedman 1987); or the narrative of people
who have had slavery imposed upon them (Botkin 1994; Rawick 1971, 1979).
Plummer quotes Merton who argued that:
‘The sociological autobiography utilizes sociological perspectives, ideas, con-

cepts, findings and analytical procedures to construct and interpret a narrative text
that purports to tell one’s own history within the larger history of one’s times’
(1988: 18).
Biographical and autobiographical approaches to social research are concerned with

exploring the lives of individual people in great detail, as explained through their own
life stories or narratives. Most research that draws upon life stories investigate the lives
of marginal people or outsiders, such as Becker’s (1962) case studies of the marijuana
smoker and the dance musician, and Garfinkel’s (1967) study of Agnes the transsexual.
What Becker and Garfinkel wanted to do in these case studies was to give an insight
into the motivation of the people they were investigating and to demonstrate that their
behaviour had a rationality to it that most of us were unaware of.
Life stories are important for Blumer (1979) because they contain key representa-
tions that allow us as social researchers to explore and understand a person’s subjective
interpretations of the world and at the same time their life history is also an important
resource for the researcher because it is in itself a social object. When people write
personal documents for themselves we get an idea of how they perceive themselves,
how they construct their sense of self etc. because in these documents the person
becomes the object of their own actions. It is possible to interpret, decode and ‘read’
the life that is presented in personal documents, and in this chapter we will look in
some detail at the approaches that have developed in this area.
Methods of data collection 161
What is the biographical method?

Read the quote below and write a summary, in one paragraph, of the main points
made:
‘The biographical method rests on subjective and inter-subjectively gained
knowledge and understandings of the life experiences of individuals, includ-
ing one’s own life. Such understandings rest on an interpretative process that
leads one to enter into the emotional life of another. Interpretation, the act
of interpreting and making sense out of something, creates the conditions
for understanding, which involves being able to grasp the meanings of an
interpreted experience for another individual. Understanding is an inter-
subjective, emotional experience. Its goal is to build sharable understandings
of the life experiences of another’ (Denzin 1989: 28).
Methods of data collection

Methods of data collection are many and varied within biographical research. The most
commonly used method is the interview but biographical research can also be conducted
by the use of letters, diaries and other personal documents, personal memorabilia and
documents produced for a wider audience such as published autobiographies.
Exploring biography in this way has become popular in the media. Celebrity or star
biography and autobiography, reality TV and chat shows, especially where ‘ordinary’
members of the public reveal their most intimate problems to a mass audience in shows
such as Jeremy Kyle, Oprah Winfrey and Jerry Springer, all demonstrate how much we
are fascinated by biography. According to Foucault:
‘We have become a singularly confessing society. The confession has spread its
effects far and wide. It plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relation-
ships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in most
solemn rites; one confesses one’s crimes, one’s sins, one’s thoughts and desires, one’s
illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with the greatest precision, whatever
is most difficult to tell’ (1976: 59).
The biographical and autobiographical approach to research is ideal for a lone researcher
with a limited amount of time or resources. It is possible to identify the central themes
within the narrative by reading and rereading the accounts given several times until a
pattern emerges. In this way it is possible to identify the events that have significance for
the respondents themselves, including the episodes or issues that seem to have disturbed
them and which motivated them to take the actions they did. Following these themes
through the text it is possible to identify transitions from one episode in a person’s life
to another.
Although there are issues and concerns about the validity and reliability of this
approach to data collection, especially in relation to the ability of the findings to
be generalised to a wider population, it is important to recall the points made in
Chapter 6. There are two distinct forms of generalisation: firstly an empirical general-
isation, in which the researcher claims that all members of the population are similar
to the person who is the subject of the biographical and autobiographical study. Clearly
this is not a convincing argument. The second form of generalisation is a theoretical
generalisation, in which we take a given theory and investigate if the biography or auto-
biography can be explained by reference to the theory. If the chosen theory explains
the significant events or issues raised by the biography or autobiography then this adds
to the validity of the chosen theory. This was the approach adopted by Freud in his
development of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a theory of psycho-sexual development
and each of the case histories (biographies) that he and others investigated have added
to the validity of Freud’s theory.
Much theorising and research in the social sciences is about whole populations, or
other very large groups of people such as social classes, races and genders. Within this
form of research it is possible to lose sight of the simple but important fact that those
classes, races and genders are made up of individual people who are living their own
individual and distinctive lives, with their own distinct problems and opportunities.
The study of individual biography allows researchers to look in detail at how individual
people lead their lives on a day-to-day basis. By looking at the lives of individuals it
may be possible to identify more general patterns in social life. Merrill and West argue
that as a research method:
‘Biography enables us to discern patterns but also distinctiveness in lives. The rela-
tionship between the particular and general, uniqueness and commonality is in
fact a central issue in biographical research’ (2009: 2).
This approach to social research draws upon Weber’s conception of verstehen in that
there is a focus on understanding being at the centre of social science research. The
biographical or subjectivist turn in the social sciences can be seen as a reaction against
forms of research that tended to mimic the natural sciences by ignoring the subjectivity
of people and their human agency.
Providing concrete examples

Biographical methods can be used to provide concrete examples of how real people
experience complex social processes such as those outlined by Giddens in his theory of
class structuration. For Giddens, social classes are created by the actions of individual
1SPWJEJOHDPODSFUFFYBNQMFT 163
people. I love my children and I want them to be successful in life, so I help them
with homework, borrow books for them from the university library, take them on
foreign holidays and point out things of intellectual and architectural interest, enhance
their social skills etc. The unforeseen consequence of my actions is to reproduce the
class structure.
Giddens explains that in agrarian or early industrial societies individuals were under
pressure to follow a culturally given life path, passed from generation to generation.
In contrast to this over-socialised view of the individual in which people have very
limited control over their lives and their identity, Giddens (1991, 1992) and Beck’s
(1992) theories of individualisation both assume that in the contemporary reflexive
modern or late modern society that we live in, people have more control and choice
over the construction of their own identities. The activities of single individuals can be
described to demonstrate how the foreseen and unforeseen consequences of decisions
they have made and actions they have taken reproduce the class structures of the
advanced societies. My individual actions, which in themselves appear to be of little
consequence to people outside of my family, provide a concrete example, rooted in
the real life activities of an individual, of how the class structure is reproduced by
individual social action.
The human agency, or the ability of the individual person to make decisions,
is measured by the concrete actions of individual people in their natural setting,
rather than as an abstract conceptual category. When agency is treated as an abstract
concept, rather than the decision and activity of a real person, there is a tendency
in social research to over-simplify complex social issues. For Erben (2008) the bio-
graphical researcher should take their starting point from C. Wright Mills’ argument
‘personal problems are public issues’: for example, unemployment may well be
experienced as a personal problem but because unemployment affects many people
in a society its effects are also public issues. People find themselves in an objective
situation that they experience as real but in addition people also have a subjective
interpretation of that situation. In the biographical approach the assumption is made
that it is possible to provide a convincing description of the reality of the lives of
others and identify the respondent’s subjective interpretation of that situation, identify-
ing the factors that help to motivate a person to behave in the way that they do.
This means that good social research is to be found where biography intersects with
social structure.
Thomas and Znaniecki (1996) in their pioneering work The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America made a distinction between the objective situation that the person finds
themselves in and the subjective interpretation that the person has of that situation.
The assumption is that through the effective use of verstehen the biographical researcher
can first provide a convincing description of the reality of the lives of others and
say something meaningful about what motivates a person to behave in the way that
they do.
A key element in Thomas and Znaniecki’s research was the quality of the documents
that they used in the analysis. The next chapter will address the use of documents and
documentary analysis in social research.
Assessing suitability of documents for research

In his evaluation of The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, Blumer asks whether
the documents that Thomas and Znaniecki used meet the criteria of what he
called the scientific method; in other words Blumer is asking if the documents used
in this research were valid and reliable. Blumer suggests that researchers should
use a four-fold set of criteria to judge if a document is suitable for use in a research
project:
(1) do human documents provide representative data, (2) are the data
adequate, (3) are the data reliable, and (4) do the data allow decisive validation
of proposed theoretical interpretations? (1979: xxix, italics in original).
In his evaluation of Blumer’s criteria Plummer (2008) suggests that:
s /Nrepresentativeness, [Blumer] suggests that six well-chosen key informants are
much better than a sample of a thousand who are only minimally involved.
s /N adequacy, Blumer calls for a less rigid ‘variable’ approach and a more ‘broad,
flexible and redirecting inquiry’.
s /Nreliability, Blumer cites an instance where some life histories were found to
be ‘manufactured’ yet ‘rang true’ and ponders: ‘what difference does it make
whether the accounts are fictitious or actual happenings’. He goes on to reply
that fiction may be very valuable data.
s /N testability, in order to further enhance the validity and reliability of our
research findings, Blumer suggests the need to gain materials from ‘informants
who are knowledgeable about the given type of action’ and to subject it to a
panel of similar ‘experts’ (Plummer 2008: 18).
However, Blumer makes it clear that there is no one right approach or guaranteed
procedure for achieving representativeness, adequacy, reliability and testability of
the documents we may want to use in our research.
In a nutshell Blumer’s argument is that as researchers we should not attempt to force

our personal interpretation onto the documents that we have collected. Instead we
should allow the author’s voice to emerge as it would in the natural setting, with limited
interpretation on the basis of our preconceived ideas or imposition of meaning. To
impose our own reading onto a document, at the expense of that of the author, is
to damage the meaning of what the author wanted to say. To damage the meaning of
a document is to damage also the validity of our research findings, as the findings are
not as full or as complete as they could have been.
However, as a number of commentators such as Fieldhouse (1996) have suggested,
although biographical methods are good at producing ‘fine, meaningless detail’ it is
"EWBOUBHFTPGCJPHSBQIJDBMNFUIPET 165
also the case that the methods can obscure the bigger picture. Biographical researchers
may get lost in the detailed description of people’s lives, without understanding how
the wider society can shape individual social action. As a researcher who uses bio-
graphical methods it is important to keep hold of your conceptual frame of reference
in order to demonstrate that an important understanding of some aspect of the social
structure or social processes can be more fully explained from our investigation of
individual life stories. As Rustin (2008) explains:
‘The ontological assumption must be that individuals have agency, that biographies
make society and are not merely made by it’ (2008: 166).
An ontology is a theory of what reality consists of whilst agency is the name we give to
the individual person’s ability to make decisions and conduct actions on the basis of
their own freely chosen motivations. Therefore, what Rustin means by this statement
is that as researchers we must assume that the real world is populated by individual
people who take responsibility for the things that happen in their lives and who are
not simply pushed about by forces outside of their personal control. As such, it is
the biographies of individual people that create society and not society that creates the
biographies of individual people.
Advantages of biographical methods

Bertaux (2003) gives a strong defence of the biographical and autobiographical
methods. Although the methods are subjective in nature, he explains that they allow
researchers to observe social relations that otherwise would not be visible. The method
of identifying life stories as narratives uncovers a great deal of objective information
about factors that help to shape social relations because the researcher has to mobilise
their subjective skills to make sense of the world they observe. For Bertaux it would be
wrong to assume that because the method is subjective no objective data are uncovered.
Although he accepts that the notion of a ‘representative sample’ is a powerful research
tool, he evaluates the subjective–objective opposition in social research and suggests
that ‘quantitative data’ produced by postal questionnaires or structured interviews, for
example, are nothing but:
‘the summation of answers to standardised questions, answers which are of

course thoroughly subjective themselves, and remain so even if you code them
into numbers, mix them all and produce statistical averages or correlations whose
sociological meanings (by the way) remain doubtful. However you cook cats,
or even a representative sample of cats, you still cannot make a rabbit stew’
(2003: 43).
Thinkpiece
Bertaux’s arguments and ideas are very interesting but not always easy to follow
for the student coming to research methodology for the first time. Let us look
more closely at his defence of biographical and autobiographical methods. As
we have seen, he explains that although the methods are subjective in nature,
these methods:
s !LLOW RESEARCHERS TO OBSERVE SOCIAL RELATIONS THAT OTHERWISE WOULD NOT BE
visible.
s )NAUTOBIOGRAPHICALRESEARCHTHERESEARCHERHASTOMAKEUSEOFTHEIRPERSONAL
and subjective skills to make sense of the world they observe.
s "YIDENTIFYINGLIFESTORIESASNARRATIVESTHERESEARCHERUNCOVERSAGREATDEALOF
objective information about factors that help to shape their social relations.
s /BJECTIVEDATAARESTILLUNCOVEREDANDMOREOVERTHEDATAPRODUCEDBYPOSTAL
questionnaires or structured interviews are simply a summary of answers to
standardised questions.
s 4HISISTRUEEVENWHENTHERESPONSESARECOUNTEDANDTURNEDINTOAGRAPHOR
table of numbers.
Questions
1. Look at each of these points in turn. Do you agree or disagree with the point
made?
2. In each case, outline the reasons for your answers.
Discourse and narrative

Discourse is a way of using language to organise ideas, knowledge and experience in a
natural or concrete context. Whilst narrative is a described sequence of events, such as
the unfolding plot of a novel, found in the activities of people as they go about their
everyday lives. Both discourse and narrative are important resources for the researcher
using biographical methods. This is because the autobiographical or biographical
narrative will always contain culturally oriented content. As such, if we could read the
narrative in the same way that we come to understand the plot of a novel we would
have a much fuller understanding of what respondents do and why they do it. The
content of their personal narrative may be highly personalised in nature but it is still
evidence of the world we are investigating. The structure of the narrative provides the
researcher with an insight into the conventions within a wider culture that underpin
the stories people tell about their lives. For the researcher using biographical methods,
narrative becomes a creative means of exploring the context in which social action
takes place. Rather than viewing reality as a fixed and unchanging given, narrative
5IFGFNJOJTUQFSTQFDUJWF 167
analysis allows the researcher to explore how stories shape individual life experience.
Biographical methods of data collection have the ability to challenge traditional and
often well-respected assumptions that social scientists make about the world by gener-
ating ways of looking at the world.
With biographical and autobiographical methods researchers often view themselves
as both observers and participants, and the social world around them as ever-changing.
Biographical and autobiographical researchers assume that they get a great deal of valid
data about the people they investigate that would otherwise be lost if we had to rely
on standardised questions that can only capture one small aspect of reality.
The feminist perspective

Feminist methodology has had a significant influence on the development of bio-
graphical research. As we shall see in Chapter 10 many feminist researchers focus on
the subjective experiences of individual women’s lives to demonstrate that individual,
highly-personal problems are often public issues facing large numbers of women. Many
feminist researchers have attempted to demonstrate how power regulates the subjectivity
of women, in that a woman’s subjectivity is often the product of where a woman is
positioned in various patriarchal power–knowledge formations. In other words, within
the wider society there are forces that oppress, discriminate and/or undermine women.
In particular there are patriarchal ideas and knowledge that help to shape a woman’s
subjectivity including the way in which she views herself. The biographical approach
allows the researcher an opportunity to engage with a woman’s subjective conception
of herself. In addition, the biographical approach allows women to share each other’s
life stories and narratives, i.e. to share or collectivise their experiences and raise the con-
sciousness of all women. So it is particularly suited to the important methodological
issue of how we make a connection between the personal and subjective information
given to us by a respondent and wider conceptual frameworks.
Consciousness raising
One approach developed by Wittig in a number of her books such as The
Opoponax (1964), The Lesbian Body (1986) and Les Guerilleres (1971), involves
a form of autobiographical writing that is written in the form of a fiction. In
this she attempts to describe and explain her own individual life events from a
lesbian perspective, which reflects many common or even universal life events of
many women. Women who read Wittig’s work have their consciousness raised by
the account of a life and want to further the feminist cause. In summary, Wittig
fictionalises events in her life in an effort to raise the consciousness of all women.
You may not be a woman or a feminist but the feminist contribution to research
is also known as standpoint research and as a researcher you could decide to take the
point of view or perspective of any group in the population and collect and analyse
your data to support that group. Standpoint research has looked at the lives of people
with disabilities, children and ethnic minorities.
The ‘neurotic narrator’ and other problems

One of the major problems with the biographical and autobiographical approaches is
that of the ‘neurotic narrator’, a person who exaggerates the events that they describe to
the point where we might want to question the validity of their account or, in extreme
cases, the narrator invents a fabricated biography. Lying is an attempt to manipulate
and to deceive and is morally questionable but as a researcher lying also damages the
validity of our findings as we are not presenting a true or complete account of our
respondents. Deception is assumed to be objectionable but there is evidence that in
our social and intimate relationships we all practise lying and deception, from little
‘white’ lies to more significant attempts to cause or protect a person from harm. In
addition, many people feel the need to lie or deceive in order to maintain politeness.
Research in the area suggests that some form of deception takes place in a quarter of all
conversations (Buller and Burgoon 1996; DePaulo et al. 1996; Turner et al. 1975).
Osterland (1983) raises the issue of the ‘neurotic narrator’ or others who may suffer
from ‘retrospective illusions’. One of the most interesting examples of this form of
questionable biographical narrative is provided by Wilkomirski who, in 1995, published
his book Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood, which gave a very well-informed
and moving account of his experiences in the Majdanek and Auschwitz concentration
camps. The book was written as a novel but claimed to be based on the author’s first-hand
experiences. The book was internationally acclaimed, won a number of awards and was
translated into many languages. Within a few years press reports started to question the
validity of the account given in the book and it was claimed that Wilkomirski’s real
childhood name was Bruno Grosjean (he was later to become known as Bruno Doessekker
after adoption). The press reports suggested that Wilkomirski was impersonating a
Holocaust survivor and that he was not Jewish and had spent the war years in a Swiss
orphanage. In an attempt to counter this claim, Wilkomirski argued that his foster
parents made him repress the horrific wartime memories of his childhood, and it was
only with the help of a therapist that he was able to access the memories in later life.
In the 1970s Gray wrote For Those I Loved, a moving account of his life in the Warsaw
Ghetto and his eventual transfer and escape from the death camp at Treblinka. In this
account Gray describes how he saw his family killed in the death camp. However, Gray
had never been sent to Treblinka. He said later that he had added the sections about
Treblinka to give a full account of the Holocaust.
Although this form of fabricated autobiography, where a person creates a life story that
appears to be completely false, is rare, all biographical accounts may contain false or
5IFQSPCMFNPGHFOFSBMJTBUJPO 169
self-deluding memories. There are doubts about the validity of biographical accounts
given to researchers because it is difficult for the researcher to understand fully if the
account given is what really happened or if it is what the respondent imagined. In the
case of memories of Holocaust survival Bloxham and Kushner (2005) rightly explain
that such accounts can contain both disjunction and confusion rather than smoothness
because the Holocaust was not experienced by victims as a coherent narrative.
The problem of generalisation

Individual life stories are also individual case histories and we face the problem of
how to generalise what we are told to larger populations. When we do attempt to make
generalisations from one life history to a wider population we run the risk of over-
interpreting respondents’ accounts by imposing meanings and motivations that may not
be present in the original life story. Social scientists have a tendency to try and link life
stories to wider social processes or structures that the respondent may be unaware of.
The voice within the narrative is almost always edited and presented by the researcher
and this can raise ethical concerns about the misrepresentation of the life story.
There is also the important distinction to be made between the narrative truth that
might include a set of motivating factors that the respondent is not fully aware of or
may be ashamed of and the historical truth of what they really did in a given situation.
Can a biographical account be truthful without being factual? It is important to note,
as Thompson (2004) does, that most social science research relies on the memory of
the respondent and the reliability of remembered events is always questionable.
Thinkpiece
Reflect for a moment on Thompson’s comments that: ‘it is not only what people
say and whether it was true, but how they remember it that matters’ (2004: 83).
Plummer argues that:
‘Clearly the biography is neither the life nor the lie: it cannot capture or represent
the “real personhood” per se, but neither is it a fiction – an idealistic construct that
is “all in one’s head.” . . . To recognize that biography is a social object, however,
is to appreciate that self story telling is a ceaseless, empirically grounded, emergent
process of shifting truth; never fixed once and for all, the stories we weave into
our lives play a hugely important task in reorganizing our pasts, permitting the
presents, and anticipating the futures. They can be frozen into “texts” which then
may have a life of their own (largely in the hands of the “reader”), but the limits
of such freezing has to be recognized’ (2008: 27).
Thinkpiece
Works of fiction often give an informed account of the experiences and motiva-
tion of people in a given set of circumstances. Fictional accounts often present
‘typical’ accounts of people in a given situation that allow the reader to make a
connection with the experience of real people with whom we are familiar.
Questions
1. Take a fictional or fictionalised account of a life such as the film The Elephant
Man. To what extent does the film give you an insight into the problems that
people with visible physical impairments may face in their everyday lives?
2. Are the techniques of the film maker or the novelist of any value to the social
researcher?
What is narrative analysis?

Although there are many definitions of narrative one of the more interesting is that
provided by Lieblich and his colleagues: ‘a discourse, or an example of it, designed to
represent a connected succession of happenings’ (1998: 2). For Lieblich et al., narrative
relates the life story to the wider culture:
‘People are meaning generating organisms; they construct their identities and
self-narratives from building blocks available in their common culture and beyond
their individual experience’ (1998: 9).
Labov (1972) is one of the most influential exponents of narrative analysis. He defines
narrative as a method of over-reviewing past experience by matching a temporal sequence
of independent verbal clauses to a series of past events. He describes the sequence of
the narrative in the following terms:
s Abstract clauses that provide a summary and/or point of the story.

s Orientation clauses that provide details of time, place, characters and situation.
s Complicating action: the event sequence or plot, with a crisis and turning points.
s Evaluation where the narrator steps back from the action to explain the point of
the narrative, why the narrative is being told and to comment on the meaning of the
narrative.
s Resolution: the outcome of the plot.
s Coda clauses that indicate the ending of the narrative and outline the effects of the
narrator’s actions, bringing the action back to the present. The coda should provide
readers of the narrative with a clear understanding of the actions described.
These points appear to be very abstract, so in order to show how these points are used
in a research project below is an example of a narrative analysis that makes use of
Labov’s approach.
How to conduct a narrative analysis

On the 7 July 2005 three bombs were detonated on the London Underground
and one bomb on a bus in central London. In 2008 Abdula Ahmed and seven
other men stood trial in the UK for planning to bomb transatlantic airliners with
home-made liquid explosives. Police found that a number of the men had recorded
martyr videos. Using Labov’s approach, Best (2010) conducted a narrative analysis
of the martyr videos of the London suicide bombers Shehzad Tanweer and
Mohammad Sidique Khan and the videos made by Abdula Ahmed and others.
Tanweer’s abstract clauses are directed to the non-Muslim population of Britain:
‘To the non-Muslims of Britain, you may wonder what you have done to
deserve this. You are those who have voted in your government, who in turn
have, and still continue to this day, to continue to oppress our mothers, chil-
dren, brothers and sisters, from the east to the west, in Palestine, Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Chechnya.’
Khan’s narrative explains:
‘Our religion is Islam – obedience to the one true God, Allah, and following
the footsteps of the final prophet and messenger Muhammad . . . This is how
our ethical stances are dictated. Your democratically elected governments
continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And
your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly
responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until
we feel security, you will be our targets. And until you stop the bombing, gassing,
imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at
war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.’
The orientation clauses in Tanweer’s video make use of a map of central London
and the scene immediately after the events. This leads to an event sequence that
shows what is said to be the mixing of chemicals to be used in the bombs used
in the attacks. The evaluation of the narrative in Tanweer’s video is provided
by Ayman al-Zawahri (who became leader of al-Qaeda following the death of
Osama bin Laden).
There is a common resolution in all the narratives which is the motivation for
targeting civilians. In 2008 eight men stood trial in the UK for planning to bomb
transatlantic airliners with home-made liquid explosives; later police found that
a number of the men had recorded martyr videos. One of the men, Tanveer
Hussain said in his video:
‘We’re not targeting innocent civilians . . . They’re the battle grounds of today
so whoever steps in these trenches, they, yeah, you haven’t got us to blame.
You’ve got to blame yourself, and collateral damage is going to be inevit-

able and people are going to die, besides, you know, it’s work at a price.
Stop supporting the puppets and helping our enemies. If you do this, we’re
going to leave you alone. If you don’t, you’re going to feel the wrath of the
Mujahedeen, Inshallah [God willing].’
There is common ending to all the narratives, Tanweer’s video, for example,
explains that the 7 July bombings would be only one of a number of attacks that
would continue ‘until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq’. One
of the other men who stood trial in 2008, Umar Islam, was asked in his video,
to talk about his feelings in relation to killing innocent Western civilians. He
allegedly responds with the words:
‘I say to you disbelievers that as you bomb, you will be bombed. As you kill,
you will be killed. And if you want to kill our women and children then the
same thing will happen to you. This is not a joke.’
There is an issue about the completeness of these videos. The researcher cannot be
sure if a video had been edited and by whom. In addition, the researcher does not
know if the videos were produced for public consumption as a form of propaganda
or if they were produced as a personal and private statement to be viewed only by
family and friends. The complete videos may have contained significantly more
information, for example, personal information about a bomber’s state of mind
etc. Abdula Ahmed Ali’s video and the others released in 2008 were released by the
police. They were very short and hence we can assume they were edited to form
part of the evidence in a trial. Tanweer’s video was edited as it contains informa-
tion about the planning of the events, an animated sequence outlining the route
of the train in the underground and sequences in which Ayman al-Zawahri,
reported to be al-Qaeda’s second in command, provides a commentary on the
events as they unfolded and on Tanweer’s motivation.
In response to an objection that the videos are material produced to further the
aims of al-Qaeda and as such we should not accept the videos as personal narrative,
then in that case the videos would have to be viewed as an al-Qaeda narrative and
are still a valuable resource for analysis. In either case the complicating action
section of the narrative appears to be complete and as Labov makes clear:
‘Only . . . the complicating action, is essential if we are to recognize a narrative
. . . To identify the evaluative potion of a narrative, it is necessary to know
why this narrative – or any narrative – is felt to be tellable; in other words,
the events of the narrative are reportable’ (1972: 370).
The narratives discussed here concern matters that for Labov are always report-
able: ‘the danger of death or of physical injury’ (p. 370). In other words, as Labov
explains: ‘the basic pattern emerges with great clarity from this small set’ (p. 393).
Ayman al-Zawahri’s role in Tanweer’s video is to act as a neutral observer and
evaluate his actions as a disinterested third party for Tanweer. For Labov such
forms of embedding give the narrative greater dramatic force.
A number of central narrative devices are used within the videos, such as
repetition and the use of comparators in relation to past events. These clauses are
often bound together as remembered events by the narrator. Questions are also
used by narrators to give the narrative greater evaluative force, especially when
such questions contain requests for action and challenges to personal behaviour.
In the case of Tanweer’s narrative, most of his comments are directed at Muslims
in Britain and the altruistic nature of the message is clearly present:
‘Oh Muslims of Britain, you, day in and day out on your TV sets, watch and
hear about the oppression of the Muslims, from the east to the west. But
yet you turn a blind eye, and carry on with your lives as if you never heard
anything, or as if it does not concern you. What is the matter with you that
you turn back not to the religion that Allah has chosen for you? You have
preferred the dunya [concerns about status in relation to possessions rather
than spiritual concerns] to Allah . . .
‘Oh Muslims of Britain, stand up and be counted. You are those who Allah
has honored with Islam, and know that if you turn back from your religion,
Allah has no need for you. As Allah, in Surat Al-Maida, says: “Oh you who
believe, whoever from amongst you turns back from his religion, Allah will
bring a people whom He will love, and they will love Him. Humble towards
the believers, stern towards the disbelievers, fighting in the cause of Allah,
never fear the blame of the blamers, that is the grace of Allah, which He bestows
upon whom He wills, and Allah is All-sufficient for His creatures’ needs.”
‘Fight against the disbelievers, for it is but an obligation made on you by
Allah . . .
‘Oh Muslims of Britain and the world, the dunya is just a fleeting enjoyment,
and unto Allah will be your return. Obey Allah and His messenger, if you are
indeed believers. Fight against the oppressors, the oppressive British regime.’
Tanweer ends his video with the comment:
‘Oh Allah, grant us martyrdom in Your cause, and accept us among the
righteous on the day we shall return to You.’
Tanweer goes on to explain that:
‘What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a series of attacks that
will continue and pick up strengths till you pull your soldiers from Afghanistan
and Iraq and stop your financial and military aid to America and Israel.’
The narrative of blame against civilians assumes that dying justifies killing and as
such neither Khan or Tanweer should be classed as a murderer. As Crenshaw puts it:
‘The truth of the cause is established by the individual’s willingness to sacrifice
everything on its behalf ’ (2001: 28).
These findings echo Hafez’s comments that a central theme in the discourse of
suicide bombers is:
‘the redemptive act of martyrdom. Suicide bombings are not only an
opportunity to punish an enemy and fulfil God’s command to fight injustice,
it is also a privilege and a reward to those most committed to their faith and
their values . . . The act of martyrdom is seen as an attempt to redeem society
of its failure to act righteously’ (2006: 176).
However, as was suggested above, there is always an issue about the completeness
of a given text. The complete text may have contained significantly more information;
this information may have contained personal information about the respondent’s
state of mind etc. In any case the ‘complicating action’ section of the narrative appears
to be the most significant for understanding its meaning.
Once we have captured the narrative with our chosen method of data collection, we
have the difficult task of analysing it.
Data analysis in biographical and autobiographical

research
There are three basic approaches to data analysis in biographical and autobiographical
research. Plummer (2001) has defined them as:
s ANALYTICINDUCTION
s GROUNDEDTHEORYAND
s THEPROGRESSIVEnREGRESSIVEMETHOD
Analytic induction
Analytic induction was developed by Znaniecki in the 1930s and involves the detailed
investigation of one life story in order to identify aspects of the life that can be gener-
alised to other people, and possible explanations therefore developed. We then select
a second life story and apply our generalisation and possible explanation to see if it
can account for the central aspect of the life. If not, the hypothesis is revised. The more
lives we investigate the more valid the findings become and the more likely we are to
be in a position to make a statement about the population as a whole.
Grounded theory
Grounded theory is an approach to data analysis that allows explanations to emerge

from the systematic collection of data. As we have already seen in Chapter 6, Glaser
and Strauss explain that grounded theory starts with creation of categories or themes
for the collection, organisation and analysis of data. As the data are collected they are
placed into one of the themes or categories. As the themes or categories become saturated
with data they are sub-divided into separate categories and relationship between the
categories start to present themselves. Through this process new conceptual under-
standings are developed.
Conclusion 175
The progressive–regressive method

The progressive–regressive method was developed by philosopher Sartre in his three
volume book The Family Idiot (1981, 1987, 1989). He argues that individual people
have choices in their lives but they can never fully escape history or the impact of forces
outside of the control of the individual such as class, race or gender. We read or under-
stand a life by placing it in its historical context, and identify how this life might
have been influenced by its association with a given class, race or gender. We look at
decisions made by an individual and try to identify how this is connected to wider
social forces. This approach was used by Connell (1995) in his study of four groups
of men who were experiencing differing concerns about their masculinity because of
choices and associations they had made.
The ethical issues

Finally, a note about the ethics of doing a research project that draws upon personal
narrative. Narrative is often an important resource in the construction of a preferred
identity and to question a narrative or impose an unintended interpretation upon the
narrative may cause distress or damage a respondent’s sense of self. The role of the
researcher is an interpretative one; to make sense of the responses of the people in
the study for the reader. However, it is important to note that there is what Bryman
(2001) calls a ‘double interpretation’ taking place. As researchers we are providing
an interpretation of other people’s interpretations. In other words, because this type
of research is often intimate and personal, involving the reconstruction of a person’s
experience, there are important ethical issues raised by representing life stories in a way
that the respondent did not intend.
Conclusion
It has been suggested that autobiographical and biographical approaches are more art
and literature than sound research practice. The approach: ‘seems based predominantly
on talent, intuition, or clinical experience; defies clear order and systematization; and
can hardly be taught’ (Lieblich et al. 1998: 1).
Although this approach to research might be said to lack reliability it cannot be
said to lack validity because it can give us a very full understanding of the person, their
inner or subjective world, their feeling states, unseen connections with others in the
wider culture and the social and historical world the person is living in. Very often the
approach identifies that personal problems are often public issues, ignored or unseen
by more objective and systematic methods of data collection.
Should Erica use biographical and autobiographical research?

From her reading of this chapter, Erica has come to realise that her own under-
standing of the zoo can have value for the research process. She considers using
autoethnography (the systematic ethnographic exploration of the self ) to engage
in a process of conceptually informed introspection of her own thoughts and
feelings about issues of biodiversity and sustainability. This should allow her
to explore and hopefully understand her own subjective interpretations. If Erica
can gain an understanding of the complex social process in relation to bio-
diversity and sustainability this might help her to devise some questions either
for an interview guide, interview schedule or questionnaire that would generate
valid data.
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10 Documentary and
narrative analysis

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Introduction
Most biographical research is conducted by the use of the in-depth interview but
personal narratives can also be found in letters, diaries, photographs and other personal
documents. Scott (1990) explains that many of the leading social scientists of the
nineteenth century, such as Durkheim, Weber and Marx, used documentary methods
of data collection in preference to what are now believed to be more accepted methods
such as interviews and questionnaires.
For Scott documents are an important ‘unobtrusive’ source in empirical research.
Scott defines a document as
‘any kind of written text, where “writing” is understood in its broadest sense of the
use of a pen, pencil, printing machine, or other tool for inscribing a text on paper,
parchment or some other material medium. This definition includes electronic
documents produced on computers and the chiselled inscriptions on stone tablets
180 Chapter 10 Documentary and narrative analysis
as well as the more typical cases of handwritten or printed documents on paper’

(1990: 6).
Scott goes on to include a range of visual documents such as photographs, paintings

and moving images.
However, before we can use any document in our research projects we need to assess
its validity and reliability. Scott (1990) outlines four criteria:
1. Authenticity: as researchers we must be satisfied that the document is genuine. Is the

document really written by the person we believe to be the author? Also is the
document complete? The meaning of a document can change if it has been edited,
or if it has missing or unreadable sections.
2. Credibility: we need to evaluate the author’s motives and make a judgement as to
why the document was produced. The author may be genuine but is their account
accurate? Many documents are written by people who have a political or religious
motivation, for example, that influences their interpretation of events. Also if the
document is recording events over a long period of time we need to question if we
can trust the author’s memory.
3. Representativeness: even if the document is written by the person we believe to be
the author, contains an accurate reflection of the author’s views and opinions and is
complete, we need to ask if the document is representative. In other words, is the
document typical of documents written by the author or is it unrepresentative of the
author’s views and opinions. If there are a significant number of documents in a
particular area of interest we might have to take a sample from the documents that
are available and disregard any documents that are not typical.
4. Meaning: once we have satisfied ourselves that the document we wish to use in
our research project is authentic, credible and representative we can only use the
document if we can understand its meaning. In everyday life we can usually read
a document because we share a common language with the author. To read the
document we simply draw upon the stock of knowledge that we share with the
author and this provides us with our literal understanding.
Glaser and Strauss (1967: 163) argue that documents ought to be regarded as being
as significant as the researcher’s informant or interviewee. Prior (2008) rejects the
argument that researchers can have a passive understanding of documents. Not only
do we need to take into account how documents function, are used and distributed in
the field but Prior argues that ‘documents do much more than serve as informants and
can, more properly, be considered as actors in their own right’ (2008: 822). In other
words, documents should be considered as non-human agents. This argument is found
within actor-network theory (Callon 1986; Law and Hassard 1999).
Prior discusses the work of Callon (1986), who investigated the scallop fishermen
of Saint Brieuc Bay. The fishermen understood that the scallops were central to their
livelihoods – and spoke about the scallops as if they were social actors. The scallops
together with starfish, larvae, sea currents etc. should be regarded as ‘actants’, claims
Introduction 181
Prior. The actant is a ‘thing’ that may not display consciousness but often acts as a social
actor. Documents and other objects can change their nature depending on the way they
are used within a network.
Actor-network theory
A network is a collection of interdependent social practices.
Actor-network theory was developed by Callon (1991) and Latour (1992).
Much of our everyday life involves working with machines and other forms of
technology or non-human actants. We often delegate tasks to non-human
actants: we drive cars rather than walk, we use email and telephone rather than
face-to-face conversation. This interface with non-human actants influences the
way in which we act. Our use of technology shapes our identity as we become
skilled at using some forms of technology in preference to others.
Thinkpiece
For Sacks (1970) membership of a given culture provides us with a range
of membership categorisation devices that allow us to identify the common
interpretation of text. Communication takes place within shared codes that are
usually not written down but which are conventional in nature.
Sacks (1970) asked his reader what to make of the following fragment from a
story by a seven-year-old child: ‘The baby cried the mommy picked it up.’
Questions
1. What does this statement mean? Reflect for one moment on the range of
possible meanings/readings and make brief notes on why you have selected
one reading over the other possible interpretations.
2. Do we understand the ‘mommy’ to mean mother, rather than one of the living
dead?
3. Is the ‘mommy’ the mother of the child that is crying?
4. Did the child start to cry and was as a consequence then picked up by its
mother? Or did the ‘mommy’ pick up the child in order to make it cry?
Our understanding of a text can progress a long way by using our own literal aware-
ness, but in social research there are times when we need to have a more systematic
reading or interpretation of a document. Two of the most common methods of the
systematic interpretation of a text are semiology and content analysis.
Semiology
Semiology is the study of signs and sign systems and was invented in the nineteenth
century by de Saussure (1857–1913) as the first form of investigation. It was further
developed by Barthes, Jakobson, Levi-Strauss, Sebeok, Kristeva and Eco into a wider
perspective known as structuralism – an approach to the social sciences that assumes
that the minds of all individuals have a tendency to arrange and classify the things they
perceive in a universal manner. This classification reflects underlying social and cul-
tural systems. For Saussure language is a self-contained system, composed of various
aspects that carry out a range of roles, based on the relations that the various aspects
have one with another. The purpose of semiological analysis is to bring together all
these elements of language to identify the system of signs that provides the meaning of
the text.
Saussure made a distinction between language as a system (la langue) and the actual
act of speaking or writing with the words themselves (la parole). If you are an English
speaker then you not only have the ability to speak English sentences but you have
assimilated the system for doing so and have the ability to create new sentences. For
the semiologist culture is a system of communication.
In terms of documentary analysis, all documents contain a sign, and the sign is
the thing that you can observe, such as a printed word in the analysis of written
documents. The semiologist will often refer to the sign as the abstract unit of analysis. In
the case of the spoken word, the purpose of the sign is to communicate an idea or
concept by the use a visual or auditory message. For the semiologist, the words we
speak or write are referred to as referents of the sign. A sign is understood in relation to
two key concepts: the signifier, which is the physical sound that we make or the mark
we make on a paper; and the signified, which is the concept or idea that the author of
the sound or mark on the paper is trying to get across to you the listener or reader. This
approach is based upon the assumption that in communication we have a thing to
be spoken or written about and a method of transmission. The relationship between
signifier and signified appears to be natural to the people who share the language.
However, for Saussure the relationship between signifier and signified is both arbitrary
and conventional. In other words, the relationship between signifier and signified is not
a natural link: it is something that is based upon an agreement between people who
share the language.
The meaning of words can change. Take for example the word ‘gay’, which was
previously a word that denoted a feeling of happiness but has come to signify sexual
preference. There are, however, authentic onomatopoeic words, words that sound like
the thing they signify, such as bow-wow-wow, tick-tock and splash. Even these forms
of words do not emerge organically from the linguistic system of la langue, but are
conventional and based upon shared agreement, like all other words.
Semiology 183
Definitions
s 4HEsignifier is the physical thing that carries the meaning – such as the spoken
or written word.
s 4HE signified is a concept that all people who share the same culture under-
stand the meaning of.
s 4HEsign is the meaning of the text and the meaning is generated by the coming
together of the signifier and signified:
signifier + signified = sign
The relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary in most cultures and
emerges by convention and regular use although there are iconic signs that are assumed
to have a natural link between signifier and signified. We understand signs because we
share a common culture and for Saussure this gives signs their commonsense meaning.
Signs are organised into codes. Some codes have a paradigm element to them in that
they are organised as a set of units such as letters of the alphabet that come together to
form words we can read. Also codes can have a syntagm construction that is used to
identify links between units, such as grammatical rules. There are also connotative signs
that either have a more subjective meaning or that are fully understood only by a
minority group in the population.
The most effective forms of communication are to be found when we have only one
signifier for one signified as is often the case with road traffic signs. In most forms of
communication, polysemic meaning is common in that we have a number of codes
and a range of choices about the meaning of the signifier. Cultural forms such as
poetry, film and visual art are often vague, obscure and multi-dimensional, and have
to be read and interpreted in a way that is much more demanding than, for example,
looking at a road sign.
Barthes (1915–80) was a French intellectual who developed semiology over the
course of the twentieth century. His books, notably Mythologies, Empire of Signs and
The Fashion System are still widely read. Mythologies was drawn from series of essays
he wrote for the magazine Les Lettres Nouvelles, and never intended to be released as
a book. These mythologies address the cultural meaning of such diverse subjects as
striptease, wrestling, the Eiffel Tower and the new Citroën car.
For Barthes the reading, understanding or systematic study of narrative or text,
including a visual image, is dependent on our understanding of codes within the
culture. We access the code by drawing upon the accumulated cultural knowledge that
enables us as the reader to recognise details as contributions to a particular function
or sequence. Such codes are rules produced within the culture that inform us of the
natural ways of reading or understanding the narratives or discourses of a culture. For
Barthes structuralism is a way of analysing cultural artefacts as a product of these under-
lying systems of rules and distinctions. Signification is a product of networks of relations
that relate to the system in which they function. The role of the researcher is to identify
symbolic patterns and thematic interpretations. Barthes (1977) gave the following
example from a Bond film:
‘When Bond orders a whisky while waiting for his plane, the whisky as indice
has a polysemic value, is a kind of symbolic node grouping several signifieds
(modernity, wealth, leisure); as a functional unit’ (1977: 118).
The code embedded within the culture gives our interpretation confidence and in our
mind events and interpretation are one and the same. The ordering of a whisky at an
airport appears naturally to indicate modernity, wealth and leisure.
However, Barthes (1977) argues that not all meanings can be read because not all
meanings are relevant to all readers. Barthes made a distinction between denotative
materials that have universal comprehensibility, and as such can be understood by all
readers, and connotative materials that are intelligible to some groups of readers and
some individuals but not to others.
In addition the reader has a choice in terms of how to read the signifier as Barthes
explains in terms of his own reading of a text:
‘The problem, the problem at least posed for me, is exactly to manage not to reduce
the Text to a signified, whatever it may be (historical, economic, folkloristic or
kerygmatic), but to hold its significance fully open’ (1977: 141 italics in the original).
In an essay on stills from the films of Eisenstein, Barthes (1977) identifies and reflects
on three different levels of meaning within, or orders of signification of, the photo-
graph (text).
The first level of meaning is an informational level that contains the obvious meaning.
If I watch an advertisement on television for washing powder then the informational
level of meaning would be ‘buy this product it will get your clothes clean’. There is also
a second level of meaning that Barthes terms the symbolic level of meaning. This level of
meaning will raise issues for me the reader about the role and status of dirt within
Western culture. In an essay on washing powder in his book Mythologies (Barthes)
observes how washing powders are often presented as maintaining order, separating
the dirt from the clothes. Dirt is a natural thing but it must be kept in an appropriate
place. If I make an omelette I might view this as a beautiful thing that I would like to
consume, but if I drop some of it on my shirt it becomes dirt. There is also a third level
of meaning that Barthes refers to as the obtuse meaning; this is the personal, even unique,
reading that we have of any text. In a picture taken from the film Ivan the Terrible,
Barthes describes a scene in which two men are pouring gold coins over the head of
the newly crowned Czar. Barthes describes his obtuse reading of the picture in the
following terms:
‘Is that all? No, for I am still held by the image. I read, I receive (and probably even
first and foremost) a third meaning – evident, erratic, obstinate. I do not know
what its signified is, at least I am unable to give it a name, but I can see clearly the
traits, the signifying accidents of which this – consequently incomplete – sign is
composed . . . I am not sure if the reading of this third meaning is justified – if it
can be generalized – but already it seems to me that its signifier (the traits to which
I have tried to give words, if not to describe) possess a theoretical individuality’
(1977: 53).
In his last book on photography Barthes (1981) explored this issue more fully in terms
of a visual image, he explains there is a structural rule that is based upon two concepts:
the stadium which is what one reads from the image by drawing upon our understand-
ing of the general culture and the punctum which is the aspect or detail of the image
that provides us with a focus for personal understanding of the image.
How to conduct a semiological analysis

s 0ROVIDEABRIEFDESCRIPTIONOFTHETEXT2EMEMBERTHATATEXTCANBEMADEUP
of words and images, some of which are denotations and some of which
connotations.
s )DENTIFYTHESIGNIlERSANDDESCRIBETHEM
s 7HATISTHEOBVIOUSMEANINGORNON CODEDICONOGRAPHICLITERALMEANINGOF
the text?
s )DENTIFYTHESIGNIlEDSANDSUGGESTTHECONCEPTSORIDEASTHATTHEAUTHOROFTHE
text is attempting to get across to the reader. In other words, what is the
text attempting to say at a symbolic level: what is the coded iconographic or
symbolic meaning of the text?
s )DENTIFYTHEPARADIGMSTHATTHEAUTHORHASDRAWNUPON
s )DENTIFYTHESYNTAGMSTHATTHEAUTHORHASDRAWNUPON
Content analysis
Content analysis is an approach to data collection and data analysis in which the
meaning of a text emerges systematically and objectively by defining the content of a
text as a set of indicators and then allocating each of the indicators within the text to
a set of pre-determined categories or themes. These categories or themes are used to
count the number of times each indicator appears in the text. Supporters of content
analysis argue that this numerical quantification provides the researcher with the true
meaning of the text. According to Berelson: ‘Content analysis is a research technique
for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of
communication’ (1966: 263).
This sounds very difficult but in reality is a very simple approach to data collection
and data analysis.
How to perform a content analysis

s $ECIDEONTHECENTRALTHEMEYOUWISHTOSEARCHFORINTHETEXT
s )NVENT A SET OF ANALYTICAL CATEGORIES n IN A WRITTEN TEXT THESE WILL BE SPECIlC
words.
s #OUNTTHENUMBEROFTIMEEACHINDICATORAPPEARSINTHETEXTnTHISCANBEDONE
by using coloured markers on the transcript to identify the key words.
s 4HEAMOUNTOFSPACEDEVOTEDTOATHEMEINTHETEXTWILLTELLYOUSOMETHING
about its significance.
s /NCEYOUHAVECOUNTEDALLTHEKEYWORDSDRAWANINFERENCE
Content analysis is said to avoid the problem of interpretation because the emphasis
is on what is said in the text rather than on how it is said or in what context. If, for
example, you wanted to identify the ideological stance of a politician, you could count
the number of times a key word/indicator such as freedom was used in their election
speeches. As Berelson explains, the content analysis is concerned with ‘what is
communicated, not the intentions of the communicator’ (1966: 262).
Glasgow University Media Group
For over 30 years the Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) have used content
analysis amongst other methods to argue that television news in Britain does not fulfil
its legal obligation to present political and industrial news in a balanced and neutral
manner. The work of the group demonstrates both the strengths and the weaknesses of
content analysis. The group argue that: ‘the dominant ideology works in the produc-
tion of television news’ (GUMG 1980: 497). Television news presents a distorted, false
and ‘misleading portrayal of industrial disputes in the UK when measured against the
independent reality of events’ (1980: xiii). The authoritative sources they cite include
the Financial Times and Management Today.
The group are interested in the ideological function of language within news and
current affairs programmes:
‘We have been centrally concerned with the role of media in the mass production
of misunderstanding and ignorance . . . We have also shown how the media
do have a role in the legitimisation of powerful interests and how ideologies can
actually work to convince populations’ (Philo and Miller 2001: 17).
However, in Seeing and Believing Philo explains that ‘class experience was not synony-
mous with political belief ’ (1990: 153) and that ‘the beliefs of an individual are not
a single coherent entity in a linear fashion from one aspect of their class position’
(1990: 185). The argument is that the language used in news and current affairs pro-
grammes has a central role to play in the reproduction of capitalism. The group defines
ideology as: ‘social perspectives or ways of understanding which are linked to class
or other interests’ (Philo and Miller 2001: 17). Television journalists ‘wish to claim
that their reportage is accurate and trustworthy, although as we show in the case
studies of our original work the unconscious political assumptions which they
hold produce selection and distortion which often invalidate these claims’ (GUMG
1995: 182).
In the GUMG’s work there is a lack of clarity about the link between the methodo-
logy used and the inference drawn. In More Bad News (1980) the group makes a defence
of content analysis: ‘It has been a basic contention of our approach that the detailed
examination of the output of television journalism can be used to demonstrate its
ideology and practices’ (GUMG 1980: 407). In a nutshell the group does not provide
a convincing account of how content analysis can effectively describe, measure or
analyse ideology. Also the reference to unconscious political assumptions above is at best
informed guesswork and any discussion of ideology would have to contain a convinc-
ing account of how the audience consumes and makes sense of the meanings presented
to the members in the news.
Content analysis operates at a very simplistic empirical level, as the group explains:
‘Since the output clearly has meaning, then the production of that meaning can be
as clearly studied on the screen as it can be by interviewing either producers or
audiences’ (GUMG 1980: 409).
With any set of words in any text, the reader will have a general expectation as to the
overt meaning potential of the words used by the authors, simply because we share the
language and understand the code. However, in terms of social science research there
is the issue of the frame problem. If we see or hear the word coffee this can mean brown
liquid, grains, flavour, skin colour etc. depending upon the context in which the word
is used. The members of the GUMG are all like-minded Marxists and as such they can
all agree on the meaning of the message in a news report, because they probably all
agree on the context in which the news is produced. However, the context of news
production is very large and open to a range of non-Marxian readings and interpreta-
tions and as such it is much more difficult to reduce the context so that only one mean-
ing of a news report is possible.
There is a big difference between the ‘manifest’ meaning of the words identified and
the ‘latent’ ideological meaning of a text. Content analysis produces a list of words and
numbers and cannot identify the intended meaning of the author from a range of mean-
ings. An ideology cannot be detected by simply counting the words in a text: at best this
procedure produces a form of ‘repetition speculation’ in which meaning is assigned to
key words with no account of how the meaning is arrived at. Content analysis is unable
to identify the motivation of the author of a text, and the origin of news ideologies is
unexplained as this is not possible to identify in a simple numerical quantification of
counting key words that appear in the text.
Thinkpiece
In their book War and Peace News (1985), the Glasgow University Media Group
investigated how television news reported the sinking of two ships during the
Falklands War: the sinking of the Argentine cruiser, the General Belgrano, on
2 May 1982 and the sinking of the British ship HMS Sheffield on 4 May.
The Group conducted a content analysis by using survival statements and
casualty statements as indicators of how each news story was presented. The key
words that indicated ‘survival’ were much more commonly used in relation to
the sinking of the Belgrano than they were in relation to the sinking of HMS
Sheffield. This is surprising given that there were no soldiers or sailors that
survived the sinking of the Belgrano.
Question
Can we effectively identify the underpinning meaning of a text, such as a television
news report by counting the number of times a key word appears in the text?
Critics have suggested that the GUMG use content analysis to convert their own polit-
ical assumptions about the media into the true meaning of the text. However, the
group’s ‘analysis’ is no more than anecdotal reflections on the meaning of text.
In the group’s later work on the Arab–Israeli conflict the content analysis: ‘was
undertaken in conjunction with an analysis of audience understanding and reception
of news.’ Philo and Berry explain that: ‘It is important to combine such studies because
research which rests on content analysis alone leaves the researchers in the position
of having to assert what the audience would be likely to understand from the news’
(Philo and Berry 2004: 98–99).
In summary:
s /NLYSHAREDMEANINGSAREIDENTIlEDBYCONTENTANALYSIS
s 4HESIGNIlCANCEOFATEXTISNOTSIMPLYTOBEFOUNDINWORDCOUNTING
s #ONTENTANALYSISCANNOTIDENTIFYTHEintended meaning from a range of meanings.
s 4HEREISABIGDIFFERENCEBETWEENTHE@MANIFESTAND@LATENTMEANINGOFATEXT
s 4HEMEANINGOFAWORDDEPENDSUPONTHECONTEXTFOREXAMPLETHEMEANINGOFTHE
word fault is different for a tennis player than it is for a geologist.
Diaries
Keeping a research diary
Some researchers consider it good practice to keep a research diary during the research
project. Burgess (1982) outlines three roles of the research diary:
Diaries 189
1. It allows the researcher to maintain a substantive account of information and

events.
2. It is an autobiographical record that outlines the involvement of the researcher in
the field.
3. It is an analytical account that raises issues, puzzlements and causes of concern
during the research process.
In addition to its role as a source of information in the writing up stage of the research
project, the diary helps to maintain the validity and reliability of the research project.
The diary reminds the researcher that they must maintain their role as researcher and
spend some of their day reflecting on events in the field. This written reflection helps
to provide a much fuller account of events in the field. Also the diary outlines any
problems that were encountered in the process of data collection or analysis and how
the researchers overcame them. This helps to maintain the transparent nature of the
data collection and data analysis procedures, so that anybody who wants to review
these processes will have a clear outline of the decisions made and the reasons that
underpin those decisions.
In her study of the religious group ‘the Moonies’, Barker (1984) kept a diary in
which she recorded observations that she did not understand at the time they were
observed. As the data collection continued, explanations would present themselves
and she could record these in the diary and use it in the process of explanation build-
ing. In any research project one of the most important stages is drawing an appropriate
inference from the data collected. In other words, your project needs to provide the
reader with an account of why the people you investigated behaved in the way they
did, or why events unfolded in the way they did. The diary gives you the opportunity
to suggest possible explanations and to review them, revise them and give you the
researcher the opportunity to evaluate your own work.
A data collection method
Diaries are also a potentially useful method of data collection. Respondents’ diaries
are useful for gathering data over periods of time and they allow the respondent an
opportunity to give an indication of their motivation for carrying out social actions
without having to rely on memory as they have do in interviews or with question-
naires. In addition, the respondent can usually record whatever events or issues they
wish to record, without the researcher being present. The absence of the researcher
avoids the issue of leading the respondents to answer questions in a particular manner
by inappropriate prompting and probing or by wording questions in such a manner
that they become leading questions.
There are nevertheless problems with the use of diaries as a method of data collec-
tion. Diaries give people an opportunity to reflect on events in their lives and on their
motivation, and this can cause people to change their behaviour. If a method of data
collection causes the respondent to change their behaviour this is known as a reactivity
effect and is seen as a threat to the validity of our findings.
For Plummer (2001) there are four forms of diary research:
1. The intimate journal or memoir: these are often published by celebrities and they do
give an insight into the life of the author.
2. The time budget or log as devised by Sorokin and Berger (1938): in this form of diary
informants are asked to keep a record of specific events identified by the researcher
as significant. For example, Maas and Kuypers (1974) asked a sample of 142 people
who were in the process of adjusting to old age in San Francisco to keep a diary for
one week to outline how the sample spent their time, together with their thoughts
and feelings about the events etc. The sample was also asked to comment if the week
had been typical of most other weeks. Likewise, Coxon (1996) as part of Project
Stigma asked a sample of 1035 bisexual men to keep a daily diary for one month in
which they recorded their sexual encounters. In both these research projects the
focus was a quantitative study of events; respondents were asked to record what they
did and when they did it over the course of each day.
3. The diary-diary interview method: Zimmerman and Wieder (1977) used this method
to study the Californian hippy counter culture. Respondents were given $10 to keep
a diary of the encounters they had over a seven-day period in terms of who/what/
when/where/how. The respondents were later interviewed about the encounters
and events recorded in the diary. As Plummer explains, the researchers: ‘were able
to detect stable and recurrent patterns of culturally sanctioned social organization
. . . which would have been difficult to uncover by other means’ (2001: 116).
4. Pre-existing diaries: Chambers (1998) and Monette (1992) have used this form of
diary to help understand the experience of living with AIDS. There are issues and
problems with the use of individuals’ existing diaries as a source of data. Few people
in the population keep a diary and this suggests that the people who do keep one
are not representative of the population. Unrepresentative samples of people do not
generate valid research findings. If we ask a group of people to keep a diary for a
period of time then we face the problem of reactivity effects, i.e. people changing
their behaviour because of the diary. Also there is the practical problem that record-
ing events in a diary can be time consuming and many respondents may provide the
researchers with an incomplete set of diary entries.
The various forms of diary method discussed here are all significant for providing
researchers with an insight into the lived experiences of individuals via their life histor-
ies and often provide very detailed accounts of the motivation that underpin people’s
behaviour in everyday life.
Letters
Letters and other forms of correspondence are also a potential method of data collection
that have been used to good effect in research projects. Thomas and Znaniecki have
identified five main roles that letters play in society:
Letters 191
1. Ceremonial – letters sent to people requiring their attendance at important family

events such as weddings and christenings.
2. Informing – letters providing information about absent people such as people on
holiday, in the armed forces or in prison.
3. Sentimental – letters that have the purpose of generating a feeling state in the reader,
such as letters to a loved one.
4. Literary – letters that have an artistic or aesthetic purpose.
5. Business – for example letters inviting candidates to attend an interview.
Research that makes use of letters is not common but in addition to Thomas and
Znaniecki’s research on the Polish Peasant, examples include Allport’s (1965) research,
Letters from Jenny, which is an analysis of a series of letters written by an old lady to two
of her son’s friends between 1926 and 1937. The letters give an insight into the rela-
tionship between a mother and son, the feeling states of a person as they are getting
older and entering an old people’s home and eventually nearing death. Another exam-
ple is provided by Straus (1974) who was in correspondence for over 25 years with a
person who was alcohol dependent. Again this research gives a great insight into the
day-to-day experiences and feelings states of the respondent.
We can say that letters are especially useful as a source of information for a research
project when we have little idea about what motivates people to think, feel or act in a
particular way. In these circumstances we could not put together a list of questions for
interview or devise a questionnaire, for example, because we would not know what
questions to ask.
However, there are problems with using letters as a source of information. One is
what Webb et al. (1966) call the ‘dross rate’ where a great deal of the information pro-
vided is of little analytical value to the researcher and has to be cut. This raises the
important issue of voice: by selecting some aspects of the letter and not others this can
involve the researcher changing the emphasis of the letter and even its meaning by
selective editing. In addition, we have to remember that letters are usually a very per-
sonal form of communication between the writer and the reader and not all the infor-
mation presented is immediately understood by a reader other than the intended one.
One novel approach pioneered by Ang was to invite people to write letters to her in
answer to a question: this provided data for her research project. Ang (1985) received
42 letters in response to an advertisement she placed in Viva a Dutch women’s maga-
zine that read:
‘I like watching the TV serial Dallas, but often get odd reaction to it. Would any
one like to write and tell me why you like watching it too, or dislike it? I would
like to assimilate these reactions into my university thesis. Please write to . . .’
(1985: 10).
Ang’s analysis explained that even though the audience knew that Dallas was fiction
and that the plot was often unrealistic in nature, many viewers found that the content
had a high degree of emotional realism that reflected concerns and emotional problems
that the viewers experienced in their everyday lives. Irrespective of the factual or
ideological content of the programme each viewer had a ‘more or less unique relation-
ship to the programme’ (1985: 26).
Although the research was based upon a small self-selecting sample, was unstruc-
tured in nature, and could not be considered representative of all Dallas viewers, there
is no reason to suggest that the respondents were not typical of the viewing population.
As a method of data collection the use of letters made it possible for Ang to achieve a
deep understanding of the viewers’ experiences of watching Dallas, because the findings
were driven by the participants’ own opinions.
Thinkpiece
Read the quote below. What criticism is Ang making about her own methodology?
‘What people say or write about their experiences, preferences, habits, etc.,
cannot be taken entirely at face value, for in the routine of daily life they do
not demand rational consciousness; they go unnoticed, as it were. They are
commonsensical, self-evident; they require no further explanations. This
means that we cannot let the letters speak for themselves, but they should
be read “symptomatically”: we must search for what is behind the explicitly
written, for the presuppositions and accepted attitudes concealed within
them’ (Ang 1985: 11).
However, there are various criticisms that could be levelled at Ang’s approach.
s -ODLESKI HASARGUEDTHAT!NGSAPPROACHCANSIMPLYBECOMEANAPOLOGYFOR
popular culture, validating a dominant ideology of consumerism. The argument
here is that the method does not allow Ang to be critical of the way in which people
consume popular culture but rather simply to give a picture of how and why people
enjoy watching the programme. The use of letters did not allow Ang to challenge the
authors of the letters, to prompt and probe the respondents to get a fuller and more
valid account of their opinions.
s 'AUNTLETT HAS ARGUED THAT @!NG HAS NO PARTICULAR METHOD WITH WHICH TO
achieve this (informed guesswork notwithstanding). Attitudes which are actually
expressed are fine . . . But how do we find the “concealed” attitudes, the views which
(by definition) are not included in the words actually written down? If “we cannot
let the letters speak for themselves”, then what can we do?’ (2007: 7, emphasis in
the original).
Unlike much audience research Ang does not talk down to, patronise or speak from a
position of academic superiority to her readers or respondents. Ang’s approach is the
opposite of most audience or ‘media effects’ research, such as that of the Glasgow Media
Research Group, that appears to assume that people in the audience had very little self-
knowledge. Ang’s methodology demonstrates many of the advantages of using letters
Visual methods 193
as a method of data collection in research projects. Respondents are in a position to

discuss issues that are of concern to them and not be influenced by the questioning
of the researcher; the use of letters is very good for exploring issues that have not been
well researched in the past and where we are unsure of the questions to ask or the
issues to address with the respondent.
Visual methods
Most research methods are dependent on the use of language, either spoken or written,
in the process of data collection. However, people also communicate with each other
by the use of a wide range of non-verbal methods such as gestures, facial expressions,
gaze, body language, dress and hairstyle. These and other visual representations pro-
vide an insight into the culture and offer an alternative to the assumption that social
researchers can only investigate the social world by asking people questions. The aim
of visual research methods is to gain an understanding of social life by exploring the
significance or meaning of images or objects with the respondent.
Visual images or objects can be useful when issues are hard-to-put-into-words,
especially when we are using academic language; they can enhance empathy with
the respondent, draw our attention to things in new ways and even help us to look
at the world from the perspective of the respondent or better engage with their
experience.
For the researcher, ‘seeing’ is a function of the ability to find patterns in photo-
graphic data. Collier (1967) suggested that people think photographically, in that they
construct their photographs to look like pictures. Hall (1986) suggests that few people
recognise how much their visual projections are constructed according to rigid rules
about how to view a person, place or thing.
Suchar (1997) argues that photography’s potential as a documentary method
of data collection is not inherent in the photograph itself, but rather in a interactive
interrogatory process that allows the researcher to use the photograph as a way of
answering or expanding on questions about the focus of our research. He identifies
(1997) two methods used by visual social scientists:
s PHOTO ELICITATION
s SHOOTINGSCRIPTS
Photo elicitation
Photo-elicitation involves taking photographs that are believed to be relevant to a group

of people and then using them with those people to explore their subjective mean-
ings (see Beilin’s fieldwork below for an example). Collier and Collier (1986) and
Samuels (2004) suggest that use of photos is better than normal conversational
interviewing in that they appear to stimulate the respondent’s memory.
The term photo-elicitation was invented by the photographer and researcher John
Collier in 1957. When Collier compared the quality of data obtained from interviews
with photographs compared with interviews without, he concluded:
‘The material obtained with photographs was precise and at times even
encyclopedic; the control interviews were less structured, rambling, and freer in
association. Statements in the photo interviews were in direct response to the
graphic probes and different in character as the content of the pictures differed,
whereas the character of the control interviews seemed to be governed by the
mood of the informants’ (1957: 856).
The word elicitation means asking the population being studied how they make
sense of the world around them. As researchers we do this in order to come to an
understanding of the ways in which respondents categorise the world in order to
make sense of it. The term construct is used to describe a set of ideas or concepts that a
respondent uses to categorise component parts of an image. In more formal research
methods terms, as a researcher we want to know how respondents come to define the
constructs and categories of constructs to be used in the data collection and data
analysis of the research project. Researchers do this in order to reduce the risk of
forcing respondents to choose from a set of constructs invented, or assumed by the
researcher to be relevant, but which may not allow the respondents to describe
accurately the image.
According to Harper, one of the founding editors of the journal Visual Studies:
‘This has a physical basis: the parts of the brain that process visual information are
evolutionarily older than the parts that process verbal information. Thus images
evoke deeper elements of human consciousness than do words; exchanges based
on words alone utilize less of the brain’s capacity than do exchanges in which the
brain is processing images as well as words’ (2002: 13).
The presence of the photographs makes it easier for respondents to reflect on their
lives and identities. This is because a photo can show aspects of identity, and this is
especially the case if participants’ own photographs are used because such photos are
often very personal, reminding the respondent of the culturally distinct world that the
researcher can then share. Spence’s (1986) autobiography reflects upon her experience
of her own debilitating illness by using images of her body as a text to challenge the
social definitions of female physical attractiveness. Harper (1987) produced a book-
length case history of a single individual called Willie, and through the use of photo-
graphs Willie reflects upon his life including how he constructs his sense of self
through his normal routines and work as a rural artisan.
Harper (1987), Collier and Collier (1986) and Curry and Clark (1977) suggest that
photo-elicitation is an heuristic device in the research process: in other words it is a
Visual methods 195
method for generating research questions. Photographs can be also used to prompt
and probe the respondent in interviews to answer questions about social, cultural and
behavioural assumptions that underpin reality.
Mahruf et al. (2007) used photo-elicitation in their study of transition from primary
to high school in Bangladesh. Photographs of the respondents’ primary school were
used in the research process to assist high school students to make connections with
their past experiences. The photographs appeared to remind the respondents of life
in the primary school and these strong feelings and memories were used by Mahruf
et al. in a series of interviews to evaluate theories of transition. Mahruf et al. suggested
that:
‘When photographs were used . . . to ask about school experiences, respondents

opened up about experiences and expectations regarding their learning environ-
ment. The differences that were evident in the data generated on the two occasions
demonstrate how images enriched the data and engaged participants in a collab-
orative manner. Analysis shows that, in the majority of interviews, significantly
more information was provided by pupils when they were speaking with the
stimulus of the images’ (2007: 56).
Beilin (2005) conducted a photo-elicitation study with hill farmers in Gippsland,

south-eastern Australia. The purpose of her study was to identify the farmers’
relationship with the land. She clearly outlines the process of data collection in her
research, and this gives readers a very clear idea of how to conduct a photo-elicitation
study.
How to conduct a photo-elicitation study

There were four phases to Beilin’s fieldwork and in total the data collection took
four years to complete.
Phase one
The first phase was to gain access to the farming community. This involved
attending a range of community meetings as a participant-observer. This phase of
the research lasted for two years. Once she was convinced that she had an under-
standing of the community and its concerns Beilin moved on to the second
phase of the research.
Phase two
Secondly, a series of in-depth interviews with 18 farm families took place. These
were transcribed and verified by the families as a reflection of what they said in
their interviews. At the end of the first interview each family was given a dispos-
able camera and were asked to take 12 photographs of what they considered to
be ‘significant landscapes’.
Phase three
The third phase of the project started with the farmers sorting and categorising
the photographs. The families were asked to decide their categories; the person
who took the photograph had the first opportunity to order and categorise it, this
was followed by discussions among family members. The farmers eventually
came up with an agreed set of categories and ranked their photographs in terms
of their significance within each category. Then Beilin and each family visited the
sites where the photographs were taken and there was further discussion about
the significance of the sites.
Phase four
The farmers were asked to sort their photographs into themes or categories. This
process of creating categories and an order is what Beilin calls ‘laddering’, and
discussing the appropriate order and themes for the photographs is what Beilin
calls ‘elicitation’. There then followed a second in-depth interview based on the
photo-elicitation sessions and the tour to the sites of where the photographs had
been taken. Again the interviews were transcribed and verified by the families.
Beilin explains that the role of the in-depth interviews in photo-elicitation research is to
provide a ‘thick description’ for the reader that exposes: ‘the depth and richness of the
information. An aspect of this thick description is the recognition that the farmers were
not naive photographers. Several of them enunciate a conscious decision to photograph
from a particular angle, to tell a particular story and to affirm a particular politic’ (2005:
66). In other words, when the farmers talk about the meaning and the significance of the
photographs they have taken, this is not simply as a description of the landscape, but
an analysis of the meaning and significance of how the landscape is changing that draws
upon the culture of the area, and their social and economic interests as farmers.
Beilin explains the significance of the methods of data collection she used in the
research in the following way:
‘Harper emphasizes the importance of creating a narrative, or sequence, in the

organization of photographs – a “photo essay”, whose meaning is in the “structure
and organisation of the whole” (1987, 6). These narratives must expose a story that
is a part of the culture, and they are likely to require the researcher to be part of, or
have experience of, the culture in order to support the material through extending
metaphors and establishing a clear understanding (Harper 1987: 9). The 12 photo-
graphs in each study are a deliberate narrative, organized by the narrator with the
intention of telling a particular story to the researcher and other viewers’ (2005: 62).
Beilin (2005) looks at the ethical dimension of photo-elicitation: she reminds the
reader that as a social researcher you should always be conscious of the potential ten-
sions that can exist between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’. Beilin explains that a
central element of this research process is the act of ‘giving voice’ or explaining the
Analysing photographic data 197
image. Beilin draws upon Habermas’s conception of communicative discourse to link

the photograph with the spoken word. Communicative discourse focuses on people
and on the meanings given to the spoken word by the researcher and the respondent.
When the researcher listens to what the respondent has to say they also engage in a
process of interpreting and analysing what is said. According to Forester (1989) ‘We
listen with our eyes as well as our ears’ (1989: 110). What Forester is pointing to here
is the difference between, in essence, passive hearing and active listening. For Forester
listening is a moral activity, which creates a sense of collaborative understanding
between the researcher and the respondent.
Shooting scripts
In contrast, the shooting scripts approach is based upon the assumption that seeing can
reveal patterns, features or details about the context in which social action takes place
that would otherwise be not readily apparent. Shooting scripts involves the listing of
research questions or issues that can be examined by the use of the information con-
tained within photographs (Rothstein 1989; Collier and Collier 1986). For Suchar
(1997) the list of research questions or issues provide a means by which photography
can be grounded in a strategic and focused exploration of answers to particular
theoretically-generated questions.
Analysing photographic data

Whether photographs are formally posed, such as school class photos, those com-
memorating weddings, birthdays, marriages, or personal fun photographs such as
family holiday snaps, all contain representations of the self. They are indicators of our
personal lives and the events that we found ourselves in at a given point in time.
Plummer (2001) explains how some researchers’, such as Barthes’ (1977), evaluation
of photography, Harper’s (1987) study of homeless people and Jackson’s (1978) study
of prison life, have attempted to develop a narrative visual theory. With this approach
the photo is more than simply a resource to aid the researcher’s description; rather the
visual image and the words used are of equal status in the text and both are used to
develop theoretical constructs.
The shooting scripts approach has much in common with grounded theory in that both
methods involve the creation of categories for the collection, organisation and analysis
of observational data. As the founders of grounded theory Glaser and Strauss explain:
‘In discovering theory, one generates conceptual categories or their properties from
evidence; then the evidence from which the category emerged is used to illustrate
the concept’ (1967: 23).
Shooting scripts involves first looking at the photograph and identifying any key con-
cepts or categories in order to generate the list of shooting scripts questions. The second
stage is to place the photographic evidence into one of a series of folders or categories
that are commonly referred to as a logging frame or logging sheet. When all the photo-
graphic evidence has been collected and categorised, the meaning of the photograph is
changed into words by a process of ‘open coding’. Strauss and Corbin describe open
coding as: ‘The process of breaking down, examining, comparing, conceptualizing, and
categorizing data’ (1990: 61).
As the categories or folders in the logging frame become saturated with data they
are sub-divided into separate categories and relationship between the categories start
to present themselves: through this process new conceptual understandings are
developed. In this process the researcher makes the codes fit the data, rather than the
other way around, in an attempt to find answers for the shooting script questions.
Strauss and Corbin (1990) name this process of explanation building as axial coding:
‘a set of procedures whereby data are put back together in new ways after open
coding, by making connections between categories’ (1990: 116).
Activity
One of the most influential photographic research projects to make use of the
shooting scripts approach was Stryker’s Farm Security Administration (FSA)
project during the 1930s and 1940s. In this project some of the most influential
photographers of the day, notably Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Arthur
Rothstein, were given the task of documenting everyday life in small rural towns.
The photographers were asked to make a photographic record of such things as
‘Where do people meet?’, ‘Do women and men meet in the same places?’, ‘How
do people look?’, ‘What do people’s homes look like inside and outside?’
Question
Look up the work of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein on the
internet. Do you feel that these photographs can aid our understanding of the
social and economic situation in the USA in the 1930s and 1940s?
Case studies and documentary methods

Chapter 6 looked at case study methods of data collection. Before we end this chapter
we will look briefly at a case study of a research project that has attempted to combine
both documentary approaches and case study approaches to social research with good
effect. The combination of two or more methods of data collection within one research
Case studies and documentary methods 199
project is known as method triangulation and it is one of the ways in which an individual
researcher can enhance the validity of their findings. By using more than one method
of data collection you obtain a much fuller and more complete picture of the actions
of the respondents.
A combination of methods
Stones (2002) has written an informed evaluation of the way in which television
encourages people to reason, and form opinions, about public issues such as
conflict. This example demonstrates that both case studies and documentary
methods are very flexible and are useful tools for any researcher. Stones conducted
an investigation into a documentary film called The Roots of War that focused on the
causes of the conflict in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Stones is concerned that
the television documentary has become dominated by an entertainment ethic; in
other words that in an effort to increase audience size documentary makers try to
enhance the surface ‘watchability’ or entertainment content of the documentary
at the expense of critical argumentation, reasoning or substance.
Taking his starting point from a number of sources such as Mills’s (1959)
concept of the sociological imagination, Nussbaum’s (1997) concept of ‘civic
imagination’ (that is a cluster of concerns that provide the taken-for-granted
background for reasoning about the public sphere) and a range of social theorists
who look at the relationship between agency and structure (Alexander, 1998;
Archer, 1995; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Cohen, 1989; Giddens, 1984;
Sayer, 1984, 2000), Stones tries to identify what is distinctive and what is in-
adequate about the documentary.
Documentaries contain a clear idea about the nature of social reality described
within the text and most documentaries about social events contain ‘overt or
covert forms of argumentation within which, in turn, there typically resides a
thesis (or theses) about the social causes or processes that have produced these
events’ (Stones 2002: 360). Stones looks at how documentaries present a picture
of the nature of structures, the actions of individual people or human agency and
discourses in the production of ‘present events (and images) by absent (near or
distant) social processes’ (2002: 357). He does this by the use of two central
concepts: ‘the sjuzet (the surface textual presentation, or plot/discourse) and the
fabula (the implied story of characters and events as it actually happened in real
time and space)’ (Stones 2002: 361).
Also Stones draws upon the approach adopted by Bill Nichols (1991) to
question:
s THEOVERALLDEGREEOFKNOWLEDGEFOUNDWITHINTHETEXT
s THEDEGREEOFSUBJECTIVITYREPRESENTEDWITHINTHETEXT
s THEDEGREEOFSELF CONSCIOUSNESSWITHINTHETEXT
s THELEVELOFCOMMUNICATIVENESSOFTHETEXT
For Stones the central thesis of The Roots of War is that the conflict in Yugoslavia
is essentialist in nature, in other words that the people were ‘naturally and
inevitably constituted as hating other ethnic groups’ (2002: 364).
The film encourages the viewer to accept the argument in a passive manner.
The argument within the film is built around several interlocking themes:
s @ASENSEOFTHEDEEPLYEMBEDDEDETHNICANIMOSITIES
s THEIMAGERYOFDREAMSANDMUTUALLYINCOMPATIBLEVISIONSOFTHEFUTURE
s THEHEAVY HANDEDIMPLICATIONTHATFUTURECONmICTISINEVITABLE3TONES
368).
A more authoritative account of the events such as Woodward’s (1995) Balkan
Tragedy, for example, presents a very different picture. Woodward rejects the
essentialist ‘enduring ethnic hatred’ argument as too simplistic. In contrast, she
suggests that the cause of the conflict was rooted in nationalism rather than
ethnic hatred: this distinction was not made in the documentary.
As we can see from this example, both case studies and documentary methods are very
flexible and are useful tools for any researcher.
Conclusion
This chapter has looked at the documentary methods of data collection. Personal
documents can give the researcher great insight into the day-to-day experiences and
feeling states of respondents. However, it is also important to note that we can ask
respondents to write letters about the topic we wish to investigate, take photographs,
or ask them to keep a diary. This approach allows the researcher to understand the
motives and intentions that otherwise may not be visible to the researcher.
The chapter then looked at two contrasting methods for reading these personal
documents: semiology and content analysis. Although both approaches have issues
concerning validity and reliability they both address forms of data that are not always
easy to capture using more objective and systematic methods of data collection. The
value of keeping your own diary whilst conducting a research project was also explored.
The keeping of a research diary can help to maintain the focus of your study and be a
useful source of data when it comes to writing up your findings.
#JCMJPHSBQIZ 201
Should Erica use documentary and narrative analysis?

Social researchers who use documents in their data collection often regard the
documents as reliable and as significant as respondents who complete a ques-
tionnaire or interviewees. Erica considers conducting a study of the signs in the
zoo that contain information about biodiversity and sustainability.
She could simply use her own literal awareness of what information is con-
tained in the sign. Alternatively, she could conduct a simple content analysis in
which she counts the number of signs within the zoo that have a biodiversity
and/or sustainability theme and investigate the key words that are used within
the signs to find out something meaningful about the messages that the signs are
attempting to get across to the zoo visitors. However, Erica particularly enjoys
reading about semiology so considers looking at each of the signs in the zoo in
terms of the signifier (the content that can be seen in the sign) and signified (the
idea or concept that the author of the sign is trying to get across to the zoo visitor
who sees the sign). Erica believes that this will allow her to make a judgement
about the quality of the information about biodiversity and sustainability that
zoos provide to their visitors.
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11 Measurement
and statistical
inference

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Introduction
Measurement in the social sciences is a procedure whereby information is gathered
from a number of indicators in the form of a single score. A common aspect of mea-
surement in the social sciences is tabulation: this simply means to count the number of
people or observations in a given group on the basis of a characteristic that you are
206 Chapter 11 Measurement and statistical inference
interested in. Look at the array of data below that shows the ages of first-year students
when they started their degree course. What does it show?
21, 20, 17, 30, 51, 18, 19, 18, 18, 18, 20, 22, 19, 19, 22, 23, 37, 19, 19, 23, 18,
21, 22, 23, 18, 18, 20, 22, 18, 18, 18, 19, 19, 18, 18, 22, 19, 19, 18, 18, 18, 19,
21, 21, 23, 24, 24, 24, 25
Most ages of undergraduates entering university seems to be around 18–19 years.

The simplest method of constructing an analysis is a univariate frequency distribution:
this simply means that the different ages in the array of data are listed, together with
their frequency – the number of times they occur in the array. For our data array the
univariate frequency distribution would look like this:
17 = 1 21 = 4 25 = 1
18 = 15 22 = 5 30 = 1
19 = 10 23 = 4 37 = 1
20 = 3 24 = 3 51 = 1
A frequency distribution is a very helpful way of summarising data. In addition, categ-

ories can be collapsed – grouped together to form a grouped frequency distribution. Our
data array can be grouped in the following manner:
17−19 = 26
20−29 = 20
30+ = 3
To divide the sample into age groups of teenagers, people in their twenties and people
who are 30 or more years of age is not a ‘natural’ division of people in the data set. It
was my choice to divide people in this way. When it comes to constructing frequency
distributions it is important to keep in mind that:
s CATEGORIESSHOULDBEmutually exclusive; in other words constructed in such a way that

each observation can be placed in one and only one category;
s GROUPED FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION ALWAYS INVOLVES A LOSS OF INFORMATION COMPARED
with the raw data.
Common measures to identify central tendency

If we have data in a numerical form it is possible for us to find patterns such as identi-
fying the central tendency. This is what is known in everyday language as finding the
average but the word ‘average’ has no real meaning in statistics. There are three com-
mon measures for identifying the central tendency in a data set:
1. The median would involve us placing all the values or observations from a frequency
distribution in rank order and identifying the value that is in the middle. In our data
array of student ages we have 49 people in our sample. If we produced a rank order
of all the people from youngest to oldest the 25th age of the list would be 19 years
of age and this would be the average as calculated by the median.
2. The mode is the most commonly occurring value in the data array. More speci-
fically social researchers would say that the mode is the category that contains
the largest number of observations. In the case of our array of student ages because
there are 15 students who are 18 years of age this is the average as calculated by the
mode.
3. The arithmetic mean is a measure of the central tendency that involves us adding
together the ages of all the students and then dividing that figure by the number of
people in the sample. More specifically social researchers would say that we find the
sum of values of a variable (add together all the ages of the students) and divide
the sum by the number of observations (divide the total by the number of students).
The arithmetic mean is the most common method of summarising data in social
science research.
Sum of ages = 1038

Number of students = 49
1038 divided by 49 = 21.2 years of age
In social science research, authors tend to avoid using the term average and instead
use the term for the specific form of average they are using. If you want to present an
average choose the form of measurement that you feel is the most appropriate and give
a short justification for using it.
Variance and standard deviation

Two other statistical techniques that are important for social science researchers
are variance and standard deviation. Variance represents the degree that values are
extended around the mean; and the standard deviation is the square root of this value.
We express standard deviation using the same unit of measurement. These figures
allow researchers to identify the extent to which a single case or observation varies in
relation to the whole of a data set.
The deviation of a result is the variance or difference between the result and the mean
for the set of results from which it was taken.
Example
If we have the following figures:
24, 27, 32, 44, 89, 102
Then the mean is 53 (i.e. 318/6)
And the deviation from each value is:
24 − 53 = −29
27 − 53 = −26
32 − 53 = −21
44 − 53 = −9
89 − 53 = 36
102 − 53 = 49
If you add up all the deviation scores and find the average score you will always arrive
at zero. Therefore, most researchers find a calculation known as the standard deviation,
which is a statistical measure of spread or variability that is a more useful calculation
to make.
Standard deviation
Standard deviation is the root mean square deviation of the values from their arithmetic
mean. Variance is achieved by first squaring each of the deviation scores: that is, we
multiply each score on the list by itself. When we do this the squared deviation values
are always positive because when we multiply a minus figure by another minus figure
the result is always a positive figure. The next step is to divide the number of results in
the set to get the variance. In mathematical notation the standard deviation is shown
as follows:
∑( X − M)2
s=
n −1
where ∑ = sum of elements

X = individual score
M = mean of all scores
n = sample size (number of scores)
The variance is the standard deviation squared, so
Variance = s2
Example
In order to calculate the standard deviation of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, first we calculate the
mean and deviation.
X M (X − M) (X − M)2
1 3 −2 4
2 3 −1 1
3 3 0 0
4 3 1 1
5 3 2 4
The second stage is to calculate the sum of (X − M)2
4 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 4 = 10
The third stage involves the sample size. In this case, N = 5 is the total number of
values. We need to calculate N − 1, which is 5 − 1 = 4.
We are then in a position to calculate the standard deviation using the
formula:
10 4 = 1.58113
The standard deviation = 1.58113
There are a number of websites that allow you simply to type in your values and the
site will calculate the standard deviation for your data set. Your tutor may be able to
advise you on which are the simplest to use.
It is not uncommon for most values in a data set to cluster around the central
measure. When this is represented in a graphical form, such as a bar chart, it forms a
normal distribution or bell-shaped curve with the cluster around the centre and extreme
values on either side of the cluster (see Figure 11.1). In any normal distribution the
mean, median and mode are all equivalent.
It is not uncommon in a normal distribution for 95 per cent of values to be within
two standard deviations of the mean, and 99.73 per cent to be within three standard
deviations of the mean. If we know, therefore, that the mean age of students in our
sample is 21.2 years and the standard deviation of our sample is 2.4, then 95 per cent
of all our sample will be aged between 19.2 and 24. So values of 19 and 24 could
reasonably be classed as abnormal in that only 1 in 20 of the sample will be either so
young or so old.
When we measure we assign a true value to something in order to make compari-
sons. If we buy some cheese from the supermarket we understand that the weight of
300
250
200
150
100
50
Figure 11.1 "OPSNBMEJTUSJCVUJPO
the cheese is directly related to the price we will pay. To do this we need a measuring
device that we can trust. We know the true height of a person because we trust the
reading we get from a tape measure; likewise we know our weight because we trust
the scales. However, with any form of measurement errors can occur, for example,
weighing scales do not always operate perfectly.
Some errors are random errors such as placing the scales on an uneven floor before
we stand on them, but some errors are unknown systematic errors. In terms of social
research, unknown systematic errors can be caused by a researcher using an inappro-
priate measuring device or classifying observations in a manner that will affect the
outcome. Many unknown systematic errors have their roots in random events but
many others are rooted in the researcher’s theoretical stance, pre-existing attitudes or
biases.
Classification
Classification is the process of inventing categories, the process of fitting raw data – such
as our observations or the responses we get to any questions we ask – into categories.
When the categories are assigned numbers or letters they are called codes. All categories
have to have boundaries. Some category boundaries are obvious – the categories
female and male are sound for classifying biological sex. However, other forms of
classification are less obvious, such as social class or the classification of achiever and
non-achiever.
Measurement 211
Measurement
Measurement is the categorising or classification of social and physical phenomena. In
everyday life people distinguish between different things, such as religions, different
types of house, different modes of transport, different towns and cities etc. People also
rank things. A customer may prefer Brand X to Brand Y. We often use pounds (£) and
pence to compare income, miles to compare distance and degrees to compare tem-
peratures. Measurement is a procedure for classifying individuals, groups or other units
and putting them into previously defined categories.
It is important to note at this stage that many very interesting and important
research projects involve simply identifying the central tendency in some aspect of the
life of the sample the researchers have selected and drawing an inference or giving a
reasoned account of why most people in the sample think, feel or act in a common
way.
It is possible to differentiate two distinct forms of measurement:
1. index measurement, and

2. representational measurement.
In addition, we will also consider composite measurement.
Index measurement
Index measurement takes place when the categories of a measurement scale do not
allow exact reconstruction of reality. For example, I might be doing some shopping
in a garden centre and I have to reflect on if I have enough strength to carry the things
I have bought from the checkout to the car. In this case, although I do not know the
exact weights of objects I can still classify them as heavy, medium and light even
though I cannot determine the exact weight.
According to Dawes (1972) we have a two-way correspondence between:
1. some property of things being measured, and

2. some property of the measurement scale.
With index measurement, observations are classified in terms of numbers on an arbi-

trary scale. However, with representational measurement, the system of numbers we
use – the measurement scale – corresponds to a set of concrete or real relations among
the things being measured.
The procedure for index measurement is the same as in this example.
Example
We could choose to scale the height of children by describing them as:
very tall (5), fairly tall (4), medium (3), fairly small (2), very small (1).
You can allocate each child to an appropriate category and then describe the
children’s height in terms of the numbers 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
The problem with this form of scaling is that one person might allocate half
the children to the ‘very tall category’ whereas another might place only one child
in this category.
Representational measurement
With representational measurement we could use a tape measure to measure the

heights of the children. The set of numbers on the tape measure is made up of standard
units on a standard scale and this corresponds exactly to the differences in height
between the children. This means that we can state specifically, using standard units,
by how much one child is bigger or smaller than another.
Likert scaling method

When we use a Likert scale (Likert 1932) of, for example, people’s opinions
about a particular issue or topic, different opinions are given a numerical code
or score. Let us say that we are interested in measuring people’s opinion on
smoking. We could ask people to comment on the following statement by ticking
a box from 1 to 5 that most closely matched their opinion:
‘Smoking is a dangerous habit.’
Strongly agree (5), Agree on the whole (4), No opinion (3), Disagree on the
whole (2), Strongly disagree (1)
Question
Would you classify Likert scaling as index or representational measurement?
Give reasons for your answers.
Composite measurement
A number of variables such as age, sex and occupation, are generally accepted as stand-
alone items of measurement. In other words, one response to one question is enough
4DJFOUJGJDQBSTJNPOZ 213
to give us a valid response. However, because most of the questions we are interested
in exploring are more complex, a single response to a question or opinion item is often
not regarded as an accurate or full representation of the respondent’s view. It is here
that composite measurement is used. Composite measurement is the bringing together of
responses into sets to form a single scale or composite measure. The most commonly
cited example of composite measurement is the retail price index (RPI): the price of
one product can be used to measure the rate of inflation, but adding together the price
of a range of commonly used goods and services will give a more valid picture.
Composite measurement is assumed to provide more valid data because it gives a
more complete picture of the variables the researchers are measuring.
It is important that researchers choose the most effective indicators that they can
find because this allows us to conduct the least number of observations but still pro-
duce valid results. The underpinning logic of this approach is found in the idea of
scientific parsimony.
Scientific parsimony
Scientific parsimony is a basic principle in science that we can apply to our research.
The idea is based upon the assumption that where it is possible to explain something
equally adequately in different ways then the simplest explanation should be selected.
By ‘simplest’ we mean the explanation that is based upon the smallest number of
variables and indicators. We may still need a wide range of indicators to ensure that
a variable has been operationalised adequately. Operationalisation is a key process in
social science research: it is the process of selecting a thing that a researcher calls the
indicator, which is a characteristic of a variable the researcher has selected. The indic-
ator has to be in a form that can be easily identified, categorised and measured. The aim
is to encapsulate the variable that lies behind the indicators with a single composite
score. This might involve using a large number of different but internally consistent
questions to obtain a reliable measure of the variable we are interested in.
Example
Imagine that you are a researcher who is asked to investigate the attitude of a
worker, say a painter and decorator, to their job. What aspects of work do you
think should be considered?
Your list might include:
s TASKSINVOLVEDINTHEWORK
s WORKINGCONDITIONSSUMMERnWINTERINDOORSnOUTDOORS
s HOURSOFWORKSHIFTWORK
s RELATIONSHIPSWITHCOLLEAGUES
It might also be necessary to consider each variable’s relative importance as indi-

cators of the construct ‘attitude to job’.
Question
What is the goal of all these different measurement strategies?
Answer
To maximise the validity of the measurement.
Why do we construct categories?

Researchers construct categories to display variations with respect to some variable.
However, researchers have to be confident that the measuring instrument they
choose to use actually measures the indicators of the variables they have chosen effec-
tively. Before we move on it is important to note that there are many social scientists
who question our ability to effectively measure anything within the social sciences.
Consider the following example:
‘the crucial limit to the successful application of variable analysis to human life is
set by the process of interpretation that goes on in human groups. This process,
which I believe to be the core of human action, gives character to human group life
that seems to be at variance with the logical premises of variable analysis’ (Blumer
1956: 640).
For Blumer, measurement is based upon the assumption of social action having
one standard and commonly understood meaning whereas social life is made up of
both events and the personal and cultural experience of events. This means that any
social action can be experienced differently by different people in a range of different
contexts.
Cicourel (1964) argues that within social science all measurement is measurement
by fiat, by which he means measurement by authorisation or decree. In other words, as
social scientists we often provide our respondents with both the question and the
answers to the question and then simply measure the answers we have already pro-
vided to our respondents. The reason why social scientists do this is because social
science data are constructed by ordinary everyday language and our categories and
classification systems are rooted in common sense that is constantly changing because
of people’s redefinition of the situation. Cicourel then goes on to develop a similar
argument to that of Blumer:
‘The literal measurement of social acts . . . requires the use of linguistic and
non-linguistic meanings that cannot be taken for granted but which must be
8IZEPXFDPOTUSVDUDBUFHPSJFT 215
viewed as objects of study. In other words measurement pre-supposes a bounded

network of shared meanings ie, a theory of culture. The physical scientist alone
defines his observational field, but in social science the arena of discourse usu-
ally begins with the subjects preselected and pre-interpreted cultural meanings’
(Cicourel 1964: 14).
Measurement in the social sciences is a creative act. Choosing appropriate indicators is

not simply an intuitive act, we have to justify the conceptual link between the variable
we are using and the indicator we have selected. The indicator must reflect something
meaningful and essential about the variable. Social action is not usually in a form that
has a numerical quality or that can be directly measured. This means that we have
to identify indicators that are in a form that can be measured. Simply stated, social
scientists are often interested in using variables that are abstract concepts that cannot
be easily or directly measured. This means that we have to find something that is
directly linked to the variable that is solid or concrete in nature and that can easily be
measured. Hence it is not uncommon for social scientists to identify income as an
indicator of social class position as income can be measured with some precision. The
variable social class is complicated as it includes self-esteem, authority, skill, power etc.
and operates at various levels of social life. Social science researchers assume that as a
variable social class can be sub-divided into various parts: income is one important
aspect of social class that can be measured, has a numerical quality and patterns can
be identified.
As Pawson (1989) points out: ‘measurement is not simply a matter of observation
but also of conceptualisation’ (Pawson 1989: 40).
Characteristics of categories include:
s CLEARDElNITIONnTOAVOIDMISCLASSIlCATIONANDENHANCERELIABILITY
s MUTUAL EXCLUSIVENESS AND INDEPENDENCE n EACH OBSERVATION CAN BE ALLOCATED TO
only one category so in terms of school children this would be nursery, primary or
secondary;
s EXHAUSTIVENESS n CATEGORIES SHOULD EMBRACE ALL THE POSSIBLE OBSERVATIONS TO BE
classified.
Transformation
Calibrating data is known as transformation, the process of placing raw data into a
category – for example when a teacher has to make a judgement about the quality of
a student’s work by transforming the judgement into a percentage or grade such as A,
B+, C etc. All transformation involves the degradation of data. In other words, all transfor-
mation involves the loss of some information. However, the process of transformation
is necessary because without it we would have no way of identifying any meaningful
pattern with our collected data.
Definitions
s !variable is any characteristic which has two or more possible categories.
s Measurement is the assignment of numerals to objects or events according to rules.
s Rules tell us which kind of statistical analysis can be used on a given set of data.
The research process begins with theorising and the identification of key concepts from
the theory. These concepts have to be defined specifically before hypotheses can be set
up to test. The hypothesis is a proposition that is presented in a testable form, in other
words the hypothesis is a statement that predicts the relationship between two or more
variables.
You might find it useful to recall the points in the example below that were initially
made in Chapter 1. Then use these when you attempt the next Thinkpiece.
Example
Hypothesis: the greater the workload the higher the level of stress.
The hypothesis is linking two concepts: ‘the quantity of work’ and ‘the level of
stress’.
Each concept is ‘operationalised’ into indicators.
The number of work-related tasks completed in one day could measure
‘quantity of work’.
Levels of stress could be represented by the number of days absent from work
due to stress-related illness.
What is the causal relationship between the two variables?
In this case, ‘the number of work-related tasks completed in one day’ would
be the independent variable and the ‘number of days absent from work due to
stress-related illness’ would be the dependent variable.
The independent variable is hypothesised to affect the outcome.
The dependent variable is presumed to be the effect of the independent variable.
There is still an important issue to address, notably how do we know if the relationship
between our variables did not happen by chance or accident? To make a decision about
this important issue researchers need to have an understanding of probability.
Probability
We need to understand the effect of an independent variable (IV) on a dependent vari-
able (DV) in order to make an appropriate inference about the link between the two
variables. But how do we know that the link between our IV and DV has not happened
1SPCBCJMJUZ 217
by chance? The first step in making an appropriate statistical inference is to have

an understanding of the probability that events or variables happen by chance. As a
researcher you need to have a consistent strategy for analysing your data. You need to
be able to say with confidence if a variable is important or unimportant.
Probability allows the researcher to suggest that certain antecedence, or a thing that
is believed to precede something in time or order, is then often followed by predicted
consequences. The advice ‘don’t drink and drive’ is based upon the probability that if
a person drinks alcohol and then drives a car they are more likely to have a road traffic
accident than if they had not consumed an alcoholic drink.
We eliminate chance by identifying a small probability; but what is it that underpins
our unwillingness to attribute highly improbable events to chance?
Frequency is at the heart of statistical reasoning. If an event is more likely to occur
when a property is present then we assume that there is a link between the property, the
frequency of an event and its probability. This connection between the frequency of an
event and its probability is never conclusively verifiable or refutable. After all, a great
many improbable events happen every day. Sheer improbability by itself is not enough
to eliminate chance. We need to identify if the event was brought about by an extra
probabilistic factor and to do this we need to examine if the event was part of a wider
pattern of events. Calculating probability allows the researcher to talk about the likeli-
hood, or the degree of certainty, or chance of an event taking place. This means that
there is still an element of doubt in our analysis, you will never be absolutely certain.
Example
If we believe that smoking causes lung cancer (smoking is our IV and cancer is
our DV) then we know that not all smokers develop lung cancer and we also
know that some non-smokers do develop lung cancer. Before we can draw an
inference between our IV (smoking) and our (DV) lung cancer we have to cal-
culate the probability of a smoker developing lung cancer and compare this to
the probability of a non-smoker developing lung cancer. This means that when
we calculate probability we first need to find out the possibility of the outcome
occurring at random.
There are three types of probability that have been identified:
1. subjective probability,
2. logistical probability,
3. empirical probability.
Subjective probability
This is when we make a prediction that something may happen on the basis of our
subjective understanding or feeling state. Tomorrow afternoon I am going to watch the
football team I support play at home. On the basis of current form and results I have
a feeling that they are going to win. Although subjective probability cannot be used as
evidence to support a given inference it would be wrong to dismiss this form of reason-
ing from the research process. Subjective probability is central to successful explanation
building because without it there would be little opportunity for academic innovation.
Subjective probability is very good at helping the researcher generate a hypothesis
known as an heuristic device: this is central to developing hypotheses that can be tested
in a more systematic manner.
Logical probability
This is when we make formal predictions on the basis of mathematical theory. If a

person is successful at games of chance, such as card games, it is probably because of
their understanding of logical probability. If you want to predict the chance of the
next card from the pack being the one that you need then you need to have an under-
standing of logical probability. To be able to successfully predict you need to have an
understanding of the ratio of the number of cards in the pack that you need to
complete your hand successfully to the total number of cards left in the pack.
For example, if you wanted to predict the probability of an ace been drawn from a
pack of 52 cards then you need to understand that there are 52 cards in that pack of
which four are aces. This gives us a 1 in 13 change of selecting an ace as the first card
to be drawn from the pack.
Empirical probability
This is when we calculate approximately the likelihood of an outcome taking place

on the basis of what we know about such outcomes from the past. If I want to calcu-
late the empirical probability of my football team winning on Saturday I need to
complete the following calculation. P is the probability of the team winning.
Number of games that the team have won this season

P=
Total number of games played this season so far
The probability of an outcome occurring is measured on a scale from 0 to 1. The 0

indicates that the outcome never occurs and the 1 indicates that it always occurs. How
do we decide if an outcome is the product of a random error rather than a consequence
of our independent variable?
The first step is to estimate the probability that a random error could produce the
outcome. It is a fact that my team have not won every game this season but it is also a
fact that they have not lost every game this season. So will my team win on Saturday?
There are two possible outcomes: either yes they will (A) or no they won’t (B). The
probability is then calculated as:
1SPCBCJMJUZ 219
P(A) + P(B)
Because there are two possible outcomes we calculate the probability of the team win-
ning as 0.5 and the probability of not winning as 0.5. The chance of them winning or
not winning is therefore, 0.5 + 0.5 = 1.
If my team have played 29 games so far this season and their home results are:
Won Drew Lost Goals for Goals against

7 3 4 29 29
and their away results are:
Won Drew Lost Goals for Goals against

5 7 3 25 23
then with this information we can calculate the probability of the team winning, losing
or drawing at home or away. This information then allows us to investigate the effect on
the team’s performance of a particular player. If a particular striker is playing does the
team score more goals? Win more games? If a particular defender is playing does the
team concede fewer goals and win more games? The contribution of a particular player
can be treated as the independent variable and the results as the dependent variable.
In the case of my team they have a 0.5 probability of winning rather than not win-
ning tomorrow. Traditionally if a IV has a 0.05 effect on the outcome we assume that
this is highly significant. Therefore if we calculate that a particular player has a 0.05
effect on the outcome of the game their contribution is highly significant because there
is only a 1 in 20 chance that the result (outcome) is a random effect.
Thinkpiece
Classroom observation is one of the tools used by Ofsted to judge the quality of
teaching.
Question
Is it possible to measure the quality of teaching by observation? Compile a list of
arguments for and against.
Assessment criteria provide a set of indicators for judging the quality of a stu-
dent’s assignment and for transforming the quality of the work into a percentage
mark or grade.
Questions
1. Can you think of any problems that might emerge in this process?
2. Is the link between the mark given and the personal judgement of the marker
always a significant factor in the allocation of a grade?
Scales of measurement
Within the social sciences there are different ways or levels in which data can be
measured. A scale of measurement is a set of categories into which our observations or
responses to questions can be placed.
The four most commonly used scales of measurement are:
s NOMINAL
s ORDINAL
s INTERVAL
s RATIO
A nominal scale is the simplest form of measurement; a variable is divided into two or
more categories, for example:
s MALEORFEMALE
s NORTHSOUTHEASTORWEST
s DOYOUOWNACARYESORNO
Each of the categories on the nominal scale is exhaustive: this means that each category
used is different from another. We do this so that the categories can discriminate. With
a nominal scale there is no implication of order or preference – simply a difference.
In other words, female and male are different and we are not suggesting that one is
better than the other. This characteristic of the ability to discriminate by classification
is fundamental to all scales of measurement.
The ordinal scale has all the properties of a nominal scale, but – in addition – categ-
ories can be ordered along a continuum.
Example
Take three categories: A, B and C.
We could say that A is greater than B, and B is greater than C.
Criteria such as larger than, bigger than, more important than, more beautiful,
more hostile, cleaner, more intelligent etc. can be used.
We can then apply a numeral to a category:
3>2>1
Ordinal scales allow us to distinguish an order – but the distance between the categories
is not known.
4DBMFTPGNFBTVSFNFOU 221
The interval scale of measurement has all the characteristics of an ordinal scale but,
in addition, its categories are defined in terms of standard units of measurement. In other
words, the distances between or intervals between categories can be measured in terms
of the units. This means that a number can be assigned to an object that equals the
number of units of measurement that is equivalent to the amount of the property
possessed. In formal terms A, B and C are distinct categories
A>B>C
(A − B) = (B − C)
or A − C = 2 (B − C)
However, in an interval scale there is no absolute zero point; the zero point can be
placed anywhere along the continuum. This means that we can add or subtract but we
cannot multiply or divide.
The ratio scale has all the characteristics of the interval scale but in addition ratio
scales have a fixed zero: for example, no children or no income. This means that we
can use all the usual arithmetical operations on such data. A family with two children,
for example, has twice as many children as a family with one child.
Ratio scales use continuous and discrete variables. A discrete variable is one which
can take only a limited number of distinct values, scores or categories: for example
the number of children in a family. The numbers or units that are used are integers,
i.e. must be whole numbers. (For example, children can’t be divided into bits!) In
contrast, a continuous variable can be a fractional or decimal value between any two
integers.
Scaling is based upon the assumption that it is possible to apply simple set theory
from mathematics to social life in order to measure something meaningful. In math-
ematics, a set is simply defined as all cases that share the property or element we are
interested in, and these cases are included as a set within a pair of brackets. If I am
interested in compiling a set of X then I simply include X1, X2, X3, X4 . . . Xn within a
set of brackets, so that X = {X1, X2, X3, X4 . . . Xn}. X is easily identifiable from other
elements such as Y and the set or classification is a product of the element X.
Example
If I was asked by the university to count the number of chairs contained within
each department then this would be as simple as creating the set of X above. Each
department is clearly identified and I have a clear understanding of what qualities
a piece of furniture labelled as a chair has. This allows me simply to walk from
building to building counting chairs as I go. If I was asked to measure how
efficiently people worked within each department this would not be so easy.
In social research we will usually have to use a number of indicators to measure the
variable we are interested in. We choose the best indicators because on the basis of our
understanding of the field, including the published research, we can make a reasoned
argument that our indicators will be fit for purpose. In his discussion of identifying a
suitable indicator for the concept of efficiency at work Lazarsfeld (1977) points to the
fact that speed is an important criterion but it is not the only one. Working at speed
may increase the number of errors, accidents or the amount of spoilage. For Lazarsfeld
the researcher has to break the concept of efficiency down into its component parts,
which gives us the following dimensions: speed, safe use of machines and equipment,
good quality output.
People’s responses to questions are separate and independent from the classification
systems that we choose to use unless we can identify a common element in each
response and use this common element to legitimately allocate the response to a
category. If we ask people their opinion about an issue and then produce a chart
that contains a grouped or aggregated frequency distribution of their responses, this
is known as ‘scaling first-order meanings’. The use of ‘scaling first-order meanings’
suggests that there is a correspondence or meaningful relationship between verbal
responses and the numbers we use. The way in which we choose to group or aggregate
people’s responses is not a product of the responses given but something that we as
researchers have imposed onto people’s responses.
Complete inference
How do we come to have knowledge? One method is by sense experience: we can see,
hear, touch and smell things. However, we can still make mistakes or have hallucina-
tions. In other words, we can make perceptual errors in that we come to the wrong
conclusion about what we have experienced via our sense organs. On my first visit to
the Pompidou Centre in Paris I spent a long time wandering around the building
enjoying the art on display. After some time I became tired and wanted to sit down and
rest. In the middle of a gallery space there was a collection of unoccupied chairs. I had
to spend some time making a decision as to whether the chairs were for tired visitors
or an artistic installation. I was clear in my mind that what I could see were chairs but
my fear was that my perceptual judgement was incorrect. All external sense experiences
require judgement. The things that we perceive around us appear to speak for them-
selves but this is not the case: there is always a judgement involved. In addition, people
also have internal senses or feeling states, moods and emotions, such as fear, regret,
anxiety, joy or pain, such as a headache. Again our internal senses or feeling states may
be in error: you may mistake love for infatuation or lust. Our internal senses or feeling
states can be explored by a process known as introspection.
1SPEVDJOHLOPXMFEHFGSPNSFTFBSDIGJOEJOHT 223
Producing knowledge from research findings

Central to acquiring knowledge is the process we call reasoning or the ability to think.
There are two distinct forms of reasoning in social science research:
1. Deductive reasoning – where we start with a premise to develop an argument that

logically follows from the premise and supports it, finally reaching a conclusion.
2. Inductive reasoning – where we collect data and attempt to identify a pattern or
recurring uniformities within the data and construct an argument that suggests a
conclusion.
People also have faith, convictions, intuitions or beliefs about the world and how it
works – can such convictions be used to support a knowledge claim? To form the basis
of a valid knowledge claim such convictions or beliefs must be transformed into one
or more propositions: that is statements that are in a form that can be investigated and
upon which a judgement can be made by the use of a reliable validating procedure.
Two activities that appear to be central to our cognitive or thinking lives are explain-
ing and inferring.
Inference
Inference takes place when individuals make a judgement based upon some informa-
tion. We make inferences all of the time in our everyday lives. If I cannot go to a
football match on Saturday I will often ring up my son after the game, not only find
out the result but also to hear his comments about how well the team played and
what were the factors that shaped the game. In terms of social science research methods
not only do I want to know the outcome but I also want to have an explanation as to
how and why the team won or lost. Inference is the process of arriving at a conclusion;
in other words, it is the process we go through in an effort to produce a justification
or a defensible conclusion to the question we are investigating. Inference takes place
when we make a judgement based upon some evidence and as such it is integral to
the production of information. However, as researchers we usually face a surplus of
explanations and we need to give full and informed reasons as to why the conclusion
we put forward is better than the alternatives, given the evidence that we have available
to us.
Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003) define inference as:
‘a researcher’s construction of the relationships among people, events, and vari-

ables as well as his or her construction of respondents’ perceptions, behaviors, and
feelings and how these relate to each other in a coherent and systematic manner’
(Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003: 692).
Although drawing an appropriate inference is one of the most important aspects of the
research process the characteristics, or stages, that the research has to go through in the
process of making them is often not directly addressed in research methods texts.
Some researchers may confuse data with the results or findings of a research project.
Drawing an appropriate inference is the stage between data collection and presenting
a explanation of the meaning of the results or findings of a research project. This means
that there is an explanationist pattern to the process of drawing an inference. The import-
ant question here is what makes one explanation better than another?
Deductive inference
A deductive inference starts with a given theory and the researcher actively seeks evidence
to support or refute that theory. This type of explanation building in the social sciences
involves moving from a premise, conjecture or presupposition via a reasoned inter-
pretation of the evidence to a considered opinion about the outcome. Logic is used to
create or uncover a good inference. A statement is assumed to be correct if there is a
sound argument that connects a premise to a conclusion. As social scientists we assume
that the premises of all good and sound arguments are true.
Premises can often be selected for political or ideological reasons that give us a very
clear idea of what the outcome of our research is going to be before we start the data
collection or analysis. A faulty premise or faulty theory will lead to a faulty inference
or conclusion. The deductive approach follows a clear logic in which a premise suggests
something about the pattern we will find within our data and the conclusion we
should reach.
Inductive inference
In contrast, inductive inference involves data collection in the first instance and once the
data collection is complete, looking at the data for patterns, followed by suggesting an
appropriate explanation for the perceived pattern in the data. The problem here is that
we are all educated people who have knowledge of research in the field we are invest-
igating. We are aware of the approach taken by other more experienced researchers in
the field, their research practice and the conclusions they have reached. Their justifica-
tions for choosing one inference rather than another will guide the problems we select
to investigate, our data collection methods and our conclusions.
Inductive inference is often personal and very little is known about the intuitive
creative process involved in theory construction. Sociologists, in particular, do not
make discoveries but they do create theoretical or conceptual inventions. As Baldamus
clearly states: ‘there are no known sociological discoveries’ (1976: 25). He gives his
reader the example of our conception of ‘society’ which he describes as nothing but an
invention of the mind. It follows that because our conception of society is an invention
then nothing can be discovered about it. Even when our inventions, such as social
$PSSFMBUJPOT DBVTFTBOENFDIBOJTNT 225
class, are treated as real things, external to the individual, they remain inventions rather
than discoveries.
The notion of validity
The notion of validity is concerned with the link between premise and conclusion. We
can say that an argument is valid if there is a strong and clearly articulated link between
premise and conclusion. However, a valid argument can be based upon a false premise
and as such valid arguments do not guarantee the truth of a conclusion.
Justification
We may have a compulsion to accept our own deductive premise or favourite theory
but we need to have a justification for how and why we have made the link between
the data we have collected and the inference we have made. That justification should
be principled and those principles should be readily available for the reader of your
research project to follow your logic. In other words, you should provide a clear outline
of your inferential methods. Justification involves giving an account that the arguments
we present are valid and the process we use to get from data to inference is reliable. We
use the term underdetermination to describe an inadequate link between data presented
and inference drawn or if the inference drawn is not supported by the arguments and
evidence presented.
Inference: the central component

Inference is the central component of explanation building. It is the key process
that allows researchers to make sense of the data they have collected and say
something meaningful in a concluding statement.
Correlations, causes and mechanisms

Paul Thagard (1998) asks the question: why do people get sick? Medical explanation
is very complex, because most diseases involve the interplay of multiple factors. He
argues that:
‘a disease explanation is best thought of as a causal network instantiation, where a

causal network describes the interrelations among multiple factors, and instantia-
tion consists of observational or hypothetical assignment of factors to the patient
whose disease is being explained. Explanation of why members of a particular class

of people (women, lawyers, and so on) tend to get a particular disease is also
causal network instantiation, but at a more abstract level’ (1998: 61).
The first stage in explanation building in relation to why people get a particular disease
usually begins by identifying an association between the disease and possible causal
factors. Drawing upon Proctor’s research (1995: 27–28) Thagard explains that as far
back as the eighteenth century people had identified rough correlations between cancer
and various practices: using snuff and nose cancer, pipe smoking and lip cancer, chim-
ney sweeping and scrotum cancer, and being a nun and breast cancer.
Cheng (1997) developed the theory of the ‘power PC’ to explain how people infer
causal powers from probabilistic information. Cheng suggests that when people
infer the causes of events, they use an intuitive notion of causal power to explain
observed correlations. She characterises correlation (covariation) in terms of pro-
babilistic contrasts: how much more probable is an effect given a cause than without
the cause? In other words, causal powers are used to provide a theoretical explanation
of a correlation. To estimate the causal power we need to take into account alternative
possible causes.
According to Hennekens and Buring, a causal association is one in which a ‘change
in the frequency or quality of an exposure or characteristic results in a corresponding
change in the frequency of the disease or outcome of interest’ (1987: 30). Elwood says
that ‘a factor is a cause of an event if its operation increases the frequency of the event’
(1988: 6).
Hennekens and Buring explain that ‘the belief in the existence of a cause and effect
relationship is enhanced if there is a known or postulated biologic mechanism by
which the exposure might reasonably alter the risk of the disease’ (1987: 40). Moreover,
‘for a judgment of causality to be reasonable, it should be clear that the exposure
of interest preceded the outcome by a period of time consistent with the proposed
biological mechanism’ (1987: 42). Thus according to Hennekens and Buring, epidemi-
ologists do and should ask mechanism-related questions about biologic credibility and
time sequence.
For Thagard (1998) mechanism considerations are also often relevant to assessing
medical causality. Thagard defines a mechanism as a system of parts that transmit
forces, motion and energy from one part of a machine to another such as levers, pulleys
and wheels. In terms of the human body as a mechanical system, mechanisms are
organised hierarchically, in that lower level mechanisms such as molecules generate
changes at a higher level such as cells:
‘There are over a hundred different kinds of cancer, but all are now thought to
result from uncontrolled cell growth arising from a series of genetic mutations, first
in genes for promoting growth (oncogenes) and then in genes for suppressing the
tumors that are produced by uncontrolled cell growth. The mechanism of cancer
production then consists of parts at two levels – cells and the genes they contain,
along with changes in cell growth produced by a series of genetic mutations.
$PSSFMBUJPOT DBVTFTBOENFDIBOJTNT 227
Mutations in an individual can occur for a number of causes, including heredity,

viruses, and behavioral and environmental factors such as smoking, diet, and
exposure to chemicals’ (Thagard 1998: 67–8).
Ahn explains that when people are asked to suggest causes for why a given incident has
taken place, they will look for information about underlying causal mechanisms rather
than simply looking for correlations. For example, if people are asked to suggest a rea-
son why a car accident took place, they will not consider all the possible factors that
correlate with accidents, if the driver was drunk (Ahn et al. 1995; Ahn and Bailenson
1996).
The emphasis on mechanism does not by itself provide an answer to the question
of how people infer cause from correlation. For Thagard (1998) to understand how
reasoning about mechanisms affects reasoning about causes, we need to consider four
different situations that arise in science and ordinary life when we are considering
whether a factor c is a cause of an event e:
‘1. There is a known mechanism by which c produces e.

2. There is a plausible mechanism by which c produces e.
3. There is no known mechanism by which c produces e.
4. There is no plausible mechanism by which c produces e’ (Thagard 1998: 68).
His argument continues and is worth quoting at length:
‘For there to be a known mechanism by which c produces e, c must be a compo-

nent of or occurrence in a system of parts that is known to interact to produce e.
Only very recently has a precise mechanism by which smoking causes cancer
become known through the identification of a component of cigarette smoke
(Benzo[a]pyrene) that produces mutations in the tumor suppresser gene p53
(Denissenko et al., 1996). As we saw above, however, there has long been a plau-
sible mechanism by which smoking causes lung cancer. When there is a known
mechanism connecting c and e, the inference that c causes e is strongly encouraged,
although careful causal inference will still need to take into account information
about correlations and alternative causes, since a different mechanism may have
produced e by an alternative cause a. For example, drunk driving often produces
erratic driving that produces accidents, but even if John was drunk his accident
might have been caused by a mechanical malfunction rather than his drunkenness’
(Thagard 1998: 69).
The inference a researcher draws from any data collected has to contain an explanation
of why they feel that their explanation presented in the research report is better than
any other explanation published in the field. To do this we have to have identified a
plausible underlying mechanism. If we are aware of a known and credible mechan-
ism that connects c with e then this will allow us to speculate that we can infer that c
causes e. In addition, our inference becomes more plausible if the mechanism we have
identified is known to be similar to another cause and effect mechanism in a similar

case to the one we are investigating. In other words, if our inference is compatible with
what is already known on the basis of other research then our inference will appear
to be more valid. However, this is often more complicated in the social sciences than
in the natural sciences because in the former we are often involved in making an
inference about theoretical and non-observable relationships.
If our inference is not compatible with what is known then it is much less likely to
be accepted by people who read our research. When Marshall and Warren, for example
first argued that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria this was rejected by the scien-
tific community because the common assumption was that the stomach was too acidic
for bacteria to survive for any length of time. It was only much later that it was found
that the bacterium H. pylori produces sufficient ammonia to neutralise stomach acid
allowing the ulcer to develop. Similarly, Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift
was not accepted by the scientific community until 1960 when plate tectonics became
more fully understood:
‘Motives in murder trials are like mechanisms in medical reasoning, providing

a non-essential but coherence-enhancing explanation of a hypothesis’ (Thagard
1998: 72).
How to draw an appropriate inference in a research project

Inference is often a complex process. One approach is to view the first stage
of inference as presenting ‘category knowledge’. By presenting our data as
categories this will allow the researcher to identify common features within
the data that may not be explicit when looking at one case or observation.
Categorisation of the data can take one of any number of forms:
s LOOKINGFORTHEMESORPATTERNSWITHTHETRANSCRIPTFROMANINTERVIEW
s NUMERICALSUMMARIESFROMASIMPLECONTENTANALYSIS
s NUMERICAL SUMMARIES OF MEASURED INDICATORS OF OUR VARIABLES BY INFERENTIAL
statistics.
An inference can be viewed as a mini-theory or explanation for a relationship with
the data that a researcher has collected. This mini-theory explains some aspect of
the relationships within the data set on the basis of our research questions.
The researcher needs to ask: does the data analysis effectively answer the
research questions that the research project set out to investigate?
For an inference to be sound the researcher needs to be in a position to defend
the design of the processes of data collection and data analysis. Sound data col-
lection will produce sound findings. Have the data been interpreted in a rigorous
and comprehensive manner? Can the researcher write a justification that their
preferred interpretation of the meaning of the data is more convincing than the
alternative accounts or theories? If the answer to these questions is ‘yes’ then an
appropriate or plausible explanation or inference has been drawn.
4144 229
SPSS
You may be one of those people who have difficulty working through formulae
and calculations. SPSS, the Statistical Package for the Social Scientist, is ideal for
researchers who do not fully understand the formulae they are using, how to complete
the calculations or interpret the meaning or significance of their calculations. SPSS
can be used to generate frequencies, graphical data and test for significance from the
researcher’s data. It would be very time consuming to talk the reader through all the
stages of how to use SPSS effectively. Luckily there a number of very good books on
the market. Langdridge and Hagger-Johnson in their book Introduction to Research
Methods and Data Analysis in Psychology (2009) have seven chapters dealing with SPSS
that starts with turning on the computer and ends with how to conduct multiple
regression and factor analysis. The chapters on SPSS are suitable for all social science
researchers. You do not need to have knowledge of Psychology to understand and
make use of what the authors have to say.
The first stage in the planning process is to plan a codebook. The researcher needs
to define the variables they are going to use, then identify the indicators that they feel
reflect change in the variables and finally assign a numerical value to each indicator.
But what does this all mean?
One of the big problems that first-time researchers experience is that their question-
naire or interview is not in a form that is suitable to be used with SPSS. If you wish to
use SPSS you need to plan your questions very carefully. All possible answers to all
questions have to be coded. This means that all possible answers have to be given a
numerical value. A simple example would be: are you male or female? You could code
male as (1) and female as (2). Closed questions of this form are easy to code but many
of the questions social scientists want to ask are much more demanding and as
researchers we are uncertain of the range of responses we are going to receive from our
respondents. If the researcher is in the position that they do not know all the possible
responses they may receive then ‘open’ questions can be asked. The use of open
questions requires the researcher to post-code the responses; i.e. bring together all
the responses that are similar and give them one numerical code.
If the researcher is interested in conducting an analysis that involves finding cor-
relations then data must be collected in a continuous form, such as in a Likert scale.
When the researcher opens SPSS and chooses to open the Data Editor window in
order to create a new data file, the program will ask them to enter the variables that are
to be used in the research project. Each variable has to be given a name and the names
used should be sufficiently different so that at a later stage the researcher can identify
one variable from another.
It is important to keep a record of all variables used, the names that the researcher
has given to all the variables, the indicators for all variables and the numerical values
given.
Conclusion
Without a very full and convincing justification as to why specific indicators were
chosen and why given observations or responses were allocated to a given category,
the scale that you use can be described as arbitrary, contrived, unreliable and invalid.
Arbitrary measurement practices produce arbitrary research findings, so we must accept
that our operationalisation of variables has to be theory dependent. We need to have
a theory to decide what is and what is not an appropriate indicator and for this reason
data forms take their shape from the theories we employ. Simply stated, as researchers
we need to have a clear and well-justified account of the link or relationship between
the variables we use and the indicators we use. In addition, we draw an appropriate
inference from the findings we gather because the theories we use allow us to encode
the data in a particular way. It is the theories we use that allow us to see a pattern in
the data we collect.
Should Erica make more use of measurement and statistical inference in her
research project?
Erica’s friend Jenna is also doing the zoo research project, but unlike Erica, Jenna
is not impressed with research methods that involve exploring narratives, or
understanding meaning and feeling states or the exploration of self. She tries to
convince Erica that the valid data needed for her research project can be found by
simply counting the number of education officers each zoo employs and the
number of people that each education officer comes into contact with in pre-
sentations or demonstrations that focus on biodiversity and sustainability. Jenna
explains that we simply have to assume that the education officers know their
stuff and therefore if a zoo employs an education officer it has fulfilled its legal
obligation.
While Erica can see what Jenna is doing – which is a very valid method – she
decides not to follow this approach for her own project.
Bibliography
Ahn, W., Kalish, C.W., Medin, D.L. and Gelman, S.A. (1995) ‘The role of covariation
vs. mechanism information in causal attribution’, Cognition, 54: 299–352.
Ahn, W. and Bailenson, J. (1996) ‘Causal attribution as a search for underlying mechan-
isms: An explanation of the conjunction fallacy and the discounting principle’,
Cognitive Psychology, 31: 82–123.
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Baldamus, V. (1976) The Structure of Sociological Inference, London: Martin Robertson.

Blumer, H. (1956) ‘Sociological analysis and the “Variable”’, American Sociological
Review, 21(6): 683–90.
Cheng, P.W. (1997) ‘From Covariation to Causation: A Causal Power Theory’,
Psychological Review, 104: 367–405.
Cicourel, A. (1964) Method and Measurement in Sociology, New York: Free Press.
Dawes, R.M. (1972) Fundamentals of attitude measurement, New York: Wiley.
Denissenko, M.F., Pao, A., Tang, M.S. and Pfeifer, G.P. (1996) ‘Preferential formation
of benzo[a]pyrene adducts at lung cancer mutational hotspots in p53’, Science, 274:
430–32.
Elwood, M. (1988) Causal relations in medicine: A practical guide for critical appraisal,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hennekens, C.H. and Buring, J.E. (1987) Epidemiology in Medicine, Philadelphia:
Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
Lazarsfeld, P.F. (1977) ‘Notes on the History of Quantification in Sociology – Trends,
Sources and Problems’, in S.M. Kendall and R.L. Plackett (eds) Studies in the History
of Statistics and Probability, London: Hodder Arnold.
Langdridge, D. and Hagger-Johnson, G. (2009) Introduction to Research Methods and
Data Analysis in Psychology, Harlow: Pearson Education.
Likert, R. (1932) ‘A technique for the measurement of attitudes’, Archives of Psychology,
140.
Pawson, R. (1989) A Measure for Measures: A manifesto for empirical sociology, London:
Routledge.
Proctor, R.N. (1995) Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don’t Know
about Cancer, New York: Basic Books.
Tashakkori, A. and Teddlie, C. (2003) Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and
Behavioral Research, Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Thagard, P. (1998) ‘Ethical Coherence’, Philosophical Psychology, 11(4): 405–22.
12 What is a sample
survey?

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Introduction
In the social sciences when we use the word survey we mean that we are in interested
in collecting information in a systematic manner about a given population. The most
popular methods for the collection of survey data over the years have been by postal
questionnaire, structured interview and focus group. Surveys can range from the very
simple description of frequency counts to complex analysis; from the very local analysis
of, for example, one secondary school to national or even international compar-
isons of educational systems. In all cases, researchers are interested in finding patterns,
regularities, similarities and differences within and between the population they are
interested in and in relation to the wider society, perhaps in order to identify causal
relationships or predictive patterns of behaviour. In order to do this we have to be
systematic. If we choose to use a questionnaire, our sample has to be representative
of the population we are interested in. Our data collection will involve asking every
person in our sample the same questions, using the same words, in the same order so
234 Chapter 12 What is a sample survey?
that any differences that are identified are a product of real differences between people
in the population and not as a result of the way we have collected our data.
This chapter will explain what researchers understand by a sample survey and the
difference between a descriptive survey and an analytical survey. Many of the issues
that survey researchers face will be explored, such as what makes a good questionnaire
design, what the characteristics of effective questions are, whether questionnaires can
be used to survey people’s attitudes and feelings towards sensitive issues, and ethical
issues that might emerge in the course of the data collection process. Different types
of sampling will be explained. Although it is good practice to have a representative
sample of the population you are interested in, how do you ensure that your sample
is representative and importantly how can you conduct a valid and reliable research
project when it is not possible to use a representative sample? The chapter includes
a discussion of the work of the Institute of Community Studies (now the Young
Foundation). Although this research is now very old it was very influential both in
academic circles and in terms of public policy. This is surprising given that the re-
searchers did not use representative samples of the population but what is valuable
to us is the open and honest way in which they explain how and why the Institute
selected its samples from the population.
How the social survey began

The social survey has a long history in British social science going back to the late
Victorian and Edwardian period with Charles Booth’s studies of poverty in London
(1892) and Seebohm Rowntree’s studies of poverty in York (1901). Sampling tech-
niques in social science research were first developed by Arthur Bowley (1915, 1937)
in his investigation of primary poverty and inequality in Northern towns prior to the
First World War. This type of research had a significant impact on social policy in the
twentieth century leading to Board of Trade investigations (British Parliamentary
Papers 1903, 1905 and 1912) into the cost of food, accommodation and the standard
of living amongst working class people.
In these large studies of poverty the use of the sample survey allowed the researchers
to draw an inference about the extent of poverty in the UK by investigating a relatively
small group of people who are assumed to be representative of the wider population.
It was assumed in these research projects that with effective sampling techniques it is
possible for a researcher to make reliable statements and draw important inferences
about large populations.
Planning: how to go about conducting surveys

A survey is a research strategy in which the researcher attempts to identify something
significant about the population they are interested in by the use of the systematic
collection of data. As such, survey researchers need a clear set of objectives about what
they hope to find and use a method of data collection that allows them to present their
data in a standardised or systematic manner. Although a wide range of data collection
techniques can be used within a survey, questionnaires and interviews have become
the most commonly used because these techniques are generally assumed to be
relatively efficient, accurate and cost effective.
Ideally in a survey researchers aim to get information from a typical cross selection
of the population so that they can claim that the sample is representative of the popu-
lation as a whole and that the findings are valid.
Whatever method of data collection we choose to use it should be fit for purpose:
in other words, it should be what we consider to be the most appropriate for fulfilling
the objectives of the research project. If the sample we are using is large and we are not
asking particularly sensitive questions then standardised questions, in which each
respondent is asked exactly the same questions in the same order, are fine and the
questionnaire will probably be ideal for our purpose.
Before starting
Before starting the data collection process it is important that:
s THERESEARCHERISCLEARABOUTTHETOPICANDINFORMATIONREQUIRED
s THEQUESTIONSTHERESEARCHERPLANSTOASKARERELEVANTTOTHERESPONDENT
s THE RESEARCHER SHOULD ASK THE QUESTION IN A FORM THAT THE RESPONDENT CAN UNDERSTAND
s THE RESEARCHER MUST ELIMINATE ANY COMPLEXITIES SUCH AS JARGON TERMS THAT MIGHT
prevent respondents from fully understanding the meaning of the question.
It is widely accepted that if the respondents do not understand what kind of answer is
required they are less likely to respond.
The structure of the survey design

The structure or design of the questionnaires should be as simple as possible. Closed
questions, where the researcher provides the respondent with a question and a set of
answers to choose from, are assumed to be useful in providing respondents with some
structure to their answers. In contrast open questions, where the researcher provides
the respondent with a question but allows them to answer the question in their own
words, lets the respondent give much fuller answers and potentially provide more
complete or valid responses.
What is sampling?
After a day at college or university going to lectures and seminars you may decide to
treat yourself to a magazine. You notice that one magazine is giving away a free sample
of shampoo and conditioner. The word sample in free sample has the same meaning
as the word sample in sample survey. You can reasonably assume that the small
amount of shampoo and conditioner that came free with the magazine is representa-
tive (in that it has all the same characteristics) as the contents of a large bottle of the
same product.
Why use a sample of the population?
For most researchers the population they are interested in is far too big to survey all the
members. So for the practical purposes of saving time and money we select a sample
from the wider population that you are interested in. The first stage of any sampling
process is to define clearly the population that you are interested in. In everyday
language people use the term ‘population’ to refer to the total number of inhabitants
of a country. However, in social science research population refers to the group of people
that you are interested in surveying. The researcher needs to have a very clear and un-
ambiguous definition of the population they are interested in surveying; there needs
to be very clear population parameters or characteristics that define who is in the
target population and who is not. Are the researchers interested in people who live
in a particular location, and/or a particular age group, racial group, gender etc? As a
researcher you need to make it clear to the person reading the research report who is
included in your population and who is not, and be able to explain why some categor-
ies of people are excluded from your population.
Ensuring the sample is representative
Once you have defined the population you are interested in you need to decide on how
you intend to identify a representative sample from the population. If we can identify
a representative sample then we can reasonably assume that the responses given to us
by the respondents are representative of all people in the population. But how do we
ensure that our sample is representative of the population? You may well have heard
of the term random sample. This approach does not mean that as a researcher you
should stand on a street corner or some other public place stopping people ‘at random’
because they may look like the type of person you are interested in and asking if they
would be willing to answer a few questions. You need to have a clear sampling procedure
and this procedure needs to be fully and clearly explained to the recipient of your
research.
Random samples
In a random sample all people in the population we are interested in have an equal
chance of been selected as part of the sample. It is for this reason that many researchers
refer to the random sample as a probability sample, as all people in the population have
an equal probability of being selected for the sample. Probability sampling is a form
of sampling that makes use of some form of random selection of a sample from a larger
population.
It many respects it is like putting all the names of the people we are interested in
into a big hat and picking out a number to interview or send a questionnaire to.
However, if the researcher selects a name from the hat do they replace the name before
selecting a second name or do they choose not to replace the name? The procedure of
replacing the name before selecting a second name from the hat is known as random
sample with replacement and because the number of names in the hat is always the same
before a name is picked then all names in the hat had an equal chance of being selected
with each selection made. The problem with this approach is that a name could be
selected more than once. The alternative is known as random sample without replacement.
With this approach the researcher does not replace a name once it has been selected.
However, this means that strictly speaking this approach is not a random sample
because as names are removed from the hat the remaining names that are still in the
hat have a greater probability or chance of being selected.
If you can place all the names of the population into a hat and select in either
manner then either approach is regarded as valid and reliable.
The use of a sampling procedure that has clearly defined rules for the selection of
respondents from the population you are interested in allows the researcher to claim
that their research design is reliable because another researcher could replicate or follow
the research design.
Sampling frames
You do not need to put the names of all the people in your population into a hat, but
you do need to be able to identify each person in the population you are interested in.
The list of people in your population is known as the sampling frame. One method of
conducting a random sample is to select a random number, perhaps by drawing a
number out of a hat, and using this number as your sampling interval. The sampling
interval is the distance from the first person on your list of names selected to the next
name on the list that you select. The random number is used to decide if you are going
to select every fifth, tenth or some other number as you work your way down the list.
An alternative to using a randomly selected number as your sampling interval is to
identify how many people you can reasonably survey – how many interviews you
could conduct or questionnaires you can administer – and define this number as your
sample size. You then divide up that number by the number of people in your popula-
tion to give you what is known as the sampling fraction. The sampling fraction will be
used to determine your sampling interval. If you can reasonably interview 1 in 20 of
the total population then 20 becomes your sampling interval.
This sampling procedure outlined above may not produce a sample that is represen-
tative of the population we are interested in. If we have a clear idea of the different
groups of people in the population then we are in a position to say if one or more
groups are under- or over-represented in the sample we have collected. If the sample is
not representative of the population then our findings will be less valid. To avoid this
issue many researchers choose to use a stratified sample. With this approach we divide
our population into different strata that we believe are significant to understanding our
research aims.
Example
If we believe that social class is a significant factor, or gender or race or
sexuality, then all of these groupings should be represented in our sample to
the same degree that they are found in the population as a whole. This
means that if we believe that gender is a stratifying factor and 50 per cent of the
population were are interested in is female then 50 per cent of our sample should
be female.
Once we have divided our population up according to significant stratifying factors, we

then conduct a random sample from each section of the population we are interested
in.
This procedure sounds simple but it is not. Sampling frames do not always exist
and when they do, for a range of legal reasons such as child protection, privacy and
confidentiality, the list of names is not available to us. Schools, the health service
and government departments will have accurate lists of children’s names, addresses and
telephone numbers and as such would make an excellent sampling frame for a research
project. However, for very good reasons in relation to child safety this information is
not made available to the public.
Cluster sampling
Cluster sampling is a form of sampling technique in which the total population that
the researcher is interested in surveying is divided into groups that researchers
call clusters.
With cluster sampling our population is divided into different groups that the
researcher believes are significant in terms of their research aims. The researcher then
takes a sample from each of these groups. This approach is known as single-stage cluster
sampling. However, if we are interested in trying to identify differences within groups,
such as different perspectives that women have of a particular issue, then we have to
define sub-groups within the larger group and sample from these sub-groups. This
approach is known as multi-stage cluster sampling.
Example
If we take an issue such as reform of the National Health Service we might sus-
pect that men and women have different attitudes towards reform, in which case
the researcher will take a sample of men and a sample of women from the popu-
lation. However, we might also suspect that older women’s attitudes are different
from younger women’s, in which case the researcher will take a sample of older
women and a sample of younger women.
In a single-stage cluster sample the sample of women should be proportionate to the

size of the group in the whole population we are interested in. So again if 50 per cent
of the population are women then 50 per cent of our sample should be women. If we
want to engage in multi-stage cluster sampling the size of each of the sub-groups
should be proportionate to their size within the group. A key technique here is probabil-
ity proportionate to size, a technique for selecting the first set of clusters or groups in a
survey that involves multi-stage cluster sampling.
Quota sampling
If we do not have a sampling frame there is an approach to sampling known as quota

sampling that is often used by market research companies. If we know the size of the popula-
tion we are interested in and the size of the groups and sub-groups we are also interested
in, then it is possible to calculate the size of a series of quotas to be the proportion as they
are in the whole population. If, for example, we know that 50 per cent of the population
is female and within the female population 20 per cent is under 60 but over 30 years of
age, we can stand in a public place and stop people who look as if they meet the criteria
of the quota we are looking for and survey people who meet our criteria until our quota
is full. Although quota sampling is a form of non-probability sampling in that it is a form
of sampling that does not involve random selection, it does have a number of advantages
in terms of saving time and money as sampling minorities can be expensive.
A full quota
I was once walking through the centre of Manchester when I was stopped by a
market researcher: ‘Would you mind answering a few questions, it won’t take long?’
I was shown a card that had a set of different age groups printed on it and I was
asked ‘Which group do you belong to?’ When I responded the market researcher
groaned, took the card from my hand and said ‘I have got enough of you already.’
In other words, the market researcher had already surveyed enough men of my
age group to fill her quota, and I had been mistakenly identified as a younger or
possibly older man than my appearance suggested. I did not ask which!
Non-probability sampling
As researchers we do not always have access to a sampling frame; in some cases no such
list of names exists, in other cases it is simply not available to us. If you wanted to
survey a deviant group of people in the population, for example a group of people who
were engaged in activities that made people treat them as untrustworthy but their
actions may not be illegal (those addicted to gambling for example), you could approach
a support group established to help this group. Alternatively, you could use informal
means such as connections of friends or family to make contact with a person who
engages in the deviancy you are interested in studying and ask them if they have any
contacts within the deviant population of people who might be willing to participate
in your research project. This approach is commonly known as snowball sampling. Non-
probability sampling is any approach to sampling where we cannot say that all the people
in the population we are interested in had an equal chance of being selected for our
sample. I would prefer to call this approach purposive sampling, because I would suggest
to you that if you cannot use probability sampling to select your sample then you
should actively seek out people who are from the population you are interested in and
who you believe have all the characteristics that are shared within the population.
The Institute of Community Studies

Not all surveys involve data collection from large probability samples of the popula-
tion. There have been many very influential research projects published over the years
that have used small, geographically isolated, non-probability samples to produce
findings that have influenced both public policy and academic research practice. One
such group of researchers is the Institute of Community Studies.
Many research methods textbooks give advice to students that they should have
well-designed questions if they are conducting questionnaires or structured interviews.
In addition, research methods textbooks also give an outline of sampling procedures.
However, in recent years published research has tended not to give readers an outline
of the questions that were asked in the data collection process nor an outline of the
problems that the researchers encountered in finding an appropriate sampling frame
or in conducting the sampling procedures. In a number of the books published by
members of the Institute of Community Studies full details of the sampling procedures
are given together with the problems encountered and solutions decided upon. In
addition, the Institute often gave the readers of its research a copy of the questionnaire
or interview schedule to read and consider.
The next few pages will give a full description of several important studies by
members of the Institute of Community Studies and other researchers who have been
influenced by its work. The Institute’s work has been very significant in the formation
of UK social policy over many years. For our purposes the Institute’s work is important
because it clearly defines the questions researchers are interested in; defines the variables
they are interested in; gives a sound justification for the indicators they have used to
measure their selected variables; clearly explains their sampling procedure; and details
problems they encountered in collecting data with their sampling procedure and how
the problems were resolved. After the studies have been described there will be a short
account of the significance of such research for the first-time researcher.
The Institute of Community Studies

A number of surveys of family life and inequality in the twentieth century
involved the collection of data from small and intimate groups. The influential
Institute of Community Studies was founded in 1954 by Michael Young as a
research organisation that was interested in urban inequality and related issues
and pioneered the use of localised survey research. The Institute is based in
Bethnal Green, London, but in 2005 it was renamed the Young Foundation,
in honour of Michael Young.
Case 1: The family life of older people

The first example of the Institute’s research that I would like to explore is
Townsend’s (1957) study of the family life of older people in Bethnal Green. This
sits firmly within the Community Studies tradition of social policy research that
makes use of the localised survey. Townsend wanted to investigate the assump-
tion that people of pensionable age were becoming isolated from their families
and from their communities, and that the family organisation was less enduring
than it once was. This research was the first in a series of influential studies of
communities in general and Bethnal Green in particular. Townsend’s first stage
was to find a list of names of older people in the area. The names of people over
retirement age were obtained by random selection from the records of seven GP
practices in the area. Medical cards were used as a sampling frame, and every
tenth card that referred to a person of pensionable age was selected as part of the
sample. 261 people were identified of whom 203 agreed to be interviewed. Two-
thirds of the sample was female, half of whom were widowed and just under a
fifth had no children. The seven practices themselves were selected at random.
Townsend describes the interview process as a ‘guided conversation’ in which
respondents were asked to provide a ‘kinship diagram’ which gave information
about relatives that were in contact with the respondent. Townsend also collected
information about health, income, neighbours and friends.
What the study tells us as researchers
One of the most difficult aspects of any research project is the selection of
appropriate indicators for the variable the researcher is attempting to measure. In
other words, because our variables are often abstract concepts that are not in a
form that can be measured we need to find something called an indicator that
represents the variable and that is in a form that can be observed and measured.
This process is known as operationalisation. One of the innovative elements of
Townsend’s study was his attempt to operationalise the concepts of isolation and
loneliness. To be isolated is to have few contacts with family or community and
according to Townsend this can be measured by reference to objective criteria. In
contrast, loneliness is a subjective feeling state. He measured isolation by placing
those interviewed on a scale that measured the number of social contacts they
had had per day, and then drawing a line below which a person would com-
monly be assumed to be isolated. By ‘contact’ Townsend meant meeting another
person that involved more than an exchange of greetings. He then added together
the average number of contacts and gave each contact a score. People who were
at the bottom of the scale were usually the older people in the sample, living
alone, with no children or relatives living nearby. However, living in relative
isolation did not mean that people were lonely. Loneliness was identified with
one overriding factor: the recent deprivation of the company of husband, wife or
other close relative, usually because of death or serious illness. Desolation rather
than isolation was the underlying cause of loneliness in old people.
Case 2: Family and kinship in East London
Also in 1957 Michael Young and Peter Willmott published their very influential
book Family and Kinship in East London. They were interested in the impact on
family relationships of the development of a new housing estate several miles
away from the area. The Greenleigh estate had been built in Essex by the London
County Council to rehouse people, mainly from Bethnal Green, who had lost
their old houses in a slum clearance programme. This was a case study of family
relationships that drew upon the survey as the instrument of data collection.
Bethnal Green was not a collection of individuals, it was an ordered community.
However, Willmott and Young (1960) wanted to investigate if the patterns of
community living that they had discovered in Bethnal Green, where people were
connected by kinship to a wider network of other families and friends within the
community, were also to be found elsewhere, especially in middle-class areas.
In 1960 they published Family and Class in a London Suburb, which is essentially
a reproduction of their Bethnal Green study in the more middle-class areas of
Wanstead and Woodford.
Thinkpiece
What do you think Case 2 tells us as researchers?
Case 3: Widowhood
Peter Marris’s (1967) study of widowhood attempted to build upon and extend
the Young and Willmott research by investigating family relationship in the con-
text of a family tragedy – the death of a husband and father. What is significant
about this study is that Marris is of the opinion that the social survey can be used
to collect data on sensitive subjects. (At the end of this section you might want
to reflect on the suitability of Marris’s methods of data collection for the question
he had set himself.)
The number of widows in Bethnal Green was not large enough to provide
a reasonable sized sample so it was necessary for Marris to expand the
survey population to include neighbouring areas. All of the women interviewed
had lived in Bethnal Green, Stepney or Poplar at the time of the husband’s
death. All of the husbands had had traditional East End occupations and Marris
assumed that the emotional reaction to the death of a spouse would affect
a woman’s attitude to a range of problems and issues. One of his central
questions was to ask each woman to describe her reaction to the death of her
husband.
Marris limited his sample to younger women with children on the grounds
that women over 60 would experience problems in relation to age that Townsend
had previously investigated in the area. Marris defined his population as women
who were widowed in 1953, 1954 and the first three months of 1955, who had
a husband who was 50 years of age or less at the time of death and who were
living in Bethnal Green, Stepney or Poplar at the time of the husband’s death. His
interview schedule was organised around three topics:
1. income before and after widowhood;

2. problems a widow had encountered since the death of her husband;
3. her emotional reactions to the death of her husband.
With all questions, but especially with questions of a sensitive nature such as
these, the quality of the data collected is directly related to the ability of the
respondent to articulate their feelings and this ability will vary from respondent
to respondent. His approach to the interview was that of the funnel. Marris ini-
tially invited the women to answer questions that were very broad or general in
nature but over the course of the interview he gradually sharpened the focus of his
questioning to look at the sensitive issues listed. (The assumption underpinning
the funnel is that although a person may be unwilling to consent to be inter-
viewed on this subject, by skilful use of questioning it may become possible to
get very full and personal responses to questions.) Marris explains his approach
in the following terms:
‘The interviews were designed to begin with the most practical questions,
leading gradually to the subjects where personal feelings were most involved,
as both interviewer and informant became less constrained. But the order
could be varied from interview to interview as seemed most natural, and I
used no standard form of words for the questions. I made notes of the
answers on the spot, recording the most interesting as far as possible verba-
tim, and drew a family tree. A full report of each interview was written up
within a day or two, while it was still fresh in my mind, and I made a second
call where necessary to make good any oversights’ (1967: 6).
Marris suggests that people are much more likely to share aspects of their personal
history and give franker responses when interviewed informally. In addition,
points can emerge from the conversation that the researcher was unaware of
when putting together the list of interview questions.
The book gives the reader a very clear outline of how the sample was put
together. There is no list of widows that is available for the researcher to use as a
sampling frame. Therefore Marris had to identify the women in the population
he was interested by other means. One option was to ask the Ministry of Pensions
for a list of all the women in the area who were in receipt of a widow’s pension.
However, Marris believed that the Ministry would refuse this request. A second
option was to purchase a copy of the death certificates of men who had died over
the period he was interested in. However, it was not possible to select a region
and therefore copies of all death certificates for England and Wales for the given
period would have to be purchased. This would be too expensive. Local Public
Health Authorities do have records of all deaths in a given area and Marris
approached the Health Authorities who provided him with the list of names he
needed. He then wrote to each woman on the list asking if she would be willing
to participate in the research. There were 104 names on his list, 2 of whom had
themselves died, 7 could not be traced, 7 had moved out of the area and it was
not practical to visit them for interview, and 16 women refused to participate
(18 per cent of the sample). This left Marris with a sample of 72 women to inter-
view (69 per cent of the sample). Their average age was 41 years and 10 months
and they had on average been married for 16 years and 2 months.
The sample was not representative of all widows in the UK but that is not to sug-
gest that Marris’s findings are without value. His research can tell us a lot about
the experience of widowhood, including the financial constraints, in Bethnal
Green, Stepney or Poplar in the 1960s.
Thinkpiece
‘I do not think people can be harmed by an enquiry of this nature’ (Marris
1967: 132).
Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Outline the reasons for your answer.
Case 4: The captive wife

Gavron’s (1966) influential study of young married women with young children
was a small-scale study that investigated the impact of social change in relation
to the position of women in society and the impact this position had on family
life. She had in mind several factors: birth control, the expansion of social services,
legal changes in relation to divorce, the emergence of a consumer society, with
magazines for women, television that gave women a greater insight into the lives of
other women, and enhanced educational and employment opportunities. She was
of the opinion that all of these factors could potentially impact on family living.
Gavron conducted a small but detailed study that attempted to illuminate the
lives of the women in her sample. A number of researchers in the late 1950s and
early 1960s had suggested that patterns of family life between working and
middle-class families were no longer as marked as they had been in previous
years. Her study involved two samples of women: 48 working-class women and
48 middle-class women.
The sample of working-class women was drawn from the practice lists of the
Caversham Health Centre, a GP group practice in Kentish Town. Gavron made
an alphabetical list of all the women who fell into the categories she was looking
for: married, one or more children under the age of five, born after 1930. Gavron
visited the women, with an introductory letter from the group practice, and asked
each of them if they would like to participate in the study. Forty eight of the
working class women agreed to be surveyed. The sample of middle-class women
was more difficult to compile. In the first instance she could not find 48 middle-class
women who met her criteria on the practice lists of the Centre. She approached
a GP’s practice in West Hampstead who provided her with 35 women who met
her criteria, the remaining 13 women were drawn from the ‘Housebound Wives’
Register, an informal network of women who got together after a letter had been
published in The Guardian newspaper.
What is important to note here is that although the sample is not a random
sample and Gavron cannot claim that the women selected are representative of
all working-class and middle-class mothers, she gives a very clear outline of how
and why the sample was selected in the way that it was.
What Gavron was interested in discovering was the women’s own perception
of the situation they were in. Her method of data collection was the unstructured
interview in which she made very flexible use of her interview schedule. As she
rightly points out, any survey is only as good as the questions that are asked. The
questions have to translate the research aims into meaningful findings. Two
important issues need to be addressed: what questions to ask and how to phrase
them? The first-time researcher might find it useful to look at Gavron’s book,
especially pages 157–61 where she gives the reader a complete copy of the
interview schedule.
Case 5: Relative deprivation and social justice

Usually when researchers think of the sample survey they think of large national
samples. In 1966 Runciman published his important study Relative Deprivation
and Social Justice, an investigation into people’s attitudes to social inequality in
England and Wales that was supported by the Institute. Runciman was interested
in the relationship between ‘institutionalised inequalities’ and the awareness or
resentment of people towards perceived inequality. His key concept was ‘relative
deprivation’, the idea that people’s attitudes towards inequality are dependent
upon the frame of reference within which the attitude is conceived.
Unlike the Institute’s research we have discussed so far, Runciman conducted

a national sample survey in the spring of 1962. His survey was used to provide
empirical data on the relationship between grievance and inequality. Only a
survey, argued Runciman, could provide the quantified data he needed, but:
‘a survey has little or no meaning except by reference to the events which
have shaped the social context in which it was carried out . . . the techniques
of the sample survey are useful only if they are the servants and not the
masters of historical interpretation. Indeed, the value of sample surveys is
if anything better demonstrable from the viewpoint of the social historian
than of the experimental psychologist. Surveys furnish at best only a weak
imitation of controlled experiments; but as source material for the social
historian they are uniquely rewarding’ (1966: 5–6).
Runciman explains that he could have used letters, newspapers, diaries or other
eyewitness accounts but there would be no guarantee that these eyewitness
accounts are representative. The survey allows the researcher to identify how
many people changed their votes between elections and for what reason; it can
identify what characteristics are shared by people who support the same political
party, join the religious group or have the same illness or disease; and people’s
attitudes can be identified ‘with far greater confidence and precision than could
be otherwise attained’ (1966: 6).
For Runciman the great advantage of the survey is that it can be used to identify
a pattern or statistical correlation within a population. However, Runciman also
points out that a survey cannot yield a definitive explanation or proof of why
something happened, or why people hold a particular attitude or belief:
‘a survey is no more than a snap-shot of the social landscape at one place and
time. It may, like an aerial photograph, enable us for the first time to
see clearly the outline of the woods and fields; but this only increases our
curiosity to look under the trees’ (1966: 7).
This means that the data generated by the survey need to be interpreted in order
for the data to become meaningful.
Thinkpiece
Case 6: Patterns of infant care

The approach developed by the Institute was adopted by a range of other researchers.
John and Elizabeth Newson published a series of books about patterns of infant
care in Nottingham in which they attempted to identify what mothers do with
their children and how their children normally behave. They were also interested
in trying to find out if there were social class differences in the way mothers take
care of young babies. In their book Infant Care in an Urban Community (1969) the
Newsons drew a random sample of 709 mothers who had children under five
years of age, from the records of the City of Nottingham Health Department. The
mothers were interviewed over a period of two years mainly by health visitors,
although a control sample of 200 mothers were interviewed by Elizabeth
Newson. The occupation of the father of each child was taken from the records
of health visitors. The occupation of fathers was classified by using the Registrar
General’s Classification of Occupations. The Newsons were interested in ‘normal
babies in ordinary family situations’ (1969: 17). They excluded from their sample
all cases that did not fit into what they considered to be the ‘normal’ category:
that meant that they excluded all illegitimate children, children who had dis-
abilities, children who were not in the care of the mother, and children who had
parents that were recent immigrants. The reason they gave for these exclusions
was that: ‘the picture could only be confused by their inclusion’ (1969: 18).
The interview opened with the following preamble:
‘Many mothers find problems arising in the bringing up of young babies, and
many work out very good ways of dealing with them. We are trying to collect
the different experiences of lots of mothers, so as to find out what sort of
methods are most widely to be used and how they work with different
babies’ (Newson and Newson 1969: 251).
The Newsons did not use a list of direct questions but rather adopted an interview
style which they describe as ‘eclectic and pragmatic’, an approach that was more
like a ‘natural conversation’ in which they took note of the nuances of voice,
inflection and gestures in order to identify and understand the underlying motives
and values that the mothers had. In order to understand the mother’s attitude to
the birth, mothers were asked the open questions: ‘How did you get on? Did you
have a good time?’ They also asked what they describe as shock questions such
as ‘How do you punish him when he’s been naughty?’ although they were
careful not to imply criticism or reveal their personal feelings about the responses
given. They claim that the health visitors had little difficulty developing a rapport
with the mothers but there were some differences between the responses given to
the health visitors and the responses given to Elizabeth Newson. For example,
when the mothers were asked if they had ever given their baby a dummy 63 per
cent said they had to the health visitor but 72 per cent said they had to Elizabeth
Newson, although there was a social class difference in both samples.
Thinkpiece
Before you read on you might want to reflect on a number of issues in relation
to this study:
1. What do you think of the Newsons’ decision to exclude the mothers of some
children from the study?
2. Given that health visitors give advice to mothers, are they the best people to
collect data from mothers about their children?
3. Could the use of health visitors damage the validity of the data collected?
Case 7: Conjugal role relationships

Edgell (1980), for example, investigated conjugal role relationships, at the
child-rearing stage of the family cycle, within middle-class marriages in Britain.
These marriages were commonly assumed to be characterised by equality and
role desegregation, however Edgell argued that there was very little empirical
evidence to support this assumption. He used the survey technique to gather
what he considered to be appropriate evidence.
As with any survey Edgell started by defining and operationalising his key
concepts. First he argued that within the middle classes it was possible to identify
two distinct groups: the spirals who are salaried professionals and the burgesses
who are small capitalists such as shopkeepers and owners of small companies.
Edgell decided to focus on a group of 31 spiral couples and a small ‘control’ group
of burgesses made up of 7 dentists. He selected the salaried professional couples
by approaching the personnel manager of a multinational company and a senior
member of staff from a university who provided a list of people whom they
believed conformed to the category spiral. Again although the sample is not a
random sample and Edgell cannot claim that the people selected are representa-
tive of middle-class people, what is important is that he gives a very clear outline
of how the sample was selected.
A large sample would have been more representative of the population but
Edgell explains that families are based upon a range of emotional and economic
relationships that are often very private in nature and this required intensive
study of a small number of cases. The research required that the respondents had
confidence in the research process and could develop a rapport with Edgell who
conducted the fieldwork alone.
The main methods of data collection Edgell used were taped interviews,
questionnaires and observations. On pages 118–27 of his book, Edgell (1980)
gives the reader a complete copy of the questionnaire and interview schedule.
Thinkpiece
Most research methods textbooks give sound advice that questions should be clearly
worded and avoid ambiguity, vagueness, etc. but it is very helpful to see what a good
set of questions look like. It is worth looking at the above examples of questionnaires
and interview schedules because they give the reader a very clear idea of how to phrase
both open and closed questions.
In addition, as Gavron’s study shows us, it is possible to conduct a valid and reliable
research project with a small sample of respondents.
Questionnaires 249
What have we learned about the research process?
First the Institute’s research should encourage the potential researcher to look for
research opportunities and research questions in their local area. Secondly, identifying
a common pattern or behaviour or common set of problems and issues that a group
faces can be interesting in itself. Ask yourself what problems and issues do families, old
people, widows, housebound mothers or any other group you are interested in face
where you live today? Thirdly, because you cannot put together a representative sample
of the population you are interested in, or your sample size is small, this does not
mean that your research is necessarily of limited validity. You need to be able to explain
to your reader that the people you have chosen to survey have all the characteristics of
the people in the wider population you are interested in. If there is no sampling frame
available look at the alternatives. Finally, be honest with your reader about how you
constructed the sample, the problems you faced and how you overcame them.
Questionnaires
A questionnaire is simply a list or set of questions that allow researchers to collect data
that address their research aims. Social surveys are often associated with question-
naires, as Gray (2004) explains:
‘Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a large-scale survey without the use of a carefully

constructed questionnaire’ (2004: 187).
The self-administered questionnaire, a form of questionnaire in which the researcher

sends the respondent a printed list of questions through the post or by email, has the
widely recognised advantage that it is economical with time. However, the wording
and phrasing of the questions we use is very important. The respondent has to under-
stand fully the intended meaning of the questions we ask and what information is
required to answer the questions. Of course they must also be willing to answer our
questions truthfully. It is often the case that survey researchers aim for reciprocity of
stimulus with the questions in the questionnaire. This means that as a researcher we ask
the same questions, in the same order, using the same words and tone of voice for all
respondents. Many researchers are of the opinion that reciprocity of stimulus allows them
to claim that their research is more reliable because if all the respondents are asked
the same questions, in the same order, using the same words and with the same tone
of voice then any differences between respondents are genuine differences of attitude
or opinion rather than a product or outcome of a faulty research design.
If the sample of the population is large, and standardised questions are used, the
questionnaire is ideal, as it will allow the researchers to identify clearly the relation-
ships between variables.
Non-response
What is non-response? There are a number of forms of non-response in relation to survey
research. Unit non-response or as it is sometimes called first-level non-response, is where a
respondent does not provide any answers to any of the questions on the questionnaire
and therefore provides no data. This type of non-response is often caused because a
respondent could not be contacted, refused to be part of the sample, or the questionnaire
was lost either by the respondent or by the researcher. One of the widely recognised
disadvantages of the self-administered questionnaire is the often very low response rate.
Item non-response or second-level non-response is where a respondent does not answer
one or more specific questions on the questionnaire so that some data are not available
for the researcher’s analysis.
If people in the sample do not complete the questionnaire that we send them this
will affect the validity of the findings of our research project. In many research projects
even a small number of non-respondents can affect the validity of the findings. Ideally
with a survey researchers would like all the respondents to answer all the questions and
for there to be no non-response. Perhaps it is inevitable that there will be a degree of
non-response in our research projects and we should accept this.
However, in some research projects, if a person answers with the response ‘don’t
know’, this response can still be meaningful for our data analysis. For example, if we
are posing the question: if there was a general election tomorrow which party would
you vote for? But if we ask a question about age, gender or income then an answer of
‘don’t know’ contains no meaningful data.
In these circumstances imputation is needed. Imputation is a process whereby the
researcher suggests the answer that the respondent would have given. However, to do
this effectively you need to try to collect additional information. This is possible to
acquire in a face-to-face interview but is much more difficult with a postal question-
naire. Researchers can ask additional questions, prompt people, ask for clarification,
reword a question and read their body language.
If there are gaps in our data set the results of our analysis may be biased because
there may be significant differences between the respondents that choose to respond to
a particular question and those that choose not to respond. The reason why a group of
respondents chooses not to answer a particular question may be important for our
understanding of their behaviour.
Missing data can be divided into three main groups:
1. The researcher decides that certain questions will not be given to particular respondents
because a number of the questions are assumed not to be applicable to all respondents.
If people live alone the researcher does not need to ask questions about the relation-
ship between people who share a residence.
2. Partial non-response, where all the data are missing after a certain point in the
questionnaire.
3. Item non-response, where data are missing for some questions (items) from some
respondents.
/POSFTQPOTF 251
Examples
Two common examples of partial non-response are panel mortality or attrition and
breaking off during an interview. In panel research, the research project is longitudinal
and involves the collection of data from respondents at several points over a
period of time. An individual agrees to be part of the sample to be surveyed but
over the course of the research project chooses not to respond to our subsequent
questionnaires or interviews. Alternatively, the respondent may become seriously
ill, die or move house and cannot be traced. Breaking off during an interview is
most common in telephone surveys where a respondent answers a number of
questions but then chooses to disconnect and not answer the remainder of the
questions leaving us with a ‘partial non-response’.
What are the mechanisms that may be responsible

for non-response?
Data can be missing for a completely random reason, such as when a question is missed
by mistake. Some questions may be missed because of an issue with the respondent
rather than owing to a problem with the question design: for example the respondent
may have a diminished memory and fails to recollect important information. However,
some questions are missed for a non-random reason such as the respondent feels that
their answer is damaging to their self-image, self-esteem or may be regarded as socially
unacceptable, for example questions about under-achievement at school. Certain
topics such as the respondent’s age are more likely to result in non-response. Surveys
that make use of the interview either face-to-face or on the telephone have generally
resulted in less non-response than postal questionnaires. There is no hard evidence as
to why this is the case but it may be that once a person has agreed to answer the
researcher’s questions the respondent feels under an obligation to complete the inter-
view. In Chapter 14 we will see that Milgram suggests this was the reason why people
continued to participate in his experiments.
Our respondents have to understand the questions we ask them and, in particular,
they have to understand the intended meaning of the question. Respondents have
to recall relevant information that we are asking for from memory and in some cases
this can be a difficult task. If we have asked the respondent a ‘closed’ question, the
respondent has to format their response to fit the response categories we have provided
for them. If we ask ‘open-ended’ questions the respondent has to have the verbal skills
and abilities to articulate their answer. If the question is of a sensitive nature the
respondent may feel the need to edit their response before giving it to the researcher.
Older people, for example, and less well-educated respondents tend to have a higher
level of missed questions.
For the question–answer process to be completed successfully we, as researchers, need
to keep in mind a number of important issues. The wording of each question should
be simple and easily understood by the respondent, and if we are using ‘closed format
questions’ each of the response categories should fit the answer given well and all
possible responses should have a response category. In other words, our response
categories should be exhaustive.
You need to give some thought to the number of response categories you provide
for each closed question. It is commonly assumed that a larger number of response
categories is better than just two. It is also assumed that people often feel uneasy having
to force their response into a category and may choose to respond with ‘do not know’,
‘not applicable’ or ‘other’ category. Krosnick and Fabrigar (1997) and Leigh and Martin
(1987) suggest between four and seven categories for each closed question.
However it is important to keep in mind that:
s ITISDIFlCULTTOWRITEGOODQUESTIONSTHATPEOPLEWILLRESPONDTOWITHFULLANDCOM-
plete answers;
s QUESTIONSSHOULDBETESTEDBEFOREYOUCONDUCTTHESAMPLESURVEY
There are two forms of testing: the pre-test and the pilot or field test. The pre-test is a
rigorous small-scale test in which the questions are tried out on focus groups or in
interviews with individuals to discover how the respondents will interpret your ques-
tion and identify any problems.
Definitions
The field test usually involves one or two people trying out the questions that a
researcher intends to use in a survey in order to assess if the questions are going
to collect the intended data.
The pilot test usually involves testing an entire set of questions with a small
sample of people ideally drawn from the population the researcher is interested
in. Again the underpinning idea is to assess if the questions are going to collect
the intended data.
Research into non-response

One interesting piece of research by Larroque et al. (1999) attempted to analyse
the characteristics of respondents and non-respondents at several stages of the
survey procedure from questionnaire, to reminder to two further postings.
Larroque et al.’s (1999) survey was an investigation of the ‘temperament’ of
the child at two months of age and how this was linked to child-rearing practices.
The first stage of the research was a ‘birth questionnaire’ given to mothers in
hospital. Women who were excluded from the sample included women who did
not have French as their first language and those who had serious health prob-
lems. The researchers believed that these were factors that might affect response
rates. The birth questionnaire asked for the mother’s age and occupation, gender
/POSFTQPOTF 253
of the child, gestational age, birth weight, if the delivery had been by Caesarean
section, stillbirth, and neonatal intensive care. There were also questions about
the number of children in the household, smoking and child-rearing practices
such as feeding. In the four French hospitals where Larroque et al. conducted
their research the total number of women who had given birth were:
s BIRTHSnSTILLBIRTHS
s LIVEBIRTHSnMULTIPLEBIRTHS
s SINGLETON LIVE BORN CHILDREN OF WHICH WERE EXCLUDED BECAUSE THE
mother had a poor grasp of French or because either the mother or the child
had serious health problems.
A study by Cartwright (1986) had previously found that low response was associated
with a serious health problem or if the mother was discharged from hospital
before the baby. Cartwright also found that participation was greater if interviews
were used rather than postal questionnaires – especially amongst women whose
first language was not English or who were less well educated; increasing from a
response rate of 75 per cent to 95 per cent.
Larroque et al.’s (1999) survey used a sample of 938 mothers (95 per cent of
the initial population) who were given the birth questionnaire and a consent let-
ter asking if they would be willing to participate in the a postal survey. 110 moth-
ers did not complete the birth questionnaire or consent form, of which 6 women
returned the consent form but not the questionnaire. 828 mothers (84 per cent)
returned the birth questionnaire and the consent form but 120 did not agree to
be part of the postal survey. 708 (72 per cent) agreed to participate in the postal
survey but 96 did not return the postal questionnaire; 7 of whom did not receive
the questionnaire because the researchers had the wrong postal address.
The postal questionnaire was estimated to take between 30 and 40 minutes
to complete. A reminder letter was sent encouraging the mothers to complete
the questionnaire after three weeks and another letter was sent after six weeks
with another copy of the questionnaire with pre-addressed and stamped
envelopes. Finally, 612 (62 per cent) answered and returned the completed
postal questionnaire.
The purpose of Larroque et al.’s (1999) survey was:
s TO IDENTIFY THE SOCIO DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTHCARE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
mothers who responded to the questionnaire compared to mothers who
did not respond;
s TOASCERTAINTHEUSEFULNESSOFSENDINGREMINDERSANDREPEATEDMAILINGSTOTHE
sample.
Mothers who returned the questionnaire without a reminder were classed as early
respondents; those who returned the questionnaire after the first reminder were
classed as middle respondents; those who responded after the second or third
reminder as late respondents; and those who did not return the questionnaire as
non-respondents.
The women who refused to participate in the study were less likely to be
employed, less well educated and more likely to have had the delivery by
Caesarean section. However, refusal to participate was not associated with the
child’s health status, mother’s age, number of children in the household or
smoking. Non-respondents were older than other women in the sample, were
less likely to be employed, and were more likely to have their child receiving
neonatal intensive care.
Late responders were more likely to have been born outside of France. Early
responders were more likely to be employed, better educated and had fewer
children in the household.
The important finding from Larroque et al.’s (1999) study is that response and non-
response is related to a number of social and economic factors. It has been suggested
that if the respondent is interested in the outcome of the research they are more likely
to respond to a questionnaire, and that sending reminders by post increased response
participation in the sample.
How to distribute the questionnaire

One of the decisions that a researcher has to make is whether it is better to distribute
the self-administered questionnaire by post or email, or to distribute the questionnaire
personally and be present whilst the respondent completes it. Although the latter
approach is more time consuming for the researcher, it is assumed to increase the
response rate because it has the advantage of allowing the researcher to answer any
questions that the respondent may have or to explain any issues that are of concern to
the respondent.
Essential steps to follow

1. If you decide to use a self-administered postal or online questionnaire, it is
good practice to write a preamble in which you welcome the respondent,
explain who you are, explain the purpose of the research project, who will
read the completed project and explain how the respondent was selected.
The ethical issues of anonymity and confidentiality can also be explained
in the preamble. You need to give clear guidance on how you want the ques-
tionnaire to be completed, in particular if the respondent is expected to
answer all the questions. The time limit for completing the questionnaire will
also need to be explained to the respondent.
%FWJTJOHRVFTUJPOT 255
2. We assume that because the respondent is a voluntary participant then

ethically they should have the choice of not answering a question if they so
wish. Therefore it is good practice to allow the respondent the option of
answering: ‘I don’t know,’ ‘not applicable’ or ‘other’ to our questions. Ethically
it is good practice to inform the respondent that they do not have to answer
all the questions in the preamble or covering letter that you distribute with the
questionnaire.
3. Do not be frightened of stating the obvious when writing your preamble
because the absence of an interviewer means that ‘there is no opportunity to
ask questions or clear up ambiguous or ill-conceived answers and therefore
respondents may give misleading answers’ (Gray 2004: 189).
Devising questions
As with any method of data collection, with the questionnaire, the questions you ask
of the respondent should be relevant to the aims of your research project. The ques-
tions may be derived from issues that emerge from your review of the literature. Each
question asked must collect data that help the researcher to indicate something mean-
ingful about the aims of the research project.
If you were investigating the extent of poverty in a particular area, then poverty
would be your variable and you would need to identify something that both indicated
poverty and that could be asked in the form of a meaningful question to a respondent.
Thinkpiece
The reader might find it useful to look at Townsend’s (1979) book Poverty in the
United Kingdom in which he attempts to investigate the extent of poverty in the
UK. In this survey Townsend developed the idea of ‘relative poverty’. He argued
that in the UK there is a style of living that is customary and that people take for
granted. If, however, a person was unable to afford the customary style of living
they were in poverty. In order to measure the extent of poverty Townsend devel-
oped the ‘deprivation index’. As Townsend was later to explain:
‘Material deprivation entails the lack of goods, services, resources, amenities
and physical environment which are customary, or at least widely approved
in the society under consideration. Social deprivation, on the other hand, is
non-participation in the roles, relationships, customs, functions, rights and
responsibilities implied by membership of a society and its sub-groups. Such
deprivation may be attributed to the affects of racism, sexism and ageism . . .’
(Townsend et al. 1998: 36).
From an initial list of 60 items Townsend (1979) identified 12 key indicators

of deprivation:
s A PERSON HAS NOT HAD A HOLIDAY AWAY FROM HOME FOR WEEK IN THE PAST
12 months;
s ADULTSnHASNOTINVITEDAFRIENDORRELATIVETOTHEIRHOMEFORAMEALORSNACK
in the last 4 weeks;
s ADULTS n HAS NOT VISITED A FRIEND OR RELATIVE FOR A MEAL OR SNACK IN THE PAST
4 weeks;
s CHILDRENnHASNOTHADAFRIENDTOPLAYINTHEPASTWEEKS
s CHILDRENnDIDNOTHAVEAPARTYONTHEIRLASTBIRTHDAY
s HASNOTGONEOUTFORENTERTAINMENTINTHEPASTWEEKS
s DOESNOTHAVEFRESHMEATTIMESAWEEK
s HASNOTHADACOOKEDMEALDAYINAFORTNIGHT
s DOESNOTHAVEACOOKEDBREAKFASTMOSTDAYSOFTHEWEEK
s HOUSEHOLDDOESNOTHAVEAREFRIGERATOR
s HOUSEHOLDDOESNOTUSUALLYHAVEA3UNDAYJOINT
s HOUSEHOLDDOESNOTHAVETHESOLEUSEOFFOURKEYAMENITIESmUSHWCSINK
washbasin, fixed bath/shower, gas/electric cooker.
Poverty is an abstract concept and as such cannot be directly measured; therefore
Townsend had to identify a set of indicators of poverty (his deprivation index).
Questions
1. Do you consider access to holidays, the inability to offer food to friends, lack
of children’s parties, lack of fresh meat, or the lack of a cooked breakfast con-
stitute poverty?
2. If not, what indicators would you choose to measure poverty?
It is important that your questions are clear and unambiguous. As social scientists we
have a habit of using concepts and jargon terms that are not meaningful to many
people in the general public, so it is important to keep your respondent in mind. Every
time you devise a question ask yourself how you feel the respondent will respond. It
is important to bear in mind that some people have limited language skills and differ-
ent reading abilities, others have visual impairments or reading disabilities such as
dyslexia. It is always worthwhile trying out your questions by asking people from your
target population to respond to them. You may well be surprised at the many and
varied interpretations that people can give to what you might consider to be the most
simple and straightforward of questions.
As a researcher you may be interested in the impact of gender on educational attain-
ment. You may be interested in teachers’ perceptions of why girls and boys have differ-
ent levels of attainment in a range of subjects. But if you were to ask a question such
as ‘How would you explain the differential educational performance of boys and girls?’
%FWJTJOHRVFTUJPOT 257
then some teachers might interpret the phrase ‘boys and girls’ as meaning ‘pupils’. In
the minds of some respondents your question might be read as why do some ‘boys and
girls’ perform better than other ‘boys and girls’; in which case respondents would give
you a great deal of data about factors that are not central to your research aims.
Further advice on questionnaire design

s 4HE lRST QUESTION ON YOUR QUESTIONNAIRE SHOULD BE A VERY SIMPLE ONE )T
should be easy for the respondent to answer. If the first question is long
and complicated with jargon terms included then the respondent might
assume that all the questions asked will be as demanding and decide not to
complete the questionnaire.
s 4HEQUESTIONSYOUASKSHOULDBEGROUPEDINTOQUESTIONSWITHTHESAMETHEME
or issue and progress in a logical manner. You may want to highlight key words
or phrases by using a bold or italic typeface to direct respondents’ attention.
Open-ended questions or closed questions?
An open-ended question is where you ask a question and provide the respondent with
a space on the questionnaire to respond as they wish, using words of their own choosing.
Open-ended questions allow greater flexibility in their responses. This is particularly
useful when as a researcher you are unsure of the range of responses. However, the
analysis of responses from open-ended questions is much more time consuming as all
responses have to be read and then allocated to an appropriate category.
With closed questions the researcher gives the respondent the questions and a choice
of answers. It is also common to allow the respondent to choose an open category or
‘other answer’ box in which the respondent can write the answer of their choice. In this
approach the respondent chooses the answer or the category that most closely fits with
their favoured response. Although the responses are more limited than with open ques-
tions, the analysis is much less time consuming.
There are a number of different variations of open and closed questions that you
might consider:
s /PENQUESTIONSWITHPRE SETCATEGORIESnINWHICHRESPONDENTSAREPRESENTEDWITH
an open question that they are allowed to answer however they wish using their
own words, but we allocate the response given to a set of pre-set categories. This will
involve a loss of data in that some of the distinct nature of the response given will
be lost by allocating the response into a category but the process does allow for
much easier quantitative analysis.
s #HECKLISTSORRANKORDERCANALSOBEUSEFULWHENINCORPORATEDINTOAQUESTIONNAIRE
for example when we are asking how often a person engages in a given activity.
s )N ADDITION RESPONDENTS CAN ALSO BE ASKED TO PROVIDE A RANK ORDER OF ACTIVITIES
preferences or attitudes.
Two of the most widely used attitude scales are the Likert scale and the semantic
differential. With a Likert scale the researcher provides a statement such as: ‘The British
government should reduce the budget deficit within the next five years.’ The respon-
dent is asked to say if they strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, or
strongly disagree with the statement given.
With the semantic differential, respondents are asked to choose between two statements
that contain bi-polar adjectives that act as stimulus words and concepts, for example:
s GOODQUALITYPOORQUALITY
s COMPREHENSIBLEINCOMPREHENSIBLE
s HYGIENIClLTHY
s WELCOMINGUNFRIENDLY
The purpose of the semantic differential is to measure the respondent’s reactions to the
stimulus words. A simple semantic differential scale would look like this:
Good Bad
3 2 1 0 1 2 3
The 0 position in the middle of the scale is used to signify a ‘neutral’ stance by the
respondent towards the issue, the 1 positions signify that the respondent is concerned
‘to some extent,’ the 2 positions ‘moderately’ concerned and the 3 positions ‘very’ con-
cerned about the issue.
It is common practice for researchers to group together five or six statements each
containing pairs of bi-polar adjectives and each of which is exploring a slightly different
aspect of the issue. Researchers do this because it is assumed that one response alone
cannot give a full picture of the respondent’s stance on the issue the researcher is invest-
igating. The British Election Survey, which is conducted after each UK general election,
makes very effective use of the semantic differential to describe and explore the British
electorate’s views on a range of issues that come up during the election campaign.
Descriptive and analytical surveys

All social survey research is highly structured. There are two distinct types of sample
survey:
1. the descriptive social survey, and

2. the analytical sample survey.
The descriptive survey
The work of Booth (1892), Rowntree (1901) and Bowley (1915, 1937) were
all examples of research that were largely descriptive in nature as the purpose
of the research was to outline as accurately as possible the living and working
conditions of working class people. Descriptive surveys can be used to good effect
to measure a range of demographic characteristics such age, gender, race, sexuality,
disability status etc., as well as data on people’s behaviours, attitudes, beliefs and
practices.
A key element of all descriptive survey research is comparison: how does one
group differ from another group? Very often researchers can make use of already
existing data, such as the Census, to make a comparison. One of the questions
you need to ask yourself before conducting a survey is: does the information already
exist? Every 10 years since 1801 the British government has conducted a Census.
The aim of the Census is to provide the government with a general description,
or ‘anonymised’ snapshot of the population on a particular night in England
and Wales. (For more information about the Census and access to results, look at
www.ons.gov.uk.)
Before you read on, it is important to note that all forms of sample survey have a
degree of explanatory potential even if the survey appears to be very descriptive. It is
important to keep in mind that even the most simple of descriptions can inform us of
something we were previously unaware of.
The analytical survey
The survey can provide much more than a description of a population – with effective
questionnaire design it is possible to measure beliefs, opinions, preferences and habits.
The analytical survey has more of a comparative or experimental feel as such surveys
attempt to test the relationship between two or more variables.
One of the reasons why researchers use the analytical survey approach to data
collection is that it attempts to give the researcher an indication of what people are
thinking about in regard to the area of study that the researcher has chosen. The
analytical survey often involves using a composite approach to data collection. With
a composite approach the researcher makes use of several forms of scaling to collect
different types of data about the same set of issues. Different aspects of a respondent’s
attitude, knowledge or understanding about an issue are added together to give a
multifaceted and therefore more valid or complete understanding of the respondents’
responses. As we shall see in this section, supporters of the approach assume that
the analytical survey approach can be used to collect data on sensitive subjects. In the
following box we will look in some detail at one example of an analytical survey that
has attempted to collect sensitive data. At the end of the discussion you will be asked
to reflect on the value of the method.
Thinkpiece
Sex education
Legislation in Portugal (Law 120/99) requires all schools to provide children with
sex education as part of their school curriculum. However, there remain obstacles
to the implementation of the policy. De Almeida and Rei (2006) devised a research
project that made use of the analytical survey approach. They attempted to
measure teachers’ attitudes towards sex education. The research made use of a
questionnaire to identify teachers’ knowledge of sex education and measure
their comfort when teaching themes of sexuality. De Almeida and Rei surveyed
176 high school teachers with a questionnaire that contained three dimensions
– attitudinal, cognitive and emotional – which were measured by three separate
scales: an attitude dimension, a cognitive dimension and an emotional dimension.
For de Almeida and Rei:
‘Attitudes have an evaluative dimension that is always expressed through a
judgement. Attitudes may be expressed through a behaviour or an emotion
that may be favourable or unfavourable, which is one of the characteristics
of an evaluative judgement’ (2006: 186).
They also identified a second characteristic of attitudes in that attitudes can have
a direction in favour of or against a particular issue. Attitudes also have an inten-
sity with a strong or a weak position. De Almeida and Rei (2006) give the
example of attitudes to euthanasia:
‘one can be in favour of euthanasia but only in cases when the patient is lucid
enough to express his/her will. Others can be in favour of euthanasia in
many other situations because they believe that dying with dignity and pain-
lessness is a basic human right’ (2006: 186).
Accessibility refers to the probability that an attitude will automatically be activ-
ated in our memory when we are faced with the object of the attitude. This is also
identified by the researchers as a central characteristic of attitudes. They also draw
upon Lima’s opinion that:
‘it is usual to find the separation of three modalities of evaluative answers
that correspond to three forms of expression of attitudes: the cognitive, the
emotional and the behavioural’ (2000: 190).
De Almeida and Rei (2006) suspected that the levels of comfort that teachers
experienced dealing with issues of sexuality in their classrooms were associated
with their attitudes and they correlated this emotional aspect with the teachers’
behavioural intentions to have further involvement in sex education activities.
De Almeida and Rei attempted to investigate ‘whether the cognitive aspects, such
as the training that teachers had received, as well their knowledge of legal aspects,
were associated with their attitudes’ (2006: 187).
The attitude dimension was measured by the use of a 10-item scale that asked
respondents to give their opinion on a statement by indicating on a 5-point
Likert Scale if they were either in:
1. total disagreement
2. disagreement
3. I’m not sure of my position
4. agreement
5. total agreement.
Five of the statements were positive such as ‘School sex education is very import-
ant for children and the youth’ and ‘Sex education is a very effective way to pre-
vent HIV/AIDS’; and five negative statements such as ‘School sex education
promotes earlier sexual involvement’ and ‘Only biology teachers should provide
sex education’.
The value of the respondents’ answers was calculated by identifying the mean
value of the answers.
The cognitive dimension was measured by the use of a knowledge scale made
up of 15 statements with true or false answers such as:
s @4HEREISALEGALFRAMEWORKFORSCHOOLSEXEDUCATION
s @3EXEDUCATIONISPRIMARILYATASKFORHEALTHPROFESSIONALS
s @4HEREAREEDUCATIONALMATERIALSFROMTHEMINISTRIESOFHEALTHANDEDUCATION
to help teachers to promote sex education.’
s @3EXEDUCATIONISONLYPERMITTEDBYLAWAFTERTHESECONDEDUCATIONLEVEL
s @"YLAWSCHOOLSAREOBLIGEDTOINCLUDESEXEDUCATIONACTIVITIESINTHEIREDUCA-
tional projects.’
The value of the respondents’ answers was calculated through the sum of the
answers, which could have a value of between 0 and 15.
The emotional dimension was measured by the use of a scale of 30 items that
were intended to measure the comfort and/or discomfort that the teachers felt
dealing with issues such as ‘abortion’, ‘contraception’, ‘homosexuality’, ‘men-
strual cycle’ and ‘masturbation’. Respondents were asked to rate themselves on a
scale from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating that the respondent was ‘very uncomfortable’
dealing with the issue, to 5 where the respondent described themselves as ‘very
comfortable’ dealing with the issue. The value of the respondents’ answers was
arrived at by calculating the mean value of the answers.
The questionnaire also asked respondents for information about what training
they had had in relation to sex education.
The final part of the questionnaire was largely descriptive in nature and asked
the respondents to provide some demographic data (sex, age, marital status) and also
some data about their length of time in teaching, their teaching specialism etc.
A questionnaire is often chosen as the research instrument because it is widely
assumed to be effective in obtaining information from a relatively large number
of people in a comparatively short time. If the information is of a non-sensitive
nature we can also assume that the method is high in terms of its validity and
reliability and the generalisability of the findings. However, if our findings are to
be useful then we must be confident that our questions actually measure what we
intended them to measure. It is only if we are confident that our questions are
valid that we can be happy with the quality of our findings.
Questions
1. What do you feel are the strengths and weaknesses of the de Almeida and Rei
(2006) questionnaire design?
2. Can you identify any potential problems in de Almeida and Rei’s (2006) use
of a questionnaire that might affect the validity, reliability or generalisability
of their findings?
Conclusion
The great advantage of the sample survey is that it can be used to identify a pattern or
statistical correlation within a population and even the most descriptive survey can
raise important analytical issues. This is true even if you decide to conduct a descriptive
survey of local people in your area. You might think about a research project similar to
one of the projects conducted by the Institute of Community Studies researchers that
we looked at in this chapter. The sample survey is often associated with the use of the
questionnaire as the method of data collection. The questionnaire is a method of data
collection that usually involves distributing a set of standardised questions by post or
email to a representative sample of the population we are interested in. The questions
are described as standardised because the researcher will often pose the same questions
to each respondent in the sample. One of the central problems with this approach to
data collection is the often high level of non-response. Non-response can be reduced
by sending reminders to the respondents or by making use of an interviewer to read
the set of questions to the respondent and record their answers. This can be done either
face to face or by telephone.
However any survey is only as good as the questions that are asked. Careful thought
needs to be given to the wording of the questions asked. Avoid jargon terms and lead-
ing, ambiguous or hypothetical questions that start with the phrase ‘what if ’. Group
questions in a logical manner with one topic leading logically to another and have a
mixture of question formats: open questions, closed questions, semantic differentials
etc. Pilot your questions before you administer your questionnaire to make sure that
the respondent understands your questions and is willing to respond to them.
Always keep in mind that the purpose of the questions the researcher poses to
respondents is to translate the research aims into meaningful findings. As with all
research there are several issues that you need to have resolved at the planning stage of
your research project:
Conclusion 263
s 7HATDO)WANTTOlNDOUT
s 7HATARETHEVARIABLES)AMINTERESTEDIN
s 7HOAM)GOINGTOASK
s !M)GOINGTOASKALLTHEPEOPLEINTHEPOPULATIONORAM)GOINGTOSAMPLEASECTION
of the population? If I ask a sample how do I choose the sample?
s 7HAT QUESTIONS AM ) GOING TO ASK THEM n HOW AM ) GOING TO OPERATIONALISE MY
variables?
s 7HATINDICATORSAM)GOINGTOCHOOSE
Should Erica use a sample survey?

Although Erica has been thinking about conducting an ethnographic study she
is concerned about her lack of personal skills in areas such as drawing an
appropriate inference from her observations, and conducting informal conversa-
tions or more in-depth interviews with strangers. Perhaps she should play safe
and conduct a questionnaire. If she wants to find out about the quality of the
information provided by zoos to visitors she could ask people to complete
a questionnaire.
Erica could use closed questions to find out some important factual informa-
tion, such as:
1. Did you know that the zoo has an educational officer? Yes No
2. Did you attend a presentation or talk by the zoo’s
educational officer? Yes No
3. Do you know more about biodiversity and sustainability
because of your visit to the zoo? Yes No
She could also use closed questions that made use of a semantic differential in
which respondents are asked to choose between two statements that contain bi-
polar adjectives, to find out people’s attitudes and opinions. For example:
If you did attend a presentation/talk, on a scale of one to seven how would
you rate the presentation you attended. Circle the number that is closest to
your opinion:
The presentation was of: Good quality 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 poor quality
The information about biodiversity and sustainability contained in the
literature I was given was:
Very informative 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 Not very informative
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Willmott, P. and Young, M. (1960) Family and Class in a London Suburb, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Young, M. and Wilmott, P. (1957) Family and Kinship in East London, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
13 Mixed methods
research
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General characteristics of mixed methods research

A mixed methods approach to social science research is rooted in pragmatism and is
based upon the assumption that in well-designed research projects both qualitative
and quantitative methodologies can be used, and can work well, together. A second
assumption is that mixing different types of methods and interrelating qualitative and
quantitative data can strengthen a study. For the mixed methods researcher research
projects that rely on one method of data collection can at times provide only an incom-
plete understanding of the issues raised by the respondents and further explanation is
necessary. A second database that makes use of a distinctly different method of data
collection can help to explain issues raised by the initial data collection. Quantitative
results are often presented in the form of statistics that do not speak for themselves and
require a much fuller explanation as to why people responded in the way that they did.
Mixed methods approaches have a long history within the social sciences. In the
field of education Lacy (1970), Woods (1979) and Ball (1981) combined survey research
with ethnographic research. Smith and Robbins (1982) conducted ‘structured ethnography’
based upon an initial national survey of parental involvement in US schools by ques-
tionnaire and followed this up with in-depth interviews, observations and documentary
research with ‘analysis packets’ of parents in specific school districts.
Cook combined survey research with ethnographic research to investigate problems
parents faced when their children were diagnosed with cancer. Crompton and Jones
(1988) collected verbal accounts from respondents, coded the accounts and aggregated
268 Chapter 13 Mixed methods research
them to generate numerical data. A similar approach was adopted by Silverman (1984)
to investigate differences in service provision between the NHS and private sector
oncology clinics.
Barker (1984) conducted a sample survey on the Unification Church and followed
this up with observation, interview and overt participant observation to produce a
more valid picture of the motives and intentions of the congregation and explain why
some individuals left the church.
In many cases the mixed methods approach is adopted because the researcher has a
great deal of personal knowledge about the context or setting where the research is to be
conducted. Becker (1962) was interested in jazz music which allowed him to investigate
the career of the dance musician by the use of a range of ethnographic methods.
A mixed methods project starts with a set of research questions each requiring a dif-
ferent methodological approach: a structured quantitative approach for some aspects
of the issues the researcher wants to address and a qualitative type of approach for other
aspects. A mixed methods approach to research crosses methodological boundaries. It
is often assumed that within a mixed methods research project there will be a qualita-
tive strand to the question and a quantitative strand. In some mixed methods research
projects the researchers keep the two strands distinct and independent of each other
until they feel they have enough data to draw an appropriate inference.
However, in interactive research projects the emphasis is on the integration rather
than separation of methods across the research process. In interactive research projects
a high level of interaction takes place between the quantitative and qualitative strands;
often with quantitative data converted into qualitative data via a process known as data
transformation within one interpretative framework:
‘Mixed methods research is the type of research in which a researcher or team of

researchers combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches
(e.g., use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference
techniques) for the broad purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and
corroboration’ (Johnson et al., 2007: 123).
Data analysis in mixed methods research can be a standard approach to data analysis,
analysing quantitative data by the use of descriptive and inferential statistics and ana-
lysing qualitative data by the use of coding and thematic analysis. Alternatively, the
researcher can make use of data transformation in which there is an attempt to integrate
quantitative and qualitative data analysis, for example by comparing numerical quan-
titative scales with qualitative themes or changing qualitative themes into numerical
scores. However, it is not uncommon for the mixed methods researcher to give priority
to either the quantitative or qualitative approach to methodology. The researcher may
choose to use a quantitative approach first to test variables with a large sample and
then at a later date to explore a few cases from the sample population in more depth
using a qualitative method.
Finally, like all research projects, in mixed methods research the researcher can
choose to conduct their research in a balanced and neutral manner in which the aim
is to produce objective, valid and reliable data. Alternatively the researcher can choose
"UXIBUTUBHFEPFTUIFNJYJOHPGNFUIPETUBLFQMBDF 269
to be an advocate and take up the point of view of a given group of people in the
population, or a specific ideology.
Elsewhere in the book we have seen good examples of mixed methods approaches;
the Institute of Community Studies, for example, pioneered the use of in-depth case
studies with surveys thereby bringing together qualitative and statistical data.
At what stage does the mixing of methods take place?

Mixed methods designs can be fixed and/or emergent in nature. A fixed mixed methods
design is one in which the researchers planned in advance to make use of both quan-
titative and qualitative methods of data collection from the start of the research project.
In contrast, in emergent mixed methods designs researchers often decide to draw upon
a second quantitative or qualitative approach whilst the research project is in progress
because the chosen methodology is thought to be insufficient by itself.
The stage at which the mixing of methods takes place is known as the point of interface.
There are four probable stages in a research project when the point of interface can take
place:
1. the planning or design stage,

2. the data collection stage,
3. the data analysis stage,
4. in the discussion of the findings when the researchers are drawing an inference.
There is more to a mixed methods approach than simply using a combination of

research methods. A number of supporters of the mixed methods approach suggest
that it involves exploring ‘multiple ways of seeing’:
‘Mixed methods research is a research design with philosophical assumptions as

well as methods of inquiry. As a methodology, it involves philosophical assump-
tions that guide the direction of the collection and analysis and the mixture of
qualitative and quantitative approaches in many phases of the research process. As
a method, it focuses on collecting, analyzing, and mixing both quantitative and
qualitative data in a single study or series of studies. Its central premise is that the
use of quantitative and qualitative approaches, in combination, provides a better
understanding of research problems than either approach alone’ (Creswell and
Plano Clark 2007: 5).
The advantages
1. Mixed methods approaches are useful when the researchers know very little about
the group of people they are investigating. In these circumstances they can use
a qualitative approach, such as observation or in-depth interviewing, in order to

identify the variables that need to be measured and the questions that need to be
explored by the use of a more quantitative approach.
2. Mixed methods research provides strengths that counterbalance the limitations of
both quantitative and qualitative approaches. This combination of quantitative and
qualitative approaches means that researchers can draw upon the strengths of one
approach to compensate for the weaknesses of the other approach.
3. Mixed methods research enhances the validity of the findings of a research project
in that a combined quantitative and qualitative approach provides more data than
either quantitative or qualitative methods used alone. Researchers triangulate the
methods by comparing and contrasting statistical data with qualitative data to
enhance the validity of the inference drawn.
4. Mixed methods research allows the researcher to address questions that cannot be
answered by a quantitative or qualitative approach alone. Research projects, for
example those that take their inspiration from Bourdieu’s sociology that have a
focus on practice, the interaction between the subjective agency of individuals and
the more objective habitus or field found in the social structure, need to draw upon
both quantitative and qualitative data.
5. Mixed methods research encourages the use of multiple worldviews or paradigms
that can combine inductive and deductive reasoning. As we have seen elsewhere in
the book deductive approaches to drawing an inference in research design are based
upon the assumption that the researcher starts the analysis of the data collected
with a general theory that suggests a pattern that can be identified within the data
collected. In contrast, inductive approaches (sometimes negatively referred to as naive
empiricism) involve the researcher in collecting data and then searching for a pat-
tern within the data collected without the guidance of a general theory. A mixed
methods approach often involves attempting to bring these two very different
approaches together. Willis’s study Learning to Labour (1977) was based upon the
assumption that Marx’s theory of class reproduction was valid and this assumption
helped to shape Willis’s interpretation of his findings. However, what people do on
a day-to-day basis whilst engaged in this process of class reproduction could not be
ignored, and how people engage in the process of class reproduction by their own
actions as human agents was also a key aspect of his research.
6. Mixed methods research is ‘practical’ in that researchers are free to merge quantita-
tive and qualitative data sets allowing them to address research questions by using
both numbers and words in a meaningful way.
The disadvantages
However, mixed methods research can be both time consuming and expensive to
conduct as it often involves researchers working in interdisciplinary teams, sharing
expertise. Using multiple sources of data provides more evidence, which is good in terms
of the validity of the findings but is time consuming to analyse. On the other hand,
Characteristics of mixed methods research 271
researchers may find that the quantitative and qualitative data either contradict each
other or in some other way call for additional explanation. Such contradictions can be
difficult to get to the bottom of but it is often the case that respondents say one thing
in an interview or in response to a questionnaire while being observed to behave dif-
ferently in the field. Respondents are often reluctant to say something in an interview
that can potentially damage their preferred self-image but their observed behaviour
demonstrates their real motives and intentions. The researcher has to come to a conclu-
sion as to why the contradiction has come about and this may require the collection
of additional data from respondents about why they behave in the way that they do.
Finally, it can be the case that one or two respondents selected for the qualitative
phase of the research are simply different from the rest of the population you are invest-
igating. In this case you might consider using a technique we referred to in Chapter 6
as a negative case analysis in which the research attempts to find out why individuals
or small minorities hold views that are different from the majority of the population.
Thinkpiece
If the researcher wants to understand the motives and intentions of the respond-
ents a qualitative approach is the most appropriate, but if we recognise that
personal problems are often also public issues in that many individuals often
have to face the same problem then quantitative data from a larger population
may be required to understand more fully the wider social factors that shape or
determine the situation in which the individual respondent finds themselves in.
Obesity may be experienced as a personal problem but it is also a public issue.
A mixed methods approach shares much with contemporary documentary film
making. If you look at Morgan Spurlock’s documentary film Super Size Me,
Spurlock looks at the statistical trends on obesity in the USA and takes you on a
personal journey where he eats only food from McDonald’s restaurants for one
month. This documentary draws upon both quantitative (official statistics) and
qualitative data (biographical research) to tell the story.
Questions
1. Watch the documentary Super Size Me. (If you cannot find a copy of the film you
can find sections of it on YouTube.) Write a short account of what you consider
to be the advantages and disadvantages of Morgan Spurlock’s approach.
2. To what extent is his approach valid and reliable as an approach to data collection?
Characteristics of mixed methods research

The general characteristics of mixed methods research include methodological eclecticism
where it is commonly assumed that ‘a wedding of methods is epistemologically
incoherent’ (Howe 1988: 10).
Mixed methods research involves selecting and then synergistically integrating the
most appropriate techniques from both the qualitative and quantitative approaches to
investigate the questions that are of interest to you as researchers.
The second characteristic of mixed methods research is paradigm pluralism. The term
paradigm was first developed by Thomas Kuhn (1962) to explain the nature of scientific
revolutions. Although Kuhn’s use of the term was not consistent throughout the book
it was commonly assumed that the term ‘paradigm’ referred to a grand theory or big
idea that had a dominant position within any science and that was so influential that
it shaped all research design and explanation building. It was only when an anomaly
emerged that the grand theory could not explain that the possibility of a scientific
revolution involving a paradigm shift could take place. According to Morgan (2007:
50–54) the term paradigm has four distinct meanings or interpretations within mixed
methods literature:
1. Paradigms are worldviews (ways of observing and understanding the world).

2. It is the metaphysical paradigm through which researchers develop their theory of
knowledge (epistemology) and explore how respondents come to know what they
know about the world and their understanding of what reality consists of.
3. The paradigm provides the mixed methods researcher with an exemplar of how their
research should be conducted in a field.
4. The paradigm provide a set of shared beliefs amongst the community of mixed
methods researchers in relation to the nature of questions in their field and most
appropriate methods of data collection and data analysis.
There is a common belief that a variety of paradigms may serve as the underlying
philosophy for the use of mixed methods, including pragmatism, critical theory and
critical realism, reflecting the variety of philosophical or theoretical stances across the
social sciences. The issue then becomes: do we keep the methods in our mixed methods
design separate or do we attempt to merge the distinct methodological approaches and
their underpinning paradigms? Those researchers who develop a complementary strengths
position believe that the different methods should be kept as separate as possible, in
effect doing two separate research projects at the same time using distinctly different
methods so that the strength of each paradigmatic position can be explored. Take for
example an interpretative or bottom-up approach where we attempt to look at the
world from the subjective view of the people we are investigating. Such an approach
might involve using in-depth interviews. At the same time a top-down positivistic
approach that uses questionnaires with closed questions devised by the researchers
assumes we have a very full and clear idea of how our respondents are going to answer.
In contrast to this subjectivism or objectivism choice, for many researchers mixed
methods research involves the creation of a synergy by combining the qualitative and
quantitative approaches. Biesta (2010) suggests that mixed methods researchers should
aim for inter-subjectivity, the creation of a common world created by human agents
from their individual subjective worlds as an alternative to both subjectivism and
objectivism.
8IZNJYNFUIPETBOEPSNFUIPEPMPHJFT 273
The third characteristic of mixed methods research is an emphasis on diversity at all

levels of the research enterprise, from the broader, more conceptual dimensions to the
narrower, more empirical ones.
The fourth characteristic of mixed methods research is synechism, in other words the
combination of quantitative and qualitative research is greater than either a quantitative
or qualitative approach alone. For Johnson and Gray (2010), within a mixed methods
approach there should be an emphasis on continua rather than a set of dichotomies; a
mixed methods approach involves replacing binaries with continua.
The fifth characteristic of mixed methods research is an iterative, cyclical approach to
research, which includes both deductive and inductive logic in the same study so that
research may be seen as moving from grounded results (facts, observations) through
inductive logic to general inferences (abstract generalisations or theory), then from
those general inferences (or theory) through deductive logic to tentative hypotheses or
predictions of particular events/outcomes.
The sixth characteristic of mixed methods research is a focus on the research question (or
research problem) in determining the methods employed within any given study. The emphasis
is on the centrality of the research question and away from intractable philosophical issues
and toward the selection of methods that were best suited to investigate issues of interest.
The seventh characteristic of mixed methods research is a set of basic ‘signature’ research
designs and analytical processes, which are often referred to as parallel mixed designs:
‘a family of MM designs in which mixing occurs in an independent manner either

simultaneously or with some time lapse. The QUAL and QUAN strands are planned
and implemented in order to answer related aspects of the same questions’
(Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009: 341, italics in original).
The eighth characteristic of mixed methods research is a tendency toward balance and
compromise that is implicit within the ‘third methodological community’. Mixed methods
research is based on rejecting the either-or of the incompatibility thesis; generating a
balance between the excesses exhibited by scholars at either end of the methodological
spectrum; and forging a unique mixed methods research identity.
The ninth characteristic of mixed methods research is a reliance on visual representa-
tions (figures, diagrams etc.) and a common notational system. Mixed methods research
designs, data collection procedures and analytical techniques lend themselves to visual
representations, which can simplify the complex interrelationships among elements
inherent in those processes. An important characteristic of these diagrams and figures
is their ability to incorporate more dimensions as the processes they describe evolve.
Why mix methods and/or methodologies?

A mixed methods approach is based upon the assumption that: ‘a false dichotomy
exists between qualitative and quantitative approaches and that researchers should
make the most efficient use of both [approaches] in understanding social phenomena’
(Creswell 1994: 176).
According to Hodgkin: ‘Quantitative data may assist in providing the big picture,
but it is the personal story, accompanied by thoughts and feelings, that brings depth
and texture to the research study’ (2008: 296). This is illustrated in a study conducted
by Chow et al. (2010) who attempted to measure HIV patient satisfaction.
Example: HIV patient satisfaction

Chow et al. (2010) argue that using quantitative methods such as a questionnaire
will provide an indication of the size of the problem but will not give researchers
an understanding of how and why people are satisfied or dissatisfied with the care
they receive. Chow et al. used a mixed methods approach to assess HIV patient
satisfaction and to identify un-met needs in one healthcare centre.
The first phase of the research was to get an overall statistical picture of satis-
faction levels in the centre by using a client satisfaction questionnaire. 234 people
were approached by the researchers and 166 respondents agreed to participate in
the research project. The first part of the questionnaire asked basic demographic
questions about respondents’ ages, occupations etc. Section two looked at 16 aspects
of patient satisfaction including: overall satisfaction with the care given; main-
tenance of patient confidentiality; centre’s location and physical environment;
management of staff at waiting areas; and suitable appointment times. The
responses were measured on a five-point Likert scale. The respondents were also
asked two open-ended questions: ‘How do you think the Centre could improve?’
and ‘Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the Centre and our
service or staff?’
Phase two of the research involved conducting semi-structured interviews with
22 respondents in order to identify the reasons for any client dissatisfaction or
un-met needs. Data from the interviews was transcribed and the transcripts were
analysed by using a content analysis.
Chow argued that this type of ‘patient-centred’ approach involves drawing
upon the researchers’ skills at human interaction and skills at managing emo-
tions; the mixed methods approach increased the comprehensiveness of their
overall findings, especially when findings were comparable or similar in both
phase one and phase two. This gave the researchers more confidence in the validity
and reliability of the findings than using only one method. Also the findings
from phase two of the research could be used to explain the reasoning underpin-
ning the respondents’ answers in phase one.
Coming to the same conclusions from the use of two different methodological approaches
is commonly assumed to enhance the validity of findings because the association
demonstrates that conclusions reached were not determined by the methods used.
8IZNJYNFUIPETBOEPSNFUIPEPMPHJFT 275
Lyons and DeFranco (2010) conducted a research project into educational evalu-
ation using a mixed methods approach. The first stage in their project was a benchmark-
ing exercise in which they drew upon the data that schools held about their students
in order to make some general statements about school performance. This was fol-
lowed by team meetings with staff that took the form of semi-structured, small, group
interviews. Over a period of time a high level of trust was established within the group
and staff started to share their insights, hunches and observations about their schools.
The researchers drew upon their active listening skills to capture the meaning of what
was said and encourage staff to open up and disclose even more deeply the school’s
culture. Finally, one-to-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with key par-
ticipants to further develop an understanding of the school. Lyons and DeFranco’s
(2010) argument is that such shared insights do not come to the surface when a narrow
quantitative approach to data collection is used by itself.
Example: humour research

Lockyer (2006) argues that a mixed methods approach to humour research is
ideal because of the complex nature of humour. She investigated how readers
responded when they were offended by the magazine Private Eye. The magazine
is published fortnightly and combines real investigative journalism, with spoof
articles, cartoons and jokes.
Lockyer’s research had three main aims: first to analytically record incidences
when offence was caused to a reader, secondly to investigate how humorous
discourse can be criticised on ethical grounds and finally to explore how the edi-
tor responded to causing offence. A mixed methods approach to data collection
and data analysis was explored by Lockyer.
First, a quantitative content analysis was used to provide a descriptive reliable
record of the number of letters to the editor that were published in which readers
said they had been offended and secondly the number of readers who took out
libel actions against the magazine. Lockyer did this to identify the underlying
pattern of who was offended and which topics caused offence. She than com-
bined the simple content analysis with a qualitative textual analysis in order
to ‘enrich’ the data to identify important discursive patterns in readers’ letters
and to find out how humorous discourse can be criticised ethically. Finally, the
research attempted to find out how the editor responded to complaints from
readers that the magazine had caused offence.
Finally, composition analysis that broadly drew on the techniques of semiotic
analysis was used to assess the strategies used by the editor to discursively man-
age readers’ criticisms.
Lockyer argues that this framework identified three signifying systems:
1. information value – how value was assigned to some parts of the page and not
others;
2. salience – how the readers’ attention was manipulated by the strategic place-
ment of letters on the page and the length of the letters;
3. framing – the devices used, such as the use of white space, to shape how spe-
cific parts of the page are connected or disconnected with other content.
According to Lockyer the composition analysis suggests that the editor uses the
letters page to stifle and shut down debate.
McNamara (2010) used a mixed-methods approach to investigate the factors and pro-
cesses underpinning the success of a transformational leadership strategy in 330 higher
education institutions within the USA that were attempting to enhance the under-
standing of environmental sustainability amongst their students. The first stage of their
data collection began with a descriptive/correlational phase in which questionnaires
were used to collect information on the management and leadership of sustainability
programmes, the strategies used to introduce sustainability programmes and the
measure of progress made. The membership list of the Association for Advancement
of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) was used as the sampling frame. Data
from the questionnaire provided a description of the characteristics of the institutions
attempting to introduce sustainability programmes, details about the sustainability
initiatives and issues that had arisen during the implementation process. McNamara
identified the central tendency or average response from within the findings.
The second stage was a qualitative phase in which interviews were conducted with
20 respondents drawn from 10 institutions who were central to the introduction of the
initiative in their institutions. The purpose of the qualitative phase was to get an under-
standing of the change process from the participants’ perspective. The interviews were
transcribed, coded and analysed by identifying themes drawing upon Strauss and
Corbin’s (1998) approach to grounded theory. Finally the quantitative and qualitative
data were incorporated into one set of findings, an inference drawn and recommenda-
tions made for strategies that the research suggests help to foster sustainability pro-
grammes in higher education.
In 2006, Bryman conducted a content analysis of 232 social science articles in which
quantitative and qualitative research methods were combined. Bryman (2006) found
that when mixed methods approaches are used in research projects, what researchers
do does not always correspond to the reasons given for using a mixed methods
approach and, in many cases, no reasons are given at all for using a mixed methods
approach. When reasons are given they range but the most common was triangulation.
Triangulation
Triangulation is often cited as the main reason for using a mixed methods
approach to data collection. The term ‘triangulation’ was first used by Webb et al.
(1966). The rationale underpinning method triangulation, the use of more than
one method of data collection within one study, is that by checking the results
Crystallisation 277
obtained by using one method of data collection with the results obtained
by using another method a much fuller and more valid picture emerges if the
results confirm each other. Unfortunately, in practice, data collected by different
methods can often contradict one another and what triangulation often reveals
is that some methods of data collection are more dependable than others. In
addition, Fielding and Fielding (1986) and Flick (1992, 1998) have questioned
the assumption that coming together of results from different methodological
approaches can be interpreted as a sign of validity because there is still the
possibility that both research approaches may be flawed.
A second common reason for using method triangulation is that: ‘all methods
have inherent biases and limitations, so use of only one method to assess a given
phenomenon will inevitably yield biased and limited results’ (Greene et al.
1989: 256).
Researchers such as Chow et al. (2010), Lockyer (2006), Lyons and DeFranco (2010)
and McNamara (2010), discussed above, were all attracted to a mixed methods
approach because the data they wanted to use was both quantitative and qualitative in
nature. The approach they all adopted is assumed to increase the completeness or unity
of the overall findings they present. Quantitative methods such as the questionnaire or
the use of official statistics provide numerical information about the population the
researchers are interested in, for example ‘hard’ evidence about the overall statistical
picture of the size and composition of the population to be investigated etc., whereas
qualitative methods provide researchers with an understanding of the respondents’
knowledge of the situation they are in, their shared meanings and feeling states in
order to identify the reasons why respondents behave in the way they do.
One of the most interesting approaches to mixed methods research is known as
crystallisation. This approach to research involves drawing upon skills and abilities
from outside of the social sciences and incorporating them into the techniques of data
collection and data analysis.
Crystallisation
Crystallisation is an approach to methodology that attempts to combine creative work
with academic analysis through what practitioners refer to as creative analytic practices.
Artistic forms such as poems, photos etc. that reflect an individual’s stories are drawn
upon in an attempt to understand how respondents think and feel about issues and
how and why their socially constructed representations are created in the way that they
are. The data analysis is seen to be a much more openly creative process than with
other methodological approaches. Researchers often abandon claims of objectivity and
instead search for a sympathetic understanding of meaning through a process of verstehen.

Crystallisation assumes that the objectivity/subjectivity dichotomy, the qualitative/
quantitative division and other paired opposites within social science research are
socially constructed as dichotomies that hinder creativity within the research process.
Scheurich (1997) argues that all social research contains ‘deep’ civilisational or
cultural biases that prevent us understanding people who do not share our culture.
Crystallisation is an approach that attempts to overcome these ‘deep’ biases by de-centring
the subjectivity of the researcher. The researcher attempts to step outside of themselves
and look at their thoughts and ideas as an outsider would, challenging their own
fundamental assumptions about what reason, knowledge, subjectivity and reality con-
sist of. The researcher has to question what is understood by material reality and how
understandings of this reality are constructed, including how subjectivity and research
practices are constructed. Taking his starting point from Foucault’s conception of a
archaeology of knowledge, in which Foucault attempted to trace the history of ‘epistemes’
or sets of ideas and principles for organising and categorising information in a way that
allows us to make sense of the world, Scheurich argues that all social science research
is realist in nature. Scheurich also argues that realism is composed of three interlinked
aspects:
1. an autonomous subjectivity or a conscious speaking subject;

2. a mind capable of understanding reason;
3. valid or trustworthy representations or interpretations of the real.
Crystallisation looks at the underpinning subjectivity within what appears to be

objective research-based practice. Our subjectivity does not have an independent
essence outside of the multiple sources of information and ways of thinking within a
culture. We have to draw upon these to make sense of ourselves as independent human
agents or thinking beings.
Crystallisation is based upon a number of assumptions that have their starting point
in postmodernism and the postmodernist understanding of narrative. Postmodernity
is often assumed to be a period of history after the end of the modernity period or the
end of the modern world. Postmodernism is a way of thinking about or theorising
about life on the far side of modernity: historically and conceptually postmodernism
is different from modernism or theories rooted in modernity.
A word of warning before you read on. Postmodernists in general and the crystallisa-
tion approach to research in particular involves exploring commonsense assumptions
about ourselves and the world in which we live. It is often the case that because such
areas of self and social life are accepted without question we do not have everyday
words and language to describe and explain the commonsense assumptions about
ourselves and the world in which we live in. The language of postmodernism is often
difficult to follow.
When you read a respondent’s narrative, you can anticipate how events will unfold
within that narrative. The narrative describes a community’s bond to itself and con-
tains the pragmatic rules of when and why the content of the narrative should appear.
Crystallisation 279
Lyotard (1988) discusses what he calls genres of discourse which supply rules for
linking together heterogeneous phrases. Genres of discourse always provide the frame-
work for phrases and determine what is at stake in linking phrases. For Lyotard the
postmodern condition is characterised by risk and uncertainty because on the far side
of modernity people have lost confidence in grand narratives; those ‘big theories’ that
strive to spell out movements of history, as well as giving guidance to people on how
to lead their lives and what to think.
The processes of crystallisation research: ‘reinforce the constructed and partial nature
of all knowledge and of all modes of knowledge production’ (Ellingson 2008: 178).
The processes of crystallisation research build upon how people cope in the postmodern
condition by continually rewriting their past, creating an account of the own biography
which they feel most at ease with. People experience a need for continual self-creation
and a need continually to reflect on their core beliefs.
No rugby, no fear?
‘Language does not “reflect” social reality, but produces meaning, creates social
reality. Different languages and different discourses within a given language divide
up the world and give it meaning in ways that are not reducible to one another.
Language constructs one’s sense of which one is, one’s subjectivity. What some-
thing means to individuals is dependent on the discourses available to them’
(Richardson 2001: 36).
Through writing stories/narratives the researcher can situate their academic
concerns within the familial contexts of the writers’ everyday lives helping them
to understand how social and cultural factors underpin relationships. These
stories can then be shared with others as ‘collective stories’ that can provide a
voice for people who are normally silenced by dominant cultural narratives.
Richardson developed the model of the ‘collective story’ as a research tool. She
explains:
‘A collective story tells the experience of a sociologically constructed category
of people in the context of larger socio-cultural and historical forces. The
sociological protagonist is a collective. I think of similarly situated individuals
who may or may not be aware of their life affinities as co-participants in a
collective story. My intent is to help construct a consciousness of kind in the
minds of the protagonists, a concrete recognition of sociological bondedness
with others, because such consciousness can break down isolation between
people, empower them, and lead them to collective action on their behalf ’
(1997: 14).
Pringle (2008) draws upon Richardson’s concept of ‘collective stories’ to raise
awareness of the relationships between sport, PE and gendered identities. Rugby
union is commonly recognised as the national sport of New Zealand. However,
Pringle argues that dominant cultural narratives about rugby in New Zealand
silence men who are fearful of pain and injury and do not play the sport.
The assumption is that private stories are constructed in relation to broader
social forces and when these private stories are shared they become collective
stories that can be used to provide people who are normally silenced by dominant
cultural narratives with a voice; and therefore to help and empower individuals
to develop a sense of community or collective identity. The assumption is that
our gendered identities are socially constructed via discourses about individuals’
experiences and talk about sporting experiences. If individuals have the skills to
re-story their lives they can change their understandings of their performances of
gender and their gender subjectivities and come to value themselves as different
rather than wrong. The approach draws upon Weber’s concept of verstehen that
we discussed in Chapter 7: those collective stories help ‘readers to imaginatively
feel their way into the experiences that are being described’ (Denzin 1997:
12–13).
Pringle presented his story to a group of secondary school students to find out
if the story would bring about a considerate response to the difficulties this raised
for men in New Zealand in coming to understand their sense of self, power and
masculinity. In a group discussion the students could identify the discursive
interconnections between the dominating discourses of rugby and masculinities.
For Richardson (2001) crystallisation involves drawing upon creative analytic practices
that involve giving up conventional forms of data analysis rooted in the objectivity/
subjectivity dichotomy in favour of more creative forms of analysis rooted in more
subjective forms of understanding of narrative representations and other similar
forms of discourse in the form of representation that we find in art and literature. The
approach still involves rigorous data analysis but there is a clear assumption made
about the impossibility of the researcher eliminating their subjective feelings or subjec-
tive influence from the research process, and as such there is a distinct shift away from
what Richardson calls the traditional generic constraints of data analysis.
Not all research that explores the self in relation to the context in which a person
finds themselves in is rooted in postmodern approaches to social science. There is a
great deal of research into the Holocaust that involves exploring personal reflection
and biographical accounts but which is not written from a postmodern perspective.
Saul Friedlander has written at length about his childhood experiences evading the
Nazis by hiding in a Catholic boarding school. In books such as Memory, History, and
the Extermination of the Jews of Europe (1993) Friedlander attempts to make a connec-
tion between his own life events and the actions of the Nazis and explore issues such
as the relationship between history and memories.
Elie Wiesel’s book Night (1958) is also a very personal account of his wartime
experiences. Wiesel’s work describes the brutality he witnessed in Auschwitz, Gleiwitz
and Buchenwald and its central theme is why God abandoned him and allowed the
Crystallisation 281
Holocaust to happen. Night has come to be regarded as both symbolic and representative
of the experiences of all Jews during this phase of history.
Promo Levi is another person who wrote about his wartime experiences in
Auschwitz. Levi (1990) does this using biographical methods but has also explored
placing memory within the context of history by the use of poetry, and has also written
a novel. He explored the idea of the grey zone, the zone where people do things in order
to survive by carrying out morally questionable actions. In particular he investigated
the actions of the Sonderkommando, Jews who assisted the Nazis in the death camps.
For Ellingson (2008) the role of the researcher, the goals of research, questions
posed by researchers, the methods they choose to use, their style of writing from the
technical language of the positivist to the artistic language of the ethnographer, their
vocabularies and the criteria they use for the evaluation of their work vary as we move
along a continuum from a realist/positivist social science perspective through a social
constructionist perspective, to an artistic/interpretative perspective. All of these approaches
to research have advantages and disadvantages but none of them is mutually exclusive.
In summary, crystallisation is a methodological approach that builds upon multi-
genre representations that involve the researcher looking at issues in relation to methodo-
logy, not as a rigid division between art and science but as a continuum from research
that attempts to be scientific and objective (positivism) through to comprehensive
interpretivism such as scholarship in relation to art or literature.
What does crystallisation involve as a methodological framework

or process?
The first stage in a research project that draws upon a crystallisation approach is for the
researcher to write a clear thesis statement in which the aims or purpose of the research
project are clearly stated.
1. Data collection begins with a thick description or rich description that embodies
meaning – as we saw in Chapter 7 this involves providing the reader with a full and
clear account of the research setting including the respondents.
2. This is followed by identification of patterns and/or themes within the field.
3. Then interpretation and understanding of an individual’s experiences, emotions and
feeling states as expressed through their narratives or performances.
4. A central element of understanding is the researcher reflecting upon their own
position in the field and the processes they went through in constructing the categ-
ories for the collection of data and its description as meaningful. Hence this rejects
the assumption that positivistic research makes of privileging the perspective of the
researcher.
5. Poetic transcription – crystallisation demands a very high level of writing skills from
the researcher who has to describe and report the meanings, feeling and interpreta-
tion of the respondents by using the same techniques that poets and novelists use
in their texts.
Crystallisation does not depart radically from other well-established contributions to

qualitative methodology. The approach, for example, is not wholly dissimilar to the
work of Goffman and other symbolic interactionists that place an emphasis on social
construction to explore the lives of marginalised groups. Like all ethnography crystal-
lisation attempts to view the world of the respondent through multiple lenses. The
approach tends to use small groups of respondents rather than large representative
samples, and as such it does not make claims that the findings can be generalised to
large populations. The methods of data collection and data analysis are often very
personal and rely heavily on the personal interpretative skills of the researcher and as
such these methods can be described as unreliable or not replicable.
Conclusion
Mixed methods research incorporates elements of both qualitative and quantitative
approaches to methodology including data collection, data analysis and drawing an
appropriate inference from the data collected. However, within the field of mixed
methods research there is a great deal of diverse practice. As with all research, the mixed
methods researcher can test theories and generate new ones; provide a description or
provide an explanation; conduct research on large populations or conduct small-scale
action research; be balanced and objective or be an advocate of a given group or ideology
and abandon objectivity.
One of the most well-established approaches to mixed methods research is evaluation
research and in the following chapter this approach will be explained and discussed.
Should Erica consider a mixed methods approach?

Erica has considered using ethnographic methods and positivistic methods and
has come to the conclusion that both qualitative and quantitative methodologies
have advantages. Perhaps she should consider using qualitative and quantitative
methodologies together in her research project?
She thinks that perhaps a form of structured ethnography based upon an initial
reading of the various inspection reports and documentary material to get an
overview of the field, followed by a questionnaire conducted with people leaving
one too, to be followed up with in-depth interviews and observations to get an
understanding of what people think and feel about the quality of the education
and information on biodiversity and sustainability they received during their visit
is a good idea.
#JCMJPHSBQIZ 283
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14 Evaluation
research and
experiments

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internal and external evaluation
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research: constructivist, realist and experimentalist
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What is evaluation?
Evaluation involves a critical assessment of organisations, policies, programmes, inter-
ventions or people on the basis of collected valid and reliable information that will
allow people such as policy makers to make informed decisions, such as whether the
organisations, policies, programmes, interventions or people are achieving the goals
set for them in an affordable manner. Effective evaluation research should be able to
demonstrate in a valid and reliable manner if a given outcome is affected by a given
intervention. A clear set of objectives are required before any form of effective evalua-
tion can take place. Smith et al. give good examples of a poor statement and a good
statement of objectives:
‘(a) . . . to determine the effectiveness of a day centre for patients with mental illness.
(b) . . . to determine whether patients suffering from moderate depression require
fewer admissions to psychiatric hospitals if they are offered twice-weekly atten-
dance at a day care centre’ (2005: 13).
288 Chapter 14 Evaluation research and experiments
There are two forms of validity in evaluation research:
1. Internal validity: data collection should be free from bias and free from unknown
factors that distort the outcomes under investigation (confounding variables).
2. External validity: the extent to which findings from one evaluation report can be
generalised to a wider population.
It has been suggested, for example, that there is a link between the oral contraceptive
pill and breast cancer but research may suggest that a possible confounder of any rela-
tionship might be cigarette smoking. Women who take the pill are advised not to
smoke but if they ignore this advice it may hide the link between the pill and cancer.
In addition, we might assume that women who take the pill are much more likely to
be sexually active than women who do not. This means that there is a potential link
between breast cancer and increased sexual activity. How do researchers control con-
founding variables? One approach is to restrict the opportunities for confounding vari-
ables to influence the outcome of the research findings. If cigarette smoking is believed
to be a confounding variable in our research we could have a sample made up only of
smokers or a sample made up only of non-smokers. Randomised control trials (RCTs)
involve the allocation of subjects to either a control or treatment group on the basis
of chance within a controlled environment, in order to minimise the influence of
unknown confounding variables on the way researchers measure the relationship
between the treatment and the outcome. If confounding variables are controlled then
any difference between the treatment group and the control group can be assumed to
be an outcome of the intervention.
Definition
The main purpose of evaluation is to collect information to allow decision makers
to choose the best approach from a number of possible alternatives. Evaluation
is a process used to find out the quality or value of something, or to verify the
quality or effectiveness ‘of a program, product, project, process, objective, or
curriculum’ (Worthen and Sanders 1987: 22). For Stufflebeam, evaluation research
is a form of: ‘study designed and conducted to assist some audience to assess an
object’s merit and worth’ (Stufflebeam 2001: 11).
The three main approaches
There are three main approaches of evaluation:
1. Politically-oriented evaluation – the purpose here is not really to make a judgement

about how effective an organisation is performing but to provide a positive image
Evaluation: formative and summative 289
of the organisation. Tom Clancy and General Chuck Horner provide a number of
good examples of such politically-oriented forms of evaluation. For example, after
the 1991 Gulf War (Desert Storm):
‘In the United States, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and each of the service depart-
ments published “Lessons Learned” documents that were in fact advertisements
for individual programs, requirements, or services . . . the so-called “studies”
tended to be self-supporting rather than critical of the agency that sponsored the
work. And too many of the books, monographs, studies, and official documents
misstated the facts, with the aim of salvaging a weapon system, military doctrine,
or reputation whose worth could not otherwise be supported. They were public
relations documents, not clear-eyed honest appraisals, and they were aimed at
influencing the soon-to-come budget reductions and debates over each service’s
roles and missions’ (1999: 501 cited in Stufflebeam 2001: 13–14).
2. Question-oriented evaluation – Stufflebeam (2001) argues that question-oriented
approaches generally begin by asking a set of narrowly defined questions suggested
by a programme’s behavioural or operational objectives or derived from a funding
body’s accountability requirements, or from an expert’s preferred set of evaluative
criteria. The evaluators ask questions to generate information about outcomes,
such as: what is the purpose of the policy or programme? Who is expected to benefit
from the policy or programme? How many people benefit from the policy or the
programme?
3. Value-oriented evaluation, or the ‘humanistic approach’ as it is sometimes known, is
concerned with trying to identify the intrinsic value of a programme, in other words
the value that a programme has in itself. The approach often draws upon Dewey’s
conceptualisation of valuation by looking at a programme from a user-experience
perspective in that the evaluation criteria are shaped by the subjective needs of users,
consumers or clients.
Evaluation: formative and summative

With formative evaluation, evaluators collect information about a programme in order
to help bring about improvement. The evaluators draw attention to what things went
wrong, why things went wrong and how better results can be achieved next time.
Formative evaluation can be both descriptive and/or judgemental in nature.
In the case of teacher evaluation, for example, formative evaluation can help teachers
to develop professionally by assisting them to reflect on their practice and to think
about their teaching strategies. Formative evaluation is often based on a person’s judge-
ment of what is needed to gain professional growth; Nevo (1994) suggests that the
teachers should use evaluation for self-improvement instead of waiting for the LEA or
head teacher to impose it on them.
Summative evaluation is often used to determine how effective a programme is at

achieving its objectives. This kind of evaluation is mainly concerned with accountability.
Summative and formative evaluation can co-exist, but in many cases it is the need for
greater accountability that is most important. However, when professional growth is
included in an evaluation system, evaluation is more effective in meeting the needs of
employees and the organisation in general.
Evaluation: internal and external

External evaluation takes place when central control and guidance for the evaluation
exercise comes from people outside the organisation. The main advantage of using
external forms of evaluation is that they are assumed to be effective in terms of
accountability. It is for this reason that they are popular amongst politicians who have
a policy of improving public services. In the case of Ofsted, for example, there is a
centralised system that prescribes and controls inputs and the practice of evaluation is
highly standardised.
In contrast, internal evaluation is conducted by people who are in the organisation
and it has two main forms:
1. hierarchical internal evaluation – this takes place when the senior staff judge the
skills and abilities of junior staff;
2. self-evaluation – this takes place when individuals look at their own performance
and make a judgement as to how well they perform. This form of evaluation can be
viewed as a mechanism for organisations to improve the quality of what they do
from within.
Many people are uncomfortable or even hostile to evaluation; in the case of teacher
evaluation this has been viewed as a process ‘against teachers rather than for teachers’
(Nevo 1994: 96). This is because such forms of evaluation identify responsibility for
successes and failures by identifying individual teachers and individual schools. Many
teachers view evaluation as an attempt to ‘name and shame’ individual members of staff.
Often teachers are evaluated by observations and this is also a useful tool in evalu-
ation research projects. An inspector makes a few visits to classes to observe, usually
with prior notice, and on the basis of the observation decides if appropriate practices
are employed during the lesson using a checklist or a subjective judgement. Teachers
are easily evaluated in terms of accountability, but they rarely get advice on how to
improve their performance. Many commentators have suggested that employee evalu-
ation should be conducted in a way that could help and support employees and to
improve their practice. One way to achieve that is peer assessment.
With peer assessment a supporting team is responsible for the mutual observation
and help between colleagues; staff members observe each other and make specific
judgements in relation to the aims of the organisation. The process is believed to pro-
vide useful feedback for the employee’s self-evaluation.
Forms of peer assessment that involve collaborative reflection can assist employees
to grow professionally and lead to the development of more effective organisations.
In summary, organisational evaluation can be internal (self-evaluation) or external.
External evaluation is made by people from outside the organisation, usually an inspector-
ate, such as Ofsted that investigates the quality of schools and other publicly funded
education provision. The assumption underpinning an Ofsted inspection is that by
evaluating the quality of teaching and learning within a school, a minimum level of
educational quality is guaranteed. If a school is below the standards, the inspectorate
takes a number of measures that vary from intensive supervision to closing of schools.
In contrast, internal evaluation is made by people from inside the organisation to
encourage a dialogue about priorities, objectives and quality criteria and to discuss
how to achieve those objectives.
However, many commentators have argued that for self-evaluation to be successful
it must be a participative process. In the case of schools, teachers, students and parents
should take part in each stage of the self-evaluation as far as possible.
Thinkpiece
‘Teacher evaluation has been typically viewed from a narrow procedural or
technical perspective that fails to appreciate schools as complex organiza-
tions and systems’ (Davis et al. 2002: 299–300).
What does this statement mean?
Many forms of evaluation research assume that there are layers of conflict within an
organisation because different stakeholders have different perceptions of the role and
purpose of the organisation.
Central features of evaluation research

Evaluation research is a form of applied social research that describes problems and suggests
effective solutions to those problems. Evaluation is about attempting to identify the
value and significance of a programme, policy or initiative. If a policy or programme is
introduced to reduce or remove some pattern of activity that is considered to be prob-
lematic, such as failing schools, then evaluation would involve an investigation of the
policy or programmes in order to made a judgement about its success (or otherwise)
in terms of the achievement of its objectives. This approach is defined by Tilley as:
‘The systematic identification and assessment of effects generated by treatments,

programmes, policies and products’ (2010: 104).
For Tilley (2010) evaluation research is conducted for various reasons:
s TOINFORMPOLICYANDPRACTICE
s TOINFORMRESOURCEALLOCATION
s TOHOLDPOLICYMAKERSACCOUNTABLE
s TOINFORMCONSUMERS
s TOINFORMDECISIONSABOUTPROGRAMMEANDPOLICYCONTINUATION
One issue the evaluator has to face is that of approach. Should they be value free or should
they be an advocate for the programme? Advocacy is where the evaluator takes up the
perspective or standpoint of one or more of the stakeholders within a programme and
looks for evidence to support that perspective. There is an argument that interaction
with people who are being evaluated can undermine the objectivity of the evaluation.
This is based upon the assumption that the evaluator should stay at ‘arm’s length’ because
when distance is sacrificed then so is validity. Biases can include random assertions and
systematic errors, both of which can emerge from personality clashes, personal attrac-
tion, prejudice etc. In addition, the evaluator may make changes to the findings and
judgements within a report to avoid hostile confrontation. However, co-operation is
needed from the people being evaluated in order to get access to the data required.
Methodological approaches
Evaluation research can be qualitative and/or quantitative and there are three broad
methodological approaches to evaluation:
1. ‘Constructivists’ stress qualitative methods and engage in methods that involve

negotiations with stakeholders. The constructivist approach is more philosophical
in nature than many of the other approaches to evaluation, in that it is based upon
subjectivist epistemology that assumes that because individual people create the
social world we should reject the existence of any ultimate reality beyond the world
that people construct. The approach rejects the idea of value-free data collection
in evaluation. Guba and Lincoln (1985 and 1989) lead the way in developing a
constructivist approach to evaluation.
2. The ‘realist’ approach emphasises the presence of various layers of social reality and
these layers that are found within programmes generate causal forces that shape the
outcome of programmes. As such, causal mechanisms are activated by measures
introduced in ways that may not be recognised or acknowledged by the designers of
the programmes.
3. ‘Experimentalists’ stress quantitative methods and interpret programmes as
variables to be isolated with effects to be observed.
Realism
Realism has a number of forms depending on how ‘the real’ is understood. How-
ever, the central assumption in realist approaches is that ‘a world exists independently
of the person’. The two most radically different forms of realism are empiricism and
idealism.
1. For empiricism the real world is composed of discrete entities that are real objects
which can only be accessed through sense data.
2. For idealists the real world can only be understood through a synthesis of sensation
and mental constructs.
Sayer’s approach
For Sayer (2000) many people would accept that the physical world is independent of
our knowledge of it, but would be unwilling to accept that the social world is also
independent. Within the field of education, for example, researchers are highly likely
to come across management or classroom practice that is guided by theory, a situation
that Sayer terms a ‘hall of mirrors’ effect.
Sayer’s conception of critical realism rejects a correspondence theory of truth on the
ground that simple correspondence does not do justice to the complexity of the rela-
tionship between our practical knowledge and our actions in the world. Interpretative
understanding is not simply a matter of attempting to find the one true interpretation
but rather should be seen as an ongoing production process of description and inter-
pretation about the world and how it works. This approach is seen most clearly in the
notion of situated knowledge or standpoint theory. This means that within any organ-
isation there will be tensions between people who have different roles within the
organisation and who have very different perspectives on how the organisation works.
These perspectives have to be explored and evaluated. For Sayer (2000) we have to:
‘understand and negotiate with actors’ accounts, not dismiss them in order to maintain
the purity of what we like to call theory’ (2000: 146).
Traditionally realism drew upon a quasi-experimental form of empirical evaluation.
A closed system of variables was assumed and a treatment, such as a programme or
policy, was tested and its effects were measured. However, programmes and policies
are rarely static in the way that traditional realist evaluation assumed. They are imple-
mented by people and these people will have very different assumptions and ideas
about the value and effectiveness of such programmes or policies.
For Sayer (2000) the real world is often an ambiguous place and individuals often
get things wrong about the world: in other words, people’s ideas are characterised by
their fallibility. However, the assumption that knowledge is fallible does not mean that
all discourse is equally true, valid or adequate to inform practice. From this assumption
it follows that the central characteristic of realism is the idea that the world exists inde-
pendently of our understanding of it. As Sayer (2000) explains:
‘there is no reason to believe that the shift from a flat earth theory to a round earth
theory was accompanied by a change in the shape of the earth itself ’ (2000: 11).
Realists assume that the real world will always be much messier than our theories
about the world. In the social sciences there is an additional complicating factor in that
other people’s theories and ideas about the world are part of the real world and as such
some knowledge exists independently of our understanding of that knowledge.
Critical realism should not simply be an investigation of a simple empirical reality
that we can experience with our senses. All social phenomena are by their nature mean-
ingful and that meaning is one of the factors that helps to shape our perception of the
object, even though such meanings cannot always be measured empirically. Ontology
is a theory of what reality consists of and critical realism is not simply the study of
objects that exist ‘in themselves’, but a study of structures and power relationships.
In other words, critical realism contains a ‘stratified ontology’ in which some power
resources are not fully activated or may even be dormant. From this perspective, expla-
nation building involves identifying the mechanisms that make things happen in the
world and understanding the nature of objects that possess power, how such mechan-
isms work and under what conditions. This way of working draws upon a conception
of verstehen or subjective understanding.
If you remember, verstehen is a technique that helps the researcher to gain access to
the perceptions, motivations and thoughts, etc. of the people they are investigating in
order to gain an understanding of the person’s motives and intentions. Verstehen is
based upon the assumption that it is possible for the researcher to put themselves in
the respondent’s social and cultural context in order to re-construct or ‘re-experience’
the world as they do and attempt to understand the underpinning rationale behind
their thoughts, feelings and motivation in an effort to understand their behaviour.
Outward signs are meaningful in that they mean something to the individual who observes
them in that they allow the observer to grasp their inner meaning. This approach
involves the internalising of behaviour we observe in a given situation and then
attempting to categorise that observed behaviour. In other words, verstehen is used to
say something about the meaning of behaviour that we can directly observe.
Critical realism assumes ‘open systems’ rather than ‘closed systems’ in which con-
text, mechanisms and complexity all potentially influence outcomes.
We can summarise Sayer’s (2000) position by saying that the physical world is real
and exists irrespective of how we conceptualise it, in other words the world is independent
of our knowledge of it. Realists also believe that the social world is independent of
our knowledge of it. In addition for Sayer there is high degree of complexity in the
relationship between our practical knowledge of the world and our social actions.
There is always more than one true interpretation of the world. In evaluation research,
interpretation is always an ongoing process of description and explanation of the
world and how it works. This approach is seen most clearly in politically-oriented
forms of evaluation or standpoint theory where the purpose is not to make objective
judgements about the effectiveness of a policy, programme or how well an organisa-
tion is performing but to provide a positive image of the organisation to people outside
it, such as the general public or government. Within organisations there are tensions
between people who have different perceptions of how the organisation works. In
order to get a full and valid understanding of how organisations work these differing
perspectives have to be identified, explained and evaluated.
Return to the Thinkpiece above, where Davis et al. suggest that:
‘Teacher evaluation has been typically viewed from a narrow procedural or tech-
nical perspective that fails to appreciate schools as complex organizations and
systems’ (2002: 299–300).
What they are suggesting is that there is always more than one true interpretation of
a teacher’s performance. Within schools there is a high degree of complexity in the
relationship between teaching staff, pupils and other stakeholders, which often pro-
duce tensions because stakeholders can have very different perceptions of how the
organisation should and does work. It is for this reason that a valid interpretation of
an organisation needs to identify these differing perceptions, explain where they came
from, how they were formed and evaluate their impact. A teacher may be viewed as
having a poor performance because the person who is making the judgement has a
differing understanding of the role of the teacher.
Applying Sayer’s approach

Sayer’s approach to realism suggests that if you are a researcher writing an evalu-
ation report of an organisation you need to choose methods of data collection
that allow you to gain an understanding of what a range of people think about
the organisation.
Pawson and Tilley’s approach
Pawson and Tilley (1997) ask the question: what are social programmes? Their answer
is that social programmes are social systems that contain all the central elements that
one would expect to find within any social system: interaction between individual
human agents and structure of the institution via a range of micro and macro social
processes. For Pawson and Tilley the key feature of realism is the emphasis on explain-
ing the significance of mechanisms.
For Pawson (1989) underlying mechanisms are the things that connect causal
sequences. He gives the example that children often grow up to have the same social
class position as their parents. We would attempt to identify the underlying mechanisms:
‘by asking about the mechanisms of inheritance that advantaged or disadvantaged

certain groups in acquiring class (occupational) positional positions. One would
theorise about the credential barriers constructed to serve the interests of particular
occupational groups. One could hypothesize how legislation on the inheritance of
wealth and property, favoured or disadvantaged particular groups. One could try
to understand how the changing patterns of opportunities available with techno-
logical and economic change lessened or increased the mobility opportunities of
different groups’ (1989: 74).
In summary, evaluation research using this approach must be concerned with finding
explanations for individual social actions and it is the actions of individuals that
activate generative mechanisms. In turn it is the activation of underlying generative
mechanisms within a given context that brings about or generates change. This means
that we can only make sense of change by understanding how and why individuals
choose to act in the way they do. Generative mechanisms are local to a given and
specific social context. The first stage of evaluation research is to identify clearly the
context in which the social action takes place and the generative mechanisms that
operate within that context.
Pawson and Tilley (1997) stress the importance of understanding four key elements:
1. Embeddedness – we can only make sense of social action by reference to a collec-

tion of shared assumptions. Social programmes cannot be seen as ‘dosages’ of a
uniform treatment that are given to individuals. Individuals may choose to interpret
a programme in ways that the policy makers did not intend. This differing interpre-
tation could be rooted in the differing backgrounds, interests and prejudices of the
individuals concerned.
2. Explanatory mechanisms – ‘mechanisms’ are the causal forces released or inhibited
by programmes. The surface perception of how an organisation works may be a
product of unobserved levels of motive and intent that human agents use to make
sense of the programme. Evaluation research needs to investigate how programmes
may change the human agent’s behaviour, how they may weave together people’s
choices and capacities to bring about outcomes.
3. Contexts – ‘context’ includes the conditions necessary for mechanisms to be activated.
Social programmes are always introduced into and have to operate within pre-existing
contextual conditions. This includes more than just geographical location but a range
of specific, accepted, conventional practices that limit the behaviour of individuals.
4. Outcome – Pawson and Tilley (1997) look at outcomes in terms of the changes
in the programme brought about by the activation of the mechanisms in the con-
textual conditions in which the policy or practice is introduced. They give this the
following shorthand description: Outcome = Mechanism + Context.
Social programmes only generate outcomes if human agents choose to make the pro-
gramme work. From Pawson and Tilley’s perspective unknown confounding variables
are a key element of the ‘context’ and often contain ‘mechanisms’ that facilitate social
action. It is for this reason that Pawson and Tilley support the mixed methods approach
to data collection in evaluation research as confounding variables can often only
Experiments 297
be found by the use of interpretative methods. It is for this reason that international
comparison is often difficult in evaluation research because of the different cultures,
contexts and potential confounding variables in different parts of the world.
Realists attempt to understand what generates the constraints over choice by devel-
oping a range of possible Outcome = Mechanism + Context propositions. For Pawson
and Tilley (1997) the realist approach is then ‘theory driven’. The aim of theory-driven
evaluation is to identify how and why some programmes are effective in particular
circumstances. Without a theory of why a social programme may be effective and a
theory of the context in which human agents choose to make it effective, all evaluation
research would be ineffective. A theoretically justified model of the social problem or
programme has a number of functions to perform within any evaluation exercise: it
informs the rationale for the exercise; it informs the choice of data collection and data
analysis; it can direct the evaluator’s focus to key problems and issues; and it gives an
indication of what the evaluator can expect to find.
The ‘experimentalist’ approach
The ‘experimentalist’ approach assumes that all the relevant variables in relation to a
policy or programme can be controlled and manipulated by the evaluator: in other
words, the world can be held constant to measure the effect of a programme. The
approach aims to have as little ambiguity as possible and the most commonly used
methods of data collection include field experiments and quasi experiments. Ideally
this approach would make use of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that are assumed
to achieve ‘internal validity’ – in that the association between treatment or programme
and effect is clear, unambiguous and can be measured by the use of indicators that
have a numerical value. Individual people should be allocated to experimental and
control groups and then the impact of the treatment is measured. As the evaluation is
conducted under as near as possible to laboratory conditions it is assumed that
researchers are able to make generalisations from the findings to other individuals and
groups in the same circumstances but beyond those sampled.
Experiments
Apart from a number of famous psychology experiments, most social scientists do not
have the opportunity to conduct laboratory experiments. The experiment is regarded as
one of the most valid and reliable methods of data collection because it is an approach
to research in which the researcher attempts to control and manipulate all the relevant
variables in order to identify causal relationships. By doing so researchers can produce
unambiguous findings. Experiments have the added advantage in that well-designed
ones, even with small samples, can generate valid results.
Although most social science research projects do not make use of laboratory experi-
ments, where experimental designs are used they tend to be field or quasi-experiments
rather than laboratory experiments. In quasi-experiments subjects cannot be allocated
randomly to different treatment groups, very often for ethical reasons. One of the long-
running questions in educational research is about nature vs nurture. In other words,
is educational attainment a product of genetics or is it a product of a child’s upbring-
ing? We could take several pairs of identical twins, separate them at birth by placing
one child in a middle-class family and one in a poor family, wait for a number years
and then identify their educational attainments at various points in their lives (e.g. at
age 16, 18 and 22). The more pairs of twins we put through this process the more valid
our results would be. This approach is unethical for a number of reasons. But we could
still conduct a research project addressing the same subject if we could identify identi-
cal twins that had by accident been separated at birth and grown up in very different
circumstances from each other. However, there are many other variables that can affect
educational attainment and as researchers we cannot control and manipulate these
variables in our quasi-experiment. You might want to look at the impact of the school,
peer group, choice of subjects and health of the child for example.
A field experiment also takes place outside of the laboratory, but in this case the
researcher does allocate subjects either to a treatment group or a control group. If we
wanted to test the impact of a particular type of toothpaste on tooth decay in children,
we could allocate one group of children to a treatment group and ask them to use the
toothpaste we give them; the control group would not be given the same toothpaste.
Again it is not possible to control all of the variables. Tooth decay has a number of
causes including diet, number of times a child brushes their teeth, for how long and
their skill at brushing. Also children in both groups might become more conscious of
the importance of brushing their teeth if they are selected as part of the experiment.
As you may recall from Chapter 1, an independent variable is something which the
researcher believes can bring about a change in another variable. A simple experi-
mental design would involve attempting to test the effect of one independent variable
on one dependent variable. The researcher could change the amount or level of the
independent variable in order to measure any degree of change that is caused. Making
changes to the amount or level of an independent variable in order to measure change
in the dependent variable is commonly known as experimental treatment. Most experi-
mental designs will include an experimental group and a control group. Experimental
group members share the same relevant characteristics as the respondents in the con-
trol group. The only difference is that the researchers only apply the experimental treat-
ment to the experimental group and not to the control group. Any changes that we
observe between the two groups over the course of the experiment are assumed to be
caused by the application of the experimental treatment.
The Milgram experiments
Milgram (1963) conducted a series of experiments into obedience that involved a sub-
ject being asked to administer a series of simulated electric shocks to a ‘victim’ as part
Experiments 299
of a learning experiment to identify the effect of punishment on memory. The victim

was a 47-year-old accountant who had been trained for the role by Milgram. Milgram
had a sample of 40 males aged between 20 and 50 from New Haven in the USA. The
primary dependent variable was the maximum electric shock that the subject would
give as punishment before refusing to administer a shock. Manipulation of the subject
could take a number of forms such as the tone of voice used in the commands given
by the experimenter to continue. If a subject refused to give an electric shock, the
experimenter would use a series of verbal ‘prods’ to encourage the subject to continue
giving the shocks, in a tone of voice that Milgram describes as firm but not impolite:
‘Prod 1: Please continue or please go on

Prod 2: The experiment requires that you continue
Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue
Prod 4: You have no other choice, you must go on’ (1963: 374).
If a subject asked if there was a risk of permanent physical harm to the learner from the
shocks, the experimenter responded: ‘Although the shock may be painful, there is no
permanent tissue damage, so please go on’ (Ibid.). If the subject explained that the
learner did not want to continue, the experimenter said: ‘Whether the learner likes it
or not, you must go on until he has learned all of the word pairs correctly. So please
go on’ (Ibid.).
Milgram conducted a survey of psychology students asking for their prediction of
how many people in the sample would be prepared to give the maximum shock. Their
prediction was 1.2 per cent of the sample. The entire sample was prepared to adminis-
ter shocks of up to 300 volts and 26 men (out of 40) from the sample were prepared
to give the maximum shock, which was labelled ‘XXX extremely dangerous’ on the
shock generator, to the learner in the experiment.
Thinkpiece
Were there any variables that could not be controlled and manipulated by
Milgram in the course of these experiments?
Milgram suggested that because the experiments were conducted at Yale University
this could have an influence on the subjects’ behaviour. Also because the aim of
the research, as presented to the subjects, was to improve learning, this may have
also influenced the subjects’ behaviour. The subjects were also paid $4.50 to
participate and again this may have influenced their decision to continue.
In later studies using women as subjects and conducted away from the univer-
sity, doing research in which Milgram claimed was part of a market research
project, he found similar results.
Are there any ethical issues raised by this research project? (Whilst considering
this, keep in mind that all the subjects were volunteers and could have refused to
administer a shock at any time.)
Controlled environments
Experiments conducted in controlled environments such as the laboratory have a

number of advantages. Not only do they have a scientific status but the researcher can
focus on results rather than the motives and intentions of the subjects. The method can
establish unambiguous causal relationships between treatment and outcome. However,
causal relationships are often suggested rather than proved. What we usually find is
some form of constant conjunction, which means that we observe one event followed by
another. On a cold day water can freeze; we assume that because the cold weather came
first and the water froze second that a causal relationship exists but in social science
research we can never be as sure of such a causal link.
In the natural sciences such external factors can often be controlled. If we wanted to
test the impact of heat on a metal bar, it would not be that difficult to control all the
other variables. It is also important to remember that even in the natural sciences,
researchers have to clearly identify and describe the variables they are going to use.
Inadequate operationalisation of variables will affect the validity of findings. Finally,
in both the natural sciences and the social sciences researchers still have to choose
appropriate indicators for the variables that they use.
The Hawthorne effect
From 1927 until 1932 Mayo and colleagues conducted a series of studies at the
Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company. Over the five-year period there
were three distinct phases of the research: experiment; interview; and observation.
The company were interested in identifying the level of lighting within the factory
that would allow workers to perform at their most efficient. It was found that all
experimental changes to the environment, including reducing the light levels, resulted
in an increase in productivity. Mayo and colleagues eventually came to the conclusion
that the sample of people selected for the experiment were made to feel special by
being selected for the study and it was this rather than changes to the work environ-
ment that was the significant factor in increasing their productivity. The Hawthorne
effect, as it became known, is not unique to experiments. It can affect any sample of
people selected for participation in a research project. As a researcher you need to
reflect upon the effect that our research has on helping to shape the responses that we
get from our sample.
Summary and report writing

Experimental evaluation research attempts to find causal relationships between vari-
ables, with the treatment or intervention as the independent variable and the outcome
as the dependent variable. Drug trials for example often take this form of design. After
taking some baseline research to make sure that all the people in the sample have no
underpinning condition that might affect the outcome, individuals are allocated to a
treatment group or a control group. Ideally the trial should be blind in that the researcher
should have no idea which group is which. Any changes in the treatment group can be
assumed to be caused by the treatment or intervention. There are however practical,
ethical and epistemological problems with conducting such forms of research in the
social sciences. Allocating individuals to one group rather than another is often
impractical as people from the control group and the treatment group may meet each
other and contamination may take place. Factors other than the treatment may
influence people’s actions and the outcomes. Finally, there is the possibility of the
Hawthorne effect; people may change their behaviour because they are part of a
research project.
To judge the effectiveness of a programme or intervention the research needs
clearly to define effectiveness and needs to choose appropriate indicators for the
effectiveness of the variables used. In the social sciences behavioural objectives are not
so easy to define or measure. Also we have to keep in mind evaluation research takes
place within a moral and political context. If we wanted to investigate if a policy or
programme was effective in reducing social exclusion, for example, the definition
of the variable (social exclusion) and the choice of indicators of its effectiveness will be
highly politicised.
Writing an evaluation report

Many of the examples of evaluation research discussed in this chapter are very large
projects funded by research bodies and conducted by large groups of experienced
researchers. However, this does not mean that you cannot conduct an evaluation
research project. From the largest and most ambitious projects to the most small-scale
undergraduate projects there is a basic structure that you must follow to obtain valid
and reliable data within a well-designed research project. Evaluation research is a suit-
able approach to adopt if you are interested in making an informed judgement or
appraisal of an organisation, team, policy or programme on the basis of data you have
collected. Once you have identified what it is that you want to evaluate and you have
a clear idea of what the thing you want to evaluate is aiming to achieve you are in a
position to complete a piece of evaluation research. In the section that follows there
are a number of clearly defined steps that the lone researcher can take to successfully
complete a piece of evaluation research.
How to write an evaluation report

Title
The title should provide the reader with an indication of the content of the report
and any sub-title you use should provide a short-hand description of the issues
addressed.
Abstract or executive summary
The abstract or executive summary is an abbreviated version of the report; a
concise synopsis of the main points that the report addresses. An academic
evaluation research project published in an academic journal would usually
contain an abstract whilst a piece of evaluation research commissioned by an
organisation would normally contain an executive summary. The abstract is
usually 250 to 300 words in length, whilst an executive summary would
normally be 900 to 1000 words. In both cases the summary is useful for people
who need to know what your research is about but who are undecided as to
whether they need to read it. The summary is also useful for people who do not
need to know all of the details within the report but who do need to know the
content. In both cases the researcher needs to summarise the main points from
the evaluation including the main findings, the rationale or reason for doing
the research, the methods of data collection and data analysis used and any
recommendations.
Introduction
In the introduction the researcher has to identify briefly the purpose of the report.
Included in the introduction is the rationale or reason for doing the research.
There should also be a list of the aims and objectives of the research project, a
description of what is being evaluated and the context in which the policy,
organisation or initiative that is being evaluated operates.
Evaluation in general involves making a judgement about performance
against key performance indicators. If your evaluation research project also
involves making such a judgement then the performance indicators should be
listed in the introduction.
The methods of data collection and data analysis
In evaluation research researchers are expected to produce valid interpretations
of the information collected by the use of a credible and reliable methodology,
often using multiple data sources. Provide the reader with a justification for why
you chose the methods of data collection and data analysis that you did. This can
include a description of the methods used (focus groups, questionnaires, inter-
views etc.) and an outline of the reasons why you feel these are the most appro-
priate methods to use. Give an outline of whom you collected data from and
details of any sampling from a wider population that you may have conducted
with details of the sampling procedure, sampling frame used etc. If you follow
Pawson and Tilley’s advice and use a combination of quantitative and qualitative
methods of data collection explain why you use the combination of methods
that you do. If, for example, you choose to use questionnaires and interviews,
explain why you used them. Do not give a list of advantages and disadvantages
of each method but explain why that combination of methods was the most suit-
able for the issues you needed to address.
A full and clear outline of the methodology used in the report will give the
report a feeling of both validity and reliability.
Research findings
In this section of the report the researcher provides an outline of what informa-
tion the data collection process has uncovered. It is common to present quantita-
tive data in the form of tables, frequency distributions, graphs and/or charts to
support the description of the findings in words.
Qualitative data is usually presented in a separate set of paragraphs that make
use of descriptive themes with observations made or quotes from respondents to
emphasise the most important themes.
Analysis and discussion
Describe the meaning, significance and implications of the findings. In order
to do this effectively you may want to discuss how your findings are similar to
or different from other research conducted in similar situations or addressing
the same issues. The use of other people’s research to highlight the main
points in the discussion will add to the validity of your project. When researchers
discuss their findings in relation to other people’s research in the field they
have to conduct a literature review and the purpose of the review is to evaluate
trustworthy research and draw appropriate conclusions about its meaning and
significance.
Conclusion
The concluding statement includes a summary of what the research has found
and is where you draw an appropriate inference; explain how and why your
understanding of the meaning and significance of the findings is the appropriate
one.
It is not uncommon for an evaluation research project to make recommenda-
tions in relation to the issues that have been addressed in the research project.
Recommendations should be based directly upon the findings presented in the
main body of the report and the conclusions of the completed research project
and be fully supported by thorough and reasoned analysis.
Finally, present a full and complete bibliography.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have looked at the nature of evaluation and evaluation research. In
most cases the approach to evaluation research is reasonably straightforward. We look
at the aims and objectives of an element (e.g. a policy, programme, person’s role
within an organisation or the organisation itself ) and then collect data to make a judge-
ment about how well or how badly the element is performing. The difficult part of
evaluation research is trying to explain why performance is good, bad or indifferent
and this involves trying to identify those factors (what Pawson and Tilley call mechan-
isms) that shape performance.
Should Erica consider conducting a piece of evaluation research?

Erica understands that qualitative and quantitative methodologies have advan-
tages and for this reason she is considering using a mixed methods approach in
her research project.
She is still keen on the idea that her research project should take the form of
structured ethnography and she cannot wait to say in the methodological justifica-
tion of her project that according to Johnson and Gray (2010):
within a mixed methods approach there should be an emphasis on continua
rather than a set of dichotomies; a mixed methods approach involves replacing
binaries with continua.
This sounds really clever but what does this mean? She thinks it means that in
her project it is not the case that there is a simple dichotomy between on the one
hand a zoo that has no education and information for visitors on biodiversity
and sustainability, and on the other a zoo that changes people who know noth-
ing about biodiversity and sustainability into experts. There is no simple black
and white answer to this issue: everything is going to be in shades of grey.
She is concerned that her project may not have a clear focus. A piece of evalu-
ation research should give her the focus she is looking for.
Her initial reading of the various inspection reports, policy documents and
other documentary material should give her a clear idea of what provision zoos
should offer. She can write a list of things one would reasonably expect a zoo to
offer in order to fulfil its legal obligations. She could then choose one zoo and
use the information collected from the inspection reports, policy documents, etc.
as the starting point for an instrumental case study in which she will evaluate
how successfully the zoo fulfils its obligations.
She could conduct a series of structured interviews with zoo employees who
do a range of different jobs at the zoo to find out how they interpret the zoo’s
#JCMJPHSBQIZ 305
obligation. The attitudes and opinions of different staff may act as a help or a
hindrance to the zoo fulfilling its legal obligations. It would be interesting to find
out if the marketing manager has the same interpretation of the zoo’s obligations
as the people who directly care for the animals.
She can also conduct a questionnaire with visitors leaving the zoo to find out
if they feel the zoo has fulfilled its legal obligations and follow this up with
in-depth interviews and observations to get an understanding of what people
think and feel about the quality of the education and information on biodiversity
and sustainability they received during their visit.
Bibliography
Davis, D.R., Ellett, C.D. and Annunziata, J. (2002) ‘Teacher evaluation, leadership and
learning organizations’, Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 16: 287–301.
Guba, E.G. and Lincoln, Y.S. (1981) Effective evaluation, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Guba, E.G. and Lincoln, Y.S. (1989) Fourth generation evaluation, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Johnson, R. and Gray, R. (2010) ‘A history of philosophical and theoretical issues for
mixed methods research’ in A. Tashakkori and C. Teddlie (eds) Sage Handbook of
Mixed Methods in Social & Behavioral Research, California: Sage, pp. 69–94.
Lincoln, Y.S. and Guba, E.G. (1985) Naturalistic inquiry, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Mayo, E. (1949) Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company, The Social Problems of an
Industrial Civilisation, London: Routledge.
Milgram, S. (1963) ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’, Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology, 67(4): 371–8.
Nevo, D. (1994) ‘How Can Teachers Benefit from Teacher Evaluation?’, Journal of
Personnel Evaluation in Education, 8(2): 87–98.
Pawson, R. (1989) A Measure for Measures: A Manifesto for Empirical Sociology, London:
Routledge.
Pawson, R. and Tilley, N. (1997) ‘An Introduction to Scientific Realist Evaluation’, in
E. Chelimsky and W.R. Shadish (eds) Evaluation For the 21st Century: A Handbook,
London: Sage.
Sayer, A. (2000) Realism and Social Science, London: Sage.
Smith, S., Sinclair, D., Raine, R. and Reeves, B. (2005) Health Care Evaluation, Milton
Keynes: Open University Press.
Stufflebeam, D.L. (2001) ‘Evaluation Models’, New Directions for Evaluation, 89: 7.
Tilley, N. (2010) ‘Realistic evaluation and disciplinary knowledge: applications from
the field of criminology’, in J. Vaessen and F. Leeuw (eds) Mind The Gap: Evaluation
and the Disciplines, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Worthen, B.R. and Sanders, J.R. (1987) Educational evaluation: Alternative approaches and
practical guidelines, New York: Longman.
15 Successfully
completing the
research project
Introduction
Writing up is an important part of the research process. Moreover, if the researcher
allows the respondents to comment on drafts and correct statements and/or add material
the writing up process can be seen as part of data collection and data analysis. Writing
is still the most popular method by which researchers communicate with their academic
audience. Research findings do not speak for themselves; it is up to the researcher to
communicate the findings in a clear, coherent and persuasive manner. It is for this
reason that in the writing up the researcher has to use arguments to persuade the reader
that the research project’s findings are valid, reliable and important. Many people do
not like the writing up stage of the research process, often because they do not like their
voice or writing style: they feel uncomfortable reading their own words in their own
voice. One way to get around this issue is to draft and re-draft your work until you feel
happy and comfortable with what you have written. This all sounds like very good
advice but proof reading, rereading and redrafting your work is time consuming and
not very interesting.
It may take you one week to read a book and you may mistakenly think that it
took the author only a week to write it. This is very rarely the case as even the most
experienced of authors have to draft and re-draft their work. Do not feel that using the
computer’s grammar check, thesaurus and spell check is a form of cheating because it
is not. Word-processing packages provide these facilities in order to help you improve
your writing. The grammar check will allow you to use the full range of punctuation
forms including the comma, semi-colon, colon and full stop.
You also need to think about the readership. If possible you should motivate them
to read your research, they have to want to turn the page. But how do you do this? Give
some thought to the construction of paragraphs. A well-written paragraph should
open with a thesis statement; a sentence that explains the message or the content of the
paragraph. The sentences that follow contain the justification for the point made in
308 Chapter 15 Successfully completing the research project
the initial sentence. When you have explained and justified the thesis statement the
paragraph comes to an end and a new one begins.
If you are doing your research project as part of an assessment your report must meet
the assessment criteria. I am always amazed when students do not present a conclusion
or bibliography and therefore fail to get all the marks they could have achieved for
their work.
The structure of the report

There are a number of ways you can present your work but most dissertations have the
following structure.
Title page
The title of the research project should give the reader a clear outline of the content of
the project. This page is also where you give your name.
Abstract
The abstract should provide a concise summary of the issue that the research project
addresses, the population under investigation, the main methods of data collection
and data analysis used. There should also be an outline of the main findings and the
conclusions reached. In an assessed piece of work you will be given a word limit for
the abstract but 300 words is a common length.
Introduction
In the introduction you should provide the reader with an outline of the nature of the
study, a brief account of how your research project fits into other research in the area
and the approach that you intend to take. You can give the reader an indication of your
perspective; are you conducting the research from a feminist, Marxist or postmodern-
ist perspective for example? Is the project an evaluation in which your concluding
statement is going to make some recommendations for improving practice? This will
provide a justification for why the project is important. A rationale for the study is also
something that can be provided in the introduction. The rationale can include your
personal reasons for wanting to complete the research project. I like to read personal
reflexive statements from authors as this helps me to understand more fully the
perspective they are adopting and why.
The structure of the report 309
Literature review
The literature review should provide a critical evaluation of research in the area
that you are investigating. It is a good idea to think of the literature review as an
essay about your research project in which you outline and evaluate the most
important contributions to the research in the area you are investigating. The
evaluation should include a discussion of the different theoretical positions adopted
by the most influential researchers in the area; any criticism you may have of their
work; and the contradictions, flaws and anomalies that the research contains. This
will allow you to place your research project within the context of other research in
the field.
Group information that has a similar theme together and make connections
between the works of different authors.
Methodology
In this section you need to give a justification for the data collection and data analysis
methods you are going to use. The discussion needs to be specifically about your
research project. If you have decided to collect data by the use of a questionnaire do
not simply list the advantages and disadvantages of questionnaires in general. Explain
to the reader why a questionnaire was the most effective approach to adopt. This dis-
cussion could also include an account of other methods that you could have adopted
and the reasons why you chose not to use them. It is also useful to include a justifica-
tion for the questions that you ask. Explain to the reader why each question has been
asked and what data you hope to collect from the answers given. The justification for
the choice of questions can make reference to the literature that you have cited in the
literature review. Explain what the questions are expected to measure. The discussion
will make it clear in the mind of the reader as to how you made the connection
between your variables and chosen indicators; in other words how you operationalised
your variables.
The discussion of your methodology will give the reader the impression that the
methodology is both valid and reliable. Many students give a very full definition of
validity and reliability in their methodology section. This is not wrong, but it is not
always necessary. The purpose of the methodological justification is to explain to the
reader that your chosen research methodology is valid and reliable, not that you know
how to define validity and reliability. For a research project to be regarded as reliable
there needs to be enough information given to the reader about the methods of data
collection and data analysis to allow a reader to follow your footsteps and replicate
your research project.
The methodology section is also the place where you explain your sampling
procedure. Explain why you selected that particular group of people to investigate.
Explain if you have used a sampling frame, and if you have used a form of random
sampling, why you chose the sampling interval you did. Be honest with the reader
about problems you encountered with the sampling process and how you overcame
those problems.
Analysis and discussion of findings
The findings are simply what you found out, basically a description of the data
collected. The findings can be presented as graphs, tables and/or words. The analysis
of the data is a commentary where you interpret and explain the meaning and signifi-
cance of the findings. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to show how your
findings relate to other research in the field.
On the basis of your literature review you can probably make some informed predic-
tions of what you are going to find. If you find what you expected to find on the basis
of the arguments presented by other, more experienced, published researchers in the
field then that is fine. You simply explain that your findings support the findings of
researchers X, Y and Z. In contrast, if your findings are completely at odds with such
researchers then that is fine as well. Again you have to explain why your findings are
so very different from those of other researchers. This is where you as a researcher have
to become creative and think of an explanation that justifies the difference in a con-
vincing manner. If you can do this effectively then potentially you could make a new
contribution to knowledge.
It is more likely that you will find some things you expected to find and some things
that you did not expect to find. This will be reflected in the discussion you present. It
is also common for the findings to support one group or school of researcher, or one
perspective or position, rather than another. Again this should be reflected in the dis-
cussion you present.
Conclusions
This part of the project is where you get the opportunity to present an answer to the
question you have set yourself in the research project. It is common for researchers to
give a summary of their main findings.
One approach that is useful is to present the aims of the research project that you
outlined in the introduction, perhaps as a short list of bullet points, and briefly explain
to the reader whether each of them was achieved. If a aim was not achieved, this does
not reflect badly on the quality of your work but it does give you an opportunity to
explain to the reader the reason.
With the value of hindsight, many researchers give a short account of how they would
have done the research differently if they were starting the research project again. This allows
the researcher to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the research project without being
unnecessarily self-critical. This approach will allow you to frame your reflection positively.
It is common practice not to include ‘new’ material or additional findings in the
concluding statement. Most researchers do not include in the conclusion any statement
of fact that has not been included in the main body of the report.
Referencing 311
Bibliography
The bibliography is a full and complete list of all the sources you have cited in the
report. The list is alphabetical on the basis of the author’s family name. In terms of
books, the author’s family name is followed by their initials, the date of publication in
brackets, the title of the book, the place of publication and the name of the publisher.
For journal articles, you give the authors’ family names and for co-authored papers/
articles, with each name followed by their initials, date of publication in brackets, title
of the paper/article, and name of the journal, volume number, issue number and page
numbers. With sources drawn from the internet, you give the authors’ family names
and if these are not given you give the name of the organisation that hosts the website
where the article/paper is found, date of publication in brackets if known (or the date
when you accessed the webpage), title if known, name of the publisher if known and
finally the website URL.
Referencing
Keep a record of the names of authors, dates, titles, page numbers, publishers and
places of publication. All the authors you cite in the report have to be included in a full
and complete bibliography at the end of the report. With assessed work, such as a
thesis or dissertation, a number of marks will be given for clear referencing and a full
and complete bibliography.
How do you reference a book? If you report in your own words something that
you have read in a book this is known as paraphrasing. The first stage in the para-
phrase is to write a passage in one or two sentences that gives an account of what
you want to say from the book you have read. After the passage but before the full
stop at the end of the sentence you give the author’s family name and date of publica-
tion in brackets. At the end of the report you give full bibliographic details of the
publication.
If you are quoting from a book you need to place a colon (:) at the end of the last
sentence before the quotation. After the quote in brackets you give the author’s family
name, date of publication and page number followed by a full stop.
Example
Social class has had a significant impact on educational outcomes:
‘Over the course of the twentieth century in the United Kingdom the social
class background of a child has had a significant impact on examination
performance’ (Smith 1999: 34).
How do you reference a quote that is a quote you have read in a textbook? You follow
the same steps as the example above except that within the brackets you need to add
cited in and give the family name of the textbook author, date of publication and page
number from the textbook.
Example
Social class has had a significant impact on educational outcomes:
performance’ (Smith 1999: 34 cited in Murphy 2002: 63).
How do you reference a book or journal article written by several authors? Follow the
approach above but by convention it is customary to give the family name of the lead
author followed by the words ‘et al.’ which is a Latin phrase meaning ‘and others’.
Example
So using the example above but this time assuming that Smith is the lead author,
your citation should read as follows.
Social class has had a significant impact on educational outcomes, as Smith
et al. explains:
performance’ (Smith et al. 1999: 34 cited in Murphy 2002: 63).
In the bibliography you need to give the family names of all the authors of the
publication.
You may find that your argument flows better and your voice is clearer if you para-
phrase rather than have a succession of quotes.
In all assessed work in higher education there will be some marks awarded for
referencing and bibliography. It is good practice to look at how authors reference the
books and papers they cite. The system I have outlined above is known as the Harvard
reference system and this is one of the most common systems to use. The main point
is to use only one system in your dissertation or research report. So do not shift from
the Harvard reference system, giving the family names of authors and dates of publica-
tion in brackets after a quote or paraphrase, to a system of footnotes and endnotes on
another page.
It is important to reference as clearly as you can because if you do not you may find
that you are accused of plagiarism. As you may recall from Chapter 3, plagiarism is a
Where and when to start the writing up 313
form of intellectual theft in which a person attempts to claim another person’s words
and/or ideas as their own. If you engage in plagiarism you will be punished by your
university.
Where and when to start the writing up

In the introduction to this book several important stages in the planning and execution
of any research project were identified:
s DElNETHEPROBLEMYOUWANTTOINVESTIGATE
s SEARCHTHERELEVANTLITERATURE
s IDENTIFYTHEMETHODSOFDATACOLLECTIONANDDATAANALYSISTOBEUSED
s IDENTIFY THE POPULATION TO INVESTIGATE AND THINK ABOUT HOW TO SAMPLE THE
population;
s REmECTONTHEETHICALCONSIDERATIONSOFTHERESEARCHPROJECTnSEEKETHICALAPPROVAL
s DRAWANAPPROPRIATEINFERENCE
s PLAN YOUR TIME SO THAT ENOUGH TIME IS ALLOCATED TO WRITING UP AND REPORTING THE STUDY
Looking at this list it is clear that you do not have to start the writing up by completing
the introduction first and writing up the conclusion last. Moreover you can begin
writing up even before data collection has begun. You can start with any section you
wish. Many people make a draft of the literature review before they choose the method
of data collection in order to see what other relevant research projects have used as the
preferred methods of data collection and data analysis. The review will also help the
researcher develop a clearer focus about the aims of the research project and what can
be achieved. Gaps in the knowledge of the area and anomalies in other people’s
research can also generate research questions.
Finally, you can look at the justifications given in the literature for the methods of
data collection and data analysis that could be used in your project. Look at the samp-
ling procedures used and the justifications given for the sampling process.
Importantly, the literature will also give you an insight into how arguments are
developed and deployed. Look in particular at arguments you find convincing, try
and identify the rhetorical devices used by the authors and the way they present their
points.
Learn how to write a succinct summary or précis. A shorter, condensed précis is very
effective at improving your writing style. This skill will help you to write a better litera-
ture review and help you edit your own writing if you are going over the word limit for
your report.
Also understand the value of the folio. It is possible to make a short statement in
one or two sentences that summarises the main point of several pieces of research. The
folio is a list of authors and dates of publication that follow that statement in brackets.
Example
‘In the 1960s it was commonly assumed that the social class position of parents
affected performance of their children in the 11+ examination’ (Absent 1964,
Smith 1965, Jones 1966, Rose 1967).
This approach has the additional benefit of making your writing read like a continuous
text, with one voice and a clear argument rather than a list of short summaries.
And all that is left is to wish you good luck!
Index
Abel, T. 121 Aronson, E. 22

abstract concepts 81, 241–2 assessment criteria for research 2, 41
abstracts of research 43, 302, 308 asynchronous interviews 90
academic journals and journal articles 42–4, Atkinson, P. 118–19, 127–8, 136
54 attrition 251
action research 10–11, 119–20 audience research 192
active discourse 197 audit 12
active listening 160 authenticity of documents 180
active reading 41–2 autobiographical research 159–62, 165–8,
actor-network theory 180–1 175
Adenekan, S. 50 autobiography
Advertising Standards Authority 69 collective 160
advocacy 292 fabricated 168
agency, human 163, 165 auto-ethnography 160
aggregate data 60 autonomy of research subjects 28
Ahn, W. 227 ‘average’, avoidance of term 206–7
Ainscow, M. 102, 105, 109 axial coding 198
Alder Hey Hospital 21, 29–30
Alderson, P. 27 Baldamus, V. 224
Alfred, Randall H. 150 Baltes, P. 123
Ali, Abdula Ahmed 172 Barker, E. 189, 268
Allison, Graham 95, 100 Barthes, R. 184–5, 197
Allport, G. 191 Beauchamp, T.L. 22
analysis of data 14, 81–4, 107–8, 152–3, Beaulieu, A. 134
174–5, 310; see also content analysis; Beck, U. 163
conversation analysis; discourse analysis; Becker, H. 102–3, 160, 268
meta-analysis; narrative analysis; negative ‘behavioural maxims’ (Abel) 121
case analysis; secondary analysis; Beilin, R. 195–6
thematic content analysis Berelson, B. 185–6
analytic induction 174 Berger, C.Q. 190
‘analytic strategy’ (Jorgensen) 152 Berkun, M.M. 22
analytical social surveys 258–9 Bernstein, B. 101
Ang, I. 191–3 Berry, M. 188
Angelides, P. 105 Bertaux, D. 165–6
Angell, R.C. 160 Best, S. 5, 171
Angst, D.B. 60 Bhavnani, Kum-Kum 10
‘anthropological strangeness’ 118–19 bias on the part of researchers 76, 78, 82, 86,
arithmetic mean 82, 207–9 91, 106, 111, 144, 148, 278, 292
316 Index
bibliographies 53–4, 311–12 category errors 86

Biesta, C.J.J. 272 category knowledge 228
biographical research 159–69, 175 Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey
advantages of 165–6 Research (CCSR) 69
Blanchflower, David 70 ‘causal adequacy’ (Weber) 121, 142
Bloxham, D. 169 causal associations and mechanisms 226–8
Blumer, H. 160, 164, 214 census data 68
Bok, S. 148–9 central tendency, identification of 82, 206–7,
Booth, Charles 234, 259 211
Bourdieu, Pierre 270 Chadwick, B.A. 148
Bowers, W.J. 50 Chambers, R. 190
Bowley, Arthur 234, 259 chance occurrences 216–17
brain function 194 Cheng, P.W. 226
Brannen, J. 87 children as research subjects 27, 35
Brewer, J. 140 Chow, M.Y.K. 274
Brin, Sergey 46 Cicourel, A.V. 65, 76, 214–15
Brinkmann, S. 78 citations 53–4
British Crime Survey 63 ‘civic imagination’ concept 199
British Educational Research Association Clancy, Tom 289
24–5, 27, 35 Clarke, L. 24
British Election Survey 258 classification of raw data 210
British Social Attitudes Survey 69 closed questions 79–82, 229, 235, 251–2,
British Sociological Association 28 257
Brody, J.L. 21–2 cluster sampling 238
Brookfield, S. 103–4 codebooks 229
Brotsky, S.R. 151 codes of conduct for research 19–21, 24–30,
Bryman, A. 175, 276 35
Bulmer, M. 148 ‘codes’ used in communication 181, 184
Burgess, R. 148, 188–9 coding of data 152–3
Buring, J.E. 226 collective autobiography 160
collective stories 279–80
Callon, M. 180–1 Collier, J. 193–4
cancer 226–7 Collier, M. 193–4
Carrier, K. 33 ‘communicative discourse’ (Habermas) 197
Cartwright, A. 253 community, definition of 143
case studies 95–112 completeness of a text 172–4
aim of 98 completion of a research project 307–14
combined with documentary research composite measurement 212–13
198–9 conceptual instruments for producing
criticisms of 106–7, 112 statistics 65
purpose of 95–6, 112 conclusions of research, writing-up of 310
styles 98–101 confidentiality 27–8, 35, 89
types 97–8 Connell, R.W. 175
see also negative case analysis connotative materials 184
Cassell, J. 148 consent forms 22–3, 26, 35
categorisation of data 228 construct validity 109
reasons for 214–16 constructivist approach to evaluation 292
Index 317
constructs 194 Deatrick, J.A. 60

content analysis 85, 185–8, 200; see also deception in research practice 22, 148–51,
thematic content analysis 168
‘context of discovery’ and ‘context of Deckert, G.D. 50
justification’ (Reichenbach) 3–4 deductive reasoning 223
contextual pressures on behaviour 121 deductive research 3, 270
controlled environments 300 ‘definition of the situation’ 132
convenience sampling 88 DeFranco, J. 275
conversation analysis 152 degradation of data 215
Cook, T. 267 Delta Airlines 149
Cooley, C.H. 142 denotative materials 184
Cooper, N. 122–3 Denzin, N.K. 96, 161
Corbin, J. 198, 276 deontological theories of ethics 28–9
correlation 226–9 dependent variables 12, 216–17, 298
covert research 13, 35, 117, 119, 129, 133–4, deprivation 255–6
144–50 descriptive case studies 98–100
advantages and disadvantages of 148–9 descriptive social surveys 258–9
Cowton, C. 60 deviant data 111
Coxon, A. 190 Dewey, John 289
Crain, M.A. 84–5 Dewey system of decimal classification 45
‘creative analytic practices’ 277, 280 dialogical listening 159–60
credibility of documents 180 diary-keeping 188–90, 200
Crenshaw, M. 173 as a method of data collection 189–90
Creswell, J.W. 110, 269, 273–4 Diesing, P. 152–3
crime statistics 63, 65, 73 Dingley, James 10
critical incident research 103–6 discourse, definition of 129
‘critical realism’ (Sayer) 293–4 discourse analysis 129–30, 166
Crompton, R. 267–8 documentary methods of data collection 164,
crystallisation 277–82 179–200
as a methodological framework 281–2 Douglas, J. 65
Cuban missile crisis 100 ‘dramaturgical’ work 118
Cullity, G. 29 Durkheim, E. 61–2, 64, 179
culture as a system of communication 182
Earle, S. 133
Dallas 191–2 eating disorders see pro-ana websites
Dalton, D.R. 60 eclecticism, methodological 271
data archives 68–9 Economic and Social Data Service 68, 71
data collection 5, 13–14, 28, 34–5, 60, Edgell, S. 248
100, 107, 152, 161–2, 228; see also educational research 11, 119–20, 289–90,
documentary methods of data collection 293, 295
data protection 25, 27 Elia, A. 52
data sets 63–4 elicitation techniques 193–7
data transformation 215, 268 Ellington, L.L. 279, 281
databases 63 Elwood, M. 226
Davis, D.R. 295 email interviewing 90–1
Dawes, R.M. 211 embeddedness 296
De Almeida, M.H. 260–2 emic perspective 101–2
318 Index
emotional labour 149 feeling states 222

‘emotional syllogisms’ 121 femininity 132
empirical probability 217–18 feminist research 7, 9–10, 167
empiricism 293 Fetterman, D. 127
energisation of practices 131 fiction and fictional characters 124, 129,
‘equivalence of stimuli’ 82 167–70, 191–2
Erben, M. 163 field experiments 298
erklären 123 field notes 153–4
errors field research 126–7
random and non-random 110, 218 field tests 252
systematic 210 Fieldhouse, R. 164–5
ethical issues 14, 19–36, 89, 96, 105, 112, Fielding, N. 77, 277
118–19, 127–8, 133–5, 146–50, 169, Fielding, J. 277
175 Fink, A. 11, 40
ethical statements 34–5 Flanagan, J.C. 103
ethics ‘creep’ 26 Flaubert, Gustave 124
ethics committees 13, 23–4, 26, 35 Fleming, V. 107
ethnocentricity 126 Fletcher, Joseph 34
ethnographic research 13–14, 19–20, 28, 60, Flick, U. 277
99, 112, 117–37, 267 flight attendants 149
authenticity of 125–6 focus groups 89
online 133–6 folios 313
ethnography, definition of 117–18 Fook, J. 104
etic perspective 102 Foote Whyte, William 95–6, 98–100, 110,
evaluation research 282, 287–304 124
central features of 291–7 Forester, J. 197
experimental 300–1 formative evaluation 289
formative and summative 289–90 Foucault, Michel 8–9, 129–30, 161, 278
internal and external 290–1 frame problem 187
question-oriented and value-oriented 289 Freedman, R. 160
reports on 301–3 frequency distributions 206
Expenditure and Food Survey 66–7 frequency of events 217
experimentalism 292, 297 Freud, Sigmund 162
experiments 297–300 Friedlander, Saul 280
explanation-building 83–5, 99, 108, 112, Fullagar, Simone 7
189, 198, 226–8 ‘funnel’ approach to research 87, 243
explanatory case studies 100–1
external audit 112 Gajadhar, J. 50–1
Garfinkel, Harold 95, 160
Fabrigar, L.R. 252 Garton, L. 134
face validity 112, 145 Gauntlett, D. 192
facilitators 89 Gavron, H. 244–5, 248
Faden, R.R. 22 generalisation
Fairclough, N. 130 empirical and theoretical 162
Falklands War 188 problem of 169–70
falsification 24 ‘genres of discourse’ (Lyotard) 279
Family Expenditure Survey 66 Giddens, A. 162–3
Index 319
Giles, D. 151 Holocaust research 280–1

Glaser, B.G. 99, 174, 180, 197 Homan, R. 148–9
Glasgow University Media Group homosexuality, research on 30–4, 36
(GUMG) 186–8, 192 Horner, Chuck 289
Goffman, Erving 31, 118, 120, 124, 141, 282 Howe, K.R. 271
‘going native’ 110, 128–9 ‘humanistic coefficient’ (Znaniecki) 143
Goodley, Dan 8 humour research 275–6
Google 46 Humphreys, Laud 30–4, 36, 119, 145
Gray, D.E. 249 Hursthouse, R. 29
Gray, J.A. 168 Hussain, Tanveer 171–2
Gray, R. 273 hypotheses 3, 12, 216
Graydon, Clare 4
Griffin, John Howard 146–7 idealism 293
grounded theory 98–9, 106, 112, 174, 197, imposition problem 126
276 imputation 250
Gruber, H.E. 153 independent variables 12, 216–17, 298
Gtunder, T.M. 22–3 index measurement 211–12
Guba, E.G. 292 indicators, identification of 12, 41–2, 213,
Guernica 124 241–2
Gunter, Helen 11, 40 individualisation, theories of 163
individuals, research focus on 162
Habermas, J. 197 inductive reasoning 223
Hafez, M.M. 173 inductive research 3, 270
Hagger-Johnson, G. 229 inference 15, 41, 81, 99, 107–8, 122,
Haggerty, K. 26 222–30
Hakim, C. 60, 71 appropriateness of 228
Hall, E. 193 complete 222–3
Hammersley, M. 127–8, 135–6 deductive 224
Harding, S. 86 definition of 223
Harper, D. 194, 196–7 descriptive 124–5
Harrington, A. 122 inductive 224–5
Harris, R. 47 as informed speculation 140–1
Harris, V.W. 83, 89 statistical 217
Harvard system of referencing 52–3, 312 informed consent 14, 20–4, 26, 30, 34–5,
Hawthorne effect 300–1 148–51
Heaton, J. 59 Institute of Community Studies 234, 240–9,
Hennekens, C.H. 226 269
hermeneutics 121 instrumental case studies 97–8
Herrera, D. 150–1 Integrated Household Survey 66
Herzberg, F. 104 interactive research projects 9, 268
heuristic devices 218 interface, point of 269
Hindess, B. 65 internet resources 45–8, 51, 90
Hinds, P.S. 59 interpretation 81–2, 96, 98, 107, 181–8
historical data 71 of other people’s interpretations 175
History Data Service 68 inter-subjectivity 272
Hochschild, R.A. 149 interval scales 221
Hodgkin, S. 274 interview guides 82
320 Index
interviews 75–92 Lauder, M. 149

breaking off from 251 Lazarsfeld, P.F. 222
collaborative 87 leading questions 189
ethnographic 127–8 Leask, B. 50–1
in-depth 75–6, 82–9 LeCompte, M.D. 134
group-type 89–90 Lee, R. 34
miner and traveller metaphors for 78 Leigh, J.H. 252
online 90–2 letters, research on 190–3, 200
planning for 79–81, 92 Levi, Promo 281
potential problems with 76–7 Lewin, Kurt 11
semi-structured 76 Lewis, Oscar 124
structured 75, 81–2, 88 lexical choice 130
‘intimate familiarity’ (Lofland) 126 library services 43
intrinsic case studies 97–8 Lieblich, A. 170, 175
introspection 142, 222; see also ‘sympathetic life stories 159–60, 166–9, 175, 190
introspection’ Likert scales 212, 258
Islam, Umar 172 Lincoln, Y.S. 96, 292
iterative approach to research 273 Lindsay, G. 20
Lipps, T. 122
Johnson, B. 273 listening see active listening; dialogical
Johnson, R.B. 268 listening
Jones, G. 267–8 literature reviews 11, 39–44, 54, 60, 81, 109,
Jordan, A.E. 51 152–3, 309
Jorgensen, D. 150, 152–3 definition of 40
journalistic case studies 101 examples of 48
journals on data collection and analysis 111; literature searches 14
see also academic journals and journal ending of 47
articles Lockyer, S. 275–6
justification of research processes 225, 230 Lofland, J. 126
logging of data collection and analysis 111
Kallioniemi, A. 86 logistical probability 217–18
key words 43–4, 187 London bombings (7 July 2005) 171–3
Khan, Mohammad Sidique 171 loneliness, research on 242
Krosnick, J.A. 252 Lurie, Alison 110, 129
Kuhn, Thomas 272 Lynoe, N. 19
Kushner, T. 169 Lyons, A. 275
Kuypers, J.A. 190 Lyotard, J.-F. 279
Kvale, S. 78
Maas, H.S. 190
Labour Force Survey 66 McCabe, D. 50
Labov, W. 170–2 MacIver, R.M. 143
Langdridge, D. 229 McKenzie, J. 150
language, theory of 182 McLeod, J. 96
langue 182 McNamara, K. 276
Larroque, L. 252–4 Madam Bovary 124
Laslett, B. 87 Magnet, S. 133
Latour, B. 181 Mahruf, M. 195
Index 321
Manchester Information and Associated Murthy, D. 133–4

Services (MIMAS) 68–9 mutuality of understanding 126
marginality in research 127
Marris, Peter 242–4 nacherleben 122
Martin, C.R. 252 ‘naive empathy’ theory of understanding
Marx, Karl 179, 270 (Harrington) 122
Marxian theory 7, 16, 187 ‘naive empiricism’ 270
masculinity 132 Napier, L. 104
Mayo, E. 300 narrative, definitions of 170
mean see arithmetic mean narrative analysis 85–6, 106, 159–61, 166–7,
meaning 170–5, 179
of documents 180 National Child Development Study 70–1
levels of 184–5 negative case analysis 111
of words 182, 187–8 ‘neurotic narrator’ problem 168
meaning units 154 Nevo, D. 289–90
measurement Newson, John and Elizabeth 246–7
as a classification procedure 211 newspapers as sources of data 69
composite 212–13 Nichols, Bill 199
definition of 216 Nicolaidou, M. 102, 109
forms of 211–12 nominal scales 220
in social science 214–15 non-malfeasance, principle of 20
use of scales for 220–2 non-response 250–4, 262
median 207 first-level and second-level 250
Merrill, B. 162 normal distribution 209–10
Merton, R.K. 160 note-taking 153–4
meta-analysis 69–70 Nussbaum, M.C. 199
metaphors 125
Metzger, M.B. 60 Oakeshott, M. 131
Milgram, S. 22, 251, 298–9 Oakley, Anne 7, 9, 86
Miller, D. 186–7 objectivity in research 8–10
Mills, C. Wright 163 observation 140–1
misconduct in research 24 in overt research 149
missing data 250–1 recording of 144
mixed-methods research 267–82, 296–7 see also participant observation
advantages of 269–70 Office for National Statistics 66, 68
characteristics of 271–3 Office of Science and Technology Policy 24
disadvantages of 270–1 Office for Standards in Education
reasons for use of 273–7 (Ofsted) 219, 291
modality in utterances 130 official statistics 65–8, 73
mode 207 O’Kane, C. 27
moderators 89 Olivier, S. 8
Modleski, T. 192 ontology 165, 294
Mollica, Marcello 10 open coding 99, 198
Monette, P. 190 open questions 79–84, 229, 235, 251, 257
‘moral career’ concept 102 operationalisation of concepts or
Morrish, E. 130 variables 12, 81, 213, 216, 230, 241–2
Munch, P. 121 opportunistic sampling 88
322 Index
ordinal scales 220 ‘presence’, ethnographic 128

Osterland, M. 168 pre-tests 252
primary data 59–60
Page, Larry 46 Pringle, R. 279–80
PageRank algorithm 46 Prior, L. 180
panel studies 251 pro-ana websites 134–5, 151
paradigms 272 probability 216–19
parallel mixed designs 273 probability sampling see random sampling
paraphrasing 53 probing in interviews 77, 106, 189
Park, C. 49–50 progressive–regressive method of analysis
parole 182 175
participant-driven research 11 prompting in interviews 77, 106, 189
participant observation 117, 119, 127–9, Prosser, H. 70
139–41, 144–5, 149–55 Pupil Level Annual School Census 72
advantages of 154–5 purposive sampling 89, 240
data analysis for 152–3 ‘puzzlements’ 82–3, 153
definition of 139–40
goal of 141 qualitative interviews 106
levels of 140 qualitative research 19–20, 91, 110, 112, 277
problems with 144, 155 definition of 96
stages in 141 limitations of 165, 274
patient satisfaction, research on 274 questionnaires 13–14, 249–50, 262
pattern matching 41, 108–9 design of 257
Pawson, R. 215, 295–7 distribution of 254–5
peer assessment 290–1 preamble to 255
peer review 42, 45, 111 questions in surveys 235, 248, 252, 255–8,
perspectives 7 262
Philo, G. 186–8 quota sampling 239
photographic data 193–8, 200 quotations, use of 52–3
Picasso, Pablo 124
pilot tests 252 racism 10
plagiarism 24, 39, 48–51, 54, 312–13 random errors 110, 218
definition of 49 random samples 88, 236–7
Plano Clark, V. 269 with and without replacement 237
Plummer, K. 160, 164, 169, 174, 190, 197 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) 288, 297
‘poetic transcription’ 281 rank-order questions 257–8
politically-oriented evaluation 288–9 Rapoport, R. 87
populations studied 14, 236 rapport with respondents 83, 87, 127
positioning ratio scales 221
of the ethnographic researcher 127 rationales for research 5–7, 15
of a research project 42 reactivity effects 189
postmodernism 278 reading see active reading
poverty, research on 81, 234, 255–6 realism in research 292–4, 297
practice, concepts of 131–4 reasoning 223
practitioner research 10, 119 ‘reciprocity of stimulus’ 249
précis 313 referencing 52–4, 311–13
premises 224–5 reflective practitioners 11
Index 323
Rei, V.D.G. 260–2 scales

Reichenbach, Hans 3 for attitudinal questions 258
Reinharz, S. 86 of measurement 220–2, 230
reliability of research methodology 6, 9 scaling first-order meanings 222
replication of research 9 Schatzki, T.R. 132–3
representational measurement 211–12 Scheler, M. 122
representative samples 236–8 Scheurich, J.J. 278
representativeness of documents 180 ‘scientific parsimony’ 213–14
research Scollon, R. 49
nature of 3–5 secondary analysis 59–73
reasons for undertaking 4–5 advantages and disadvantages of 71–2
research design 14 definition of 60
research questions 3, 40, 228, 273 purposes of 59–60
restorying 84 secondary data, categories of 65–71
retail price index 213 Secure Data Service 68
Reynolds, D. 109 self, sense of 130–1, 160
Richardson, L. 279–80 self-administered questionnaires 249–50
right action 30, 35 self-consciousness 142
root mean square deviation see standard self-evaluation 290–1
deviation semantic differential scales 258
Rosenhan, D.L. 146 semiology 182–5, 200
Rowntree, Seebohm 234, 259 sex education 260–2
rugby 279–80 Shaffir, W. 119, 126, 136
‘rule’, definition of 216 Sharp, K. 133
Runciman, W.G. 123–5, 245–6 shooting scripts, research on 197–8
Rustin, M. 165 signifier and signified 182–5
signs see semiology
Sacks, H. 181 Sikes, P. 103–4
Saltmarsh, S. 50 similes 125
Samples of Anonymised Records (SARs) situated practice 132
database 69 situation ethics 34, 36
sampling 14, 235–40, 262–3 Slater, D. 133
for interview research 88–9 Smelser, N. 123
non-probability type 240 Smith, E. 72
for participant observation 144–5 Smith, S. 287
reasons for use of 236 snowball sampling 88, 91, 240
representative 236–8 social action 118, 122–3, 131, 136, 166, 296
sampling fractions 237 measurement of 214–15
sampling frames 88, 237–8 understanding the meaning of 141–3
sampling intervals 88, 237 social class 162–3, 215
Samuels, J. 194 social consciousness 142
Sanders, J.R. 288 social networking sites 90, 134
Sargent, James 70 social programmes 295–7
Sartre, Jean-Paul 175 social research, nature of 20, 35, 143, 148,
saturated categories of data 99, 174, 198 163, 165, 181, 196, 222, 278
de Saussure, Ferdinand 182 social surveys 234, 258–9
Sayer, A. 293–5 Social Trends 65–6
324 Index
socialisation 122–3 Tearoom Trade case 30–4

society, concept of 224 technical instruments for producing
Sorokin, P.A. 190 statistics 65
Spence, J. 194 Teddie, C. 223, 273
sponsored links 46 teleology 28, 34
sponsors for research 88–9 television news 186–8, 199–200
SPSS see Statistical Package for the Social tertiary understanding 123–5
Scientist textbooks 44–5
Spurlock, Morgan 271 Thagard, Paul 225–8
stages of a research project 14–15 thematic content analysis 153–4
standard deviation 207–9 theory-building 99
standpoint research 7, 10, 16, 168 ‘thick’ description 107, 112, 122, 153, 197
standpoint theory 293–4 Thomas, N. 27
Statistical Package for the Social Scientist Thomas, W. 163–4, 190–1
(SPSS) 229 Thompson, P. 169
Stebbins, R. 119, 126 Tilley, N. 291–2, 295–7
Stoerger, S. 50 time budgets 190
Stones, R. 199–200 Tolich, M. 28, 35
Strang, V.R. 60 Townsend, P. 241–2, 255–6
stratified samples 238 transformation of data 215, 268
Straus, R. 191 transitivity 130
Strauss, A.L. 18–74, 99, 180, 197–8, 276 Treseder, P. 135
structuralism 182 Trevino, L.K. 50
structuration theory 162–3 triangulation 111, 199, 270, 276–7
Stryker’s Farm Security Administration 198 forms of 106
Stufflebeam, D.L. 288–9 Trochim, W. 109
subjective experience 163, 167 trust 89, 105, 119–20
subjective probability 217–18 truth, narrative and historical 169
subjectivity of researchers 278, 280 truthful research 5
Durkheim’s study of 61–2, 64 Tuskegee syphilis study 21, 29
statistics of 65, 73
suicide bombings 171–3 underdetermination 225
summative evaluation 289–90 unemployment statistics 73
supervisors 42–3 United Kingdom Data Archive 68
Survey Resources Network 68 United Nations Convention on the Rights of
surveys, planning of 234–5 the Child 27
symbolic interactionism 31, 282 United States 28, 103, 289
‘sympathetic introspection’ 142–3
‘sympathetic reconstruction’ 143 validity of research 6, 9, 109–10, 164, 175,
synchronous interviews 90 225, 277; see also construct validity; face
synechism 273 validity
synergy in research 272 ‘value-free’ research 6, 8, 10, 16
Szabo, V. 60 ‘variable’, definition of 216
variables
tabulation 205–6 continuous and discrete 221
Tanweer, Shehzad 171–3 identification of 12, 41–2, 213
Tashakkori, A. 223, 273 variance 207
Index 325
veracity of researchers 20 Wiesel, Elie 280–1

verification of validity in research 110 Wikipedia 48, 51–2
verstehen 101–2, 120–1, 123, 136, 142, Wiles, R. 19–20
162–3, 280, 294 Wilkomirski, B. 168
Vinacke, W.E. 150–1 Williams, Sterling 146
virtual communities 133 Willis, P. 97–8, 105–7, 111–12, 154, 270
virtue ethics 29 Willmot, Peter 242
Vise, D. 46 Willowbrook hepatitis study 21–2, 29
visual representations and visual methods of women, interviewing of 86
research 193–7, 273 women’s subjectivity 167
Woodward, C. 101
Wallace, D.B. 153 Woodward, S. 200
Warwick, D. 149 word-processing packages 307
Watts, P. 51 Worthen, B.R. 288
web pages, evaluation of 47 writing-up research 307–14
Webb, E. 191, 276 starting on 313
Weber, Max 9, 121, 124, 142, 162, 179, 280
website addresses 64 Yin, R. 95–6, 98, 100–1
Wedge, P. 70 Young, Michael 241–2
Wegener, Alfred 228
Welsh National Opera 118–19 al-Zawahri, Ayman 171
West, L. 162 Zimmerman, D. 190
Wieder, L. 190 Znaniecki, Florian 143, 163–4, 174, 190–1

Research Methods

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Research Methods

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Understanding and Doing

ISBN 978-1-4082-2922-4 QCL

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Typeset in 9.5/12.5pt Giovanni by 35

2 The ethics of social research 19

3 Searching and reviewing the literature 39

Why do I need to justify my research question? 40

4 Secondary analysis – research using other people’s data 59

6 The case study 95

7 Ethnographic approaches 117

8 Observation, participant observation and observational inference 139

Thematic content analysis 153

9 Biographical and autobiographical approaches 159

10 Documentary and narrative analysis 179

11 Measurement and statistical inference 205

Complete inference 222

12 What is a sample survey? 233

13 Mixed methods research 267

14 Evaluation research and experiments 287

15 Successfully completing the research project 307

By the end of this chapter you should have an understanding of:

What is research? Where and how do you start?

Coming up with a researchable research question

modern world developed it was characterised by increasing levels of institutional

‘A literature review is a systematic, explicit and reproducible method for identifying,

Identifying variables and indicators

Variables and indicators

So I don’t have to do a questionnaire then?

The ‘conventional’ stages in the design and execution

1. Deﬁning the problem you want to investigate.

7. Draw an appropriate inference. Inference is the process of arriving at a conclusion:

Oakley, A. (1981) From Here to Maternity, London: Penguin.

By the end of this chapter you should have an understanding of:

In social research there will always be disagreements about whether an issue is

s Veracity – as researchers we should be moral exemplars who strive to be honest

In summary, all research practice requires an awareness of ethical issues. In ethnographic

Why research ethics are important to you

In this chapter we will look at:

Managing informed consent

Research methods textbooks tend to focus on the abstract principles of informed

Committees and guidelines

‘The underpinning aim of the guidelines is to enable educational researchers to

What makes an ethical researcher?

‘Fortunately, a friendly policeman gave me access to the licence registers, without

What type of researcher are you?

The ethics of researching zoos

By the end of this chapter you should have an understanding of:

Constructing literature reviews

Why do I need to justify my research question?

Identifying variables and indicators

Tips on becoming an active reviewer

In any area of social research there is usually a small number of internationally

Searching journal articles

The Dewey System

How does PageRank work?

When to end your search of the literature

Good examples of literature reviews

What exactly is plagiarism?

Research into plagiarism

Quoting and referencing

Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender, London: Routledge.

Searching and reviewing the literature

Wacquant, L. (2007) ‘Territorial stigmatization in the age of advanced marginality’,

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