hapter C 10: continued from notebook Sampling strategies and procedures Signaling in experience sampling the way researcher uses to inform the participants that they are to respond to a copy of the brief questionnaire they have been provided 3 forms o Participants signaled by the clock specific times or events in which they have to answer questions o o Electronic device such as an alarm system Handheld computers
The daily diary most straight forward application of experience sampling which uses end-of-day reporting together summary information about particpants experiences over the courses of the day
Sampling at random used when reasers are interested in an accurate estimate of t he quality or quantity of particular experiences or events participants experience o Standard procedure is to sample experience on random occasions throughout t he day for a number of days. o o o Comes at a cost First signaling device required Second set of costs concerns the decisions that must be made regarding the r andom schedule itself o How many times to sample from experience
Event contingent sampling o An alternative approach to sampling experience is to ask the participants to determine when they are to report on their experiences.
o
Useful when t he research question concerns peoples reaction to specific aspects of t heir experience
o o
Event is desired experience INTERNAL EVENTS t houghts, feelings, and behaviors of t he p art icipants .
o
EXTERNAL EVENTS sit uat ions or st im uli t hat t he part icipant m ight encounter during t he course of everyday
Measurement st rategies and procedures Regardless of how measurements are t aken in an experience sampling study, t he q uestionnaire it self m ust m anifest t wo qualit ies: o o Br ief Fram e of referenceIt m ust reference t he experience of t he part icipant at t hat moment or wit hing a narrow t ime frame Paper and pencil appraochs o 2 prim ary concerns The physical propert ies of t he questeionaire document The process by which completed copies of t he questionnaire will be d elievered to researchers. o Im portant to establish means to keep part icipants motivated and by which p roblems are detected and corrected early Computer assisted approaches
C hapter 15: Observational and Archival Research Advantages o Easily accessible
o
Archives often provide aggregated measurements, often over time, of significant constructs drawn from illions of individuals, hundreds of organizations or dozens of different societies
o
Avoid potential problems casues by the respondents awareness of being studied; that is, they can be unobtrusive or nonreactive measures
Naturalness in Research NONREACTIVE MEASURES in using it the researcher hopes that participants responses will not be shaped by such considerations as a desire to impress the researcher or a belief that certain behaviors would support the research hypothesis. The drive for naturalness in research thus derives from the belief that participants are more likely to behave in the same way that they would in real life if they can be studied in the circumstances in which they are ordinarily found. Relying on nonreactive forms of research to enhance the external validity or generalizability of results leads to a strategy of seeking naturalness in research. Three dimensions of naturalness have been generally emphasized: o o o The behavior being studied The setting of the behavior The event eliciting the behavior
NATURAL BEHAVIORS are those that are not established or maintained for the sole or primary purpose of conducting research o They reflect a concern with naturalness in the dependent variable in research.
NATURAL SETTINGS are contexts that are not established for research purposes, such as shopping centers, private homes, race tracks, commercial aircrafts, churches or hospitals
NATURAL EVENT is an incident that is not arranged for research purposes and that has some human consequences, that is, a natural independent variable in research
Naturalness o Can lead to greater external validity of research results because participants will not alter their behavior to take account of being studied. o Contribute to construct validity because unobtrusively observed behaviors are likely to reflect the desired construct to a greater extent than a survey or interview response obtain for obvious research purposes, subject to biases o Relative importance of advantages and disadvantages or naturalness in research depends on the type of research question. Questions that concern rates or patterns of natural behaviors in natural settings obviously require naturalistic research to answer them Questions concerned with causal associations among constructs with hypothetical questions often specifically unnatural research settings and treatments. o Importance of naturalness also depends on the target population of individuals, settings, or behaviors to which we wish to generalize.
Observation Observation thus becomes scientific when it o o o o Serves a formulated research purpose Is planned deliberately Is recorded systematically Is subjected to checks and controls on validity and reliability
Two categories of observational techniques: o Physical trace measures which involve assessing evidence of the behavior of interest after it has been expressed Can show the frequency or extent of some behavior
o
Systematic observation which involves structured or nonstructured assessment of the behavior of interest as it is occurring
Unobtrusive measures involving physical traces o Rely on pieces of data non specifically produced for the purpose of comparison and inference but available to be exploited opportunistically by the alert observer o There are there are two major types of physical trace measures: o Erosion Accerion
EROSION MEASURES look at the degree of selective wear on some material. The usual inference is that the greater the degree of erosion, the greater the popularity or liking for the object.
o
ACCRETION are the opposites of erosion measures and look at the selective deposit of materials
o
Impediment to using these measures is the lack of standardized set of traces measures for which reliability and validity have been established
o
Advantages- anonymous, completely nonreactive and involve low datacollection costs
o
Disadvantages require considerable imagination and often pose significant validity problems
o
Should be used to complement rather than substute for traditional measures
Systematic observation o SYSTEMATIC OBSERVATION involves the selection recording and encoding of a set of natural behaviors or other naturally occurring phenomena. involves relatively objective measures of behavior, often in
conjuction with systematic procedure for sampling time intervals or other units for observation used to study a wide range of behaviors such as interactions between general and special education students differ considerably in how the behaviors or observations of interest are recorded and encoded o relatively unstructured and open-ended structured and predefined
relatively unstructured methods: ethological approaches the most unstructured and nonselective method of observation would be a complete descriptive account of everythin that surrounded of an event summary rather than relay message
ETHOLOGICAL APPROACHES opt for as little prior categorization as possible. The object is to derive a detailed and comprehensive descrition about the nature of an animals or persons behavior repitoire
MOLECULAR BEHAVIORS ethologists concentrate, that is, behaviors tied to specific motor or muscular phenomena and avoid descriptions that involve inference
ECOLOGICAL OBERVATION view behaviors in settings assuming behaviors depend on settings Researchers focus on dimensions such as o o o o Geographical behavior rural, urban Practical functions drugstore, garage Typical objects chairs
o o
Primary behavior displays singing, discussing Temporal domain morning, evening
BEHAVIOR SETTINGS SURVEY is the description of the settings in terms of which of their many attributes and characteristics are interest
o
Structured methods: checklist or coding schemes Major difference between unstructured and structured observational methods is that in the latter, investigators know what aspects of social activity are relevant for their purpose before starting and deliberatlely set forth a specific and explicit plan to record them CHECKLISTS or CATEGORY SYSTEMS can range from simply noting whether or not a single behavior has occurred to multiple behavior systems Need to be valid and reliable
Steps in Conducting an Observation o o Step 1: arrive at operational definitions of the desired construct(s) Step 2: select the setting and mode of observation MODE OF OBSERVATION refers to whether the behavior will be coded on-line or from videotapes ENCODING is the process of simplifying the observations through some procedure, such as categorization, and quantifying the categories for statistical analysis o Step 3: select a sampling strategy Decide whether entire interaction or event will be coded continuously or whether only portions of the interaction or event will be coded CONTINUOUS REAL- TIME MEASUREMENT former method of coding
Second major approach to deciding what parts of an event or interaction to code called time sampling (2 variations) TIME- POINT SAMPLING recording is done instaneously at the end of set time periods with the number and spacing of points slected to be appropriate to the session length TIME- INTERVAL SAMPLING like continous observed behavior, is cored once and only once during successive intervals of the session regardless of the number of actual occurrences in each intereval
o
Step 4: train the observers OBSERVER DRIFT a decline in observer reliability or validity over time
o
Step 5: analyze the data SEQUENTIAL ANALYSIS provides information not only on differences in mere frequencies of behaviors but also on how certain behaviors relate to one another across time.
ARCHIVAL RESEARCH Statistical records o Statistical archives socioeconomic information about age, sex, family size, occupation, residence, and other characteristics o The U.S. census
Characteristics of Archival Research o Rely entirely on the analyses of information gathered for purposes other than those of particular studies of social behavior o Often call for ingenuity in translating existing records into quantifiable indices of some general concepts o Hard to find valuable informations
o
Particulary susceptible to alternative interpretations for the natural events and their effects
Research Survey Archines o RESEARCH SURVEY ARCHIVES social behavior archives created specifically for research o General Social Survey Contains a standard core of demographic and attitudinal variables that remain the same year to year o Advantages availability of extensive information from high quality o Low cost Created and maintained for research
Disadvantages imposed by the method and topics Older ones can be annoying
Verbal records o Public and private documents o Personal include autobiographies letters diaries
Mass communication Maritial intended to inform, entertain, persuade the populace CONTENT ANALYSIS any technique for making inferences by systematically and objectively identifying specified characteristics of messages
Issues in archival research o SPURIOUS ASSOCIATION cant conclude ice cream increases propensity to crime o Construct validity and reliability of the data for research purpose
o
Archives subject to gaps
C hapter 16: Qualitative Research Qualititative research i nstead of researchers imposing their own hypotheses, t hemes, and categories on the particpants responses, the participants relates stories about their lives that enable the researcher to generate hypotheses and themes Narrative Analysis o NARRATIVES are oral or written accounts of personal experience, told either to oneself or somebody else o Structured of story (different then responses)
Use narrative analysis because believed that narratives yield information t hat is not accessible by more traditional methods .. i.e. questionnaires
o
Research Example of Narrative Analysis Parents wrote down narrative about children with downsyndrom
o
Analyzing and reporting narrative data Different the other qualititative research in that most social scientists who collect narrative accounts ultimately code them for variables that can be subjected to traditional quantitative analyses To perform analyses narratives must be translated into quantitiative i nformationcontent analysis CONTENT ANALYSIS is the process of extracting desired i nformation from a text by systematically and objectivey identifying specified characteristics of the text 2 major approaches to take Coding the narratives according to discrete themes or categories Rating the narratives on continous dimension
Critical aspect of content analysis is the reliability of coding Linguistic Inquiry Word Count LIWC example compares text to dictionary
Focus Groups
Advantages computers can code lots of information
FOCUS GROUPS structured group interviews o Structured and conducted Focus group members selected because they share something in common that is relevant to the topic being researched MODERATOR researcher or hired professional who leads the focus groupmakes it different then a group discussion Preparation needed by moderator Research objective identified and clarified FOCUS GROUP GUIDE develop consists of the major topics and questions that will be raised in the focus group discussion Phrasing and sequencing of questions is crucial
Moderator describes GROUND explaining RULES the purpose and format of the focus group; emphasizing that everybodys ideas count and that the moderator wants to hear from everybody
o
What focus groups can and cant do Advantages Easy and convient Theoretical advantages ability to explore ideas and suggest hypothesis Good for early stages of research
Invaluable for gaining acces to the unique concerns and persepectives of the target audience
Helpful when designing experimental materials or questionnaires for a more traditioanal laboratory or survey study
Can be empowering to participants
Disadvantages Problem of generalizablity same answers Involve social groups and are vulnerable to all biasing dynamics Researcher has substantially less control over the information obtained than in other research contexts
Oral History ORAL HISTORY mothod for learning about the past by interviewing individuals who have experience the past DEED OF GIFT FORM signed on day of interview by respondent which allow the researcher to use the interview tapes and transcripts for research purposes and to place the tapes in an archive for public use Participant observation In PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION the researcher joins the social group that is the topic of study As a participant observer, the reasercher moves outside the controlled settings typical of experiemtns and interviews to the FIELD, the uncontrolled sometimes unpredictable settings in which people live out their lives More immersed they are the more they might affect what transpires the gropu
Field notes o Records stored as FIELD NOTES detailed records of everything the participant observer hears and sees, and the researcher subjects theem to systematic scrutiny and analysis o Record everything!
Analyzing field notes o o o o Analysis involves creativity and insight Organize and transform field notes into a visual record DEDUCTIVE RESEARCH gathering information to test a hypothesis INDUCTIVE RESEARCH begin with observations and generate a hypothesis that fit the information they obtain o Used by partipcant observation
NEGATIVE CASE ANALYSIS requires researcher to lok for information that disconfirms the hypothesis Once found need to alter hypothesis to include story
Generatlization Ethical concersn o o Confidentiality and not violating rights and invasions Federal regulations allow researchers to avoid informed consent only if The research involves no more than minimal risk The rights of the participants would not be adversely affected The research could not feasibly be carried out with out waiving informed consent
C HAPTER 3 THE TUSKEE SYPHILIS STUDY 1932, fourty year study by t he US public health service To determ ine what t he n atural course of syphilis would be if left unt reated 400 iinfected men in t uskee Alabama were compared wit h 200 uninfected men Part icpants were recruited wit h prom ises of special free t ream tment for bad blood Researchers never explicit ly told t he part icipants t hey had syphilis Treatment was actually spinal taps to detect t he neurological effects of syphilis 1940 penicllin was an effective t reatment for syphilis but t he men never told or t reated 1972 public outcry government halted t he study By t hat t ime only 74/400 were st ill alive and at least 28 poss more t han 100 had died as direct results of complications of complications of syphilis Why Et hics concerns arose? A federal investigat ion of t he Tuskegee study concluded t hat t he study was u nethical and t he men should have been t reated wit h penicillin The outcome of t his investigation led to t he passing of t he NATIONAL RESEARCH A CT 1974 r equiring t hat all federally funded research wit h hum an part icipants be approved in advance by t he IRB IRB --INSTITUIONAL REVIEW BOARD r egulates research wit h hum an p art icipants in t he US Milgram experimentspart icipants told t hey adm inistered harm ful shock to i nnocent st rangers
Although milgram took great pains to debrief his participants and follw them up to ensure they had no incurred any lasting harm some scholars argued that the stress and unwelcome self-knowledge experienced by the participants was so severe the study should have never been done
FALSE FEEDBACK used to deceive participants, usually about their personality and intelligence. Such studies were usually desgined to induce low self-esteem in particapnts or to investigate the reactions of individuals to threatening feedback o Pose 2 risks Participants will be angry when they learn of the DECEPTION That participants might not completely believe the debriefing but still cling somewhat to the original deceptions
tea room study watched homosexual men in bathrooms, followed them out got their license plate numbers and contacted them weeks later with out telling them how they were chosen for study
THE BELMONT REPORT Final product from tuskee study It lays out three overarching ethical principles and the implications of these principles for conduction research with human participants o o o Respect for persons Beneficence Justice
RESPECT FOR PERSONS incorporates at least two ethical convictions: first, that individuals should be treated as autonomous agents and second that persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection o The concept of autonomy means that human beings have the right to decide what research experiences if any they will be exposed too
o
INFORMED CONSENT requirement; in most research it means that the participant is given a form that describes in full detail the purose of the study, the procedures to occur during the study, risks and benefits of the research and alternatives to participating
o
COERCION flip side of concent Good ethical rule to follow is that the person solicitying participants for a research study should not be in a position of authority or power over the potential participants due to the very real potential for dual role conflict or perceived coercion The issue of payment to participants raises other ethical concerns of coercion
o
A special and ethiciallly trouble some, case of coercion is one familiar to most students: the widespread practice of SUBJECT POOLS at research universities
o
A cost-benefit perspective that the cost of a subject pool are so slight weighed against the benefits obtained that the coercive element is ethically justified
o
The ethical principle has important implications for the practice of deception in social science research. Two major ethical concerns The broader moral question that if lying to ones friends, relatives and acquaintances is wrong, then is it not also wrong to lie to ones participants? The fact that participants cannot provide true informed row in scope and involves the fact that participants cannot provide true informed consent to participate in a research study if they are being deceived about important aspects of the procedure
BENEFICENCE (in ethical principle) means that one should not harm ones participants and that the benefits to participants should be maximized while possible harms are minimized. o Usually prevelant in medical experiments
o
Ethical task by researchers and IRB is a RISK-BENEFIT ANALYSIS the careful determination of the magnitude of the potential harm to participants and whether that risk is outweighed by the potential benefit of the treatment.
o o
Stem cell research IRB requires researchers to report each and every adverse event that occurs during the course of a study
o
Only when the benefits outweight the risks can the proposed study be deemed ethical
JUSTICE o The Belmont report cautioned against adding the burdens of participating in research to members of populations already burdened. In particular, it is not fair to utilize a disadvatanged population as research participants for interventions that primarily would benefit more advantaged population o The justice principle has implications for how individuals within a given study are treated. The main concern here is the ethicality of control groups i.e medical some miss out on life o o In medical experiments PLACEBOS are used Solution to the justice ethical dilemma Tell them of the necessity both of including control groups in the experiment and of keeping participants and researchers unaware of the experimental condition of the participants Make it explicit to participants what their chances are of being assigned to the control condition Assure participants that at the conclusion of the experiment, if the intervention is shown to be effective, it will offered to all control participants at no expense.
FOCUS ON ETHICAL ISSUES IN EXPERIMAL RESEARCH: DECEPTION Two major forms of deception: deception by omission and active deception
DECEPTION BY OMISSION participants are not told any outwright untruths; rather, detail is left out about relevant experimental details o It becomes an ethical problem primarily when the detail omitted is something that might have affected peoples willingness to participate in the study had they known the true purpose of the study in advance o The IRB reviews the consent form and the experimenters cover story and then judge whether a reasonable person would react too negatively to the decoption involved in the study
ACTIVE DECEPTION (more serious ethical problem) participants are actively misled about aspects of the experiment o This kind of deception creates two problems The anger felt by participants when they realize theyve been lied to and the possibility of PERSERVERANCE EFFECTS, that is, that participants will continue to believe the false feedback even after having been told about the deception DOUBLE DECEPTION or SECOND-ORDER CEPTION refers to the once-standard practice of experimenters telling participants that the experiment is over but then going on to collect additional data
Using Deception in an ethical manner o CONCENT TO CONCEAL researchers can explicitly obtain the participants permission to be deceived. In this approach, participants are told in the consent process that there may be misleading aspects of the cover story that will not be revealed until the end of the experiment o DEBRIEFING stage this method involves divulging thoroughly to participants all aspects of the deception and then giving them the opportunity to withdraw their data from the study
Focus on Ethical Issues in Quasi-Experimental Research: Confidentiality and Anonymity
Non randomized or quasi-experimental studies are generally done when random assignment is impossible but researchers would like to draw as firm of a causal inference as they can
One major ethical issues that arises in quasi-experimental research involves the confidentiality and anonymity of the data
The key is to be aware of the distinction between confidentiality and anonymity and to be sure not to promise anonymity to participants unless anonymity can be assured
ANONYMITY means that absolutely no identifying characteristics are recorded on the data and that it would be impossible for the researcher to figure out who contributed a given piece of data.
CONFIDENTIALITY means that although the researcher can figure out whose data are whose, within certain legal limits, the researcher promises never to share that information
DUTY TO WARM suicde or murder thoughts in study Children and parents
Focus on ethical issues in Nonexperimental research: Particpant Observation Big ethical issue: there is a great deal of deception going on, as researchers might not inform the participants that research is being conducted nor may they identify themselves as researchers o Informed consent is usually not obtained
Invasion of pricacy
The Ethics of Not Doing a Study Rosenthal and Rosnow suggest that a thorough ethical review also requires a consideration of the cost and benefits associated with not doing the study Case Study of the Ethical Review Process Project description includes several critical sections:
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A background and introduction section, which summarizes relevant past research
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A section listing the specific objectives of the proposed research, which helps I RB members to gauge the adequacy of the proposed methods
o
A description of the study population To determine if any vulnerable populations are included
o o o o o
A description of how particapnts will be recruited A short section describing the study design A longer section describing the research procedures to be carried out A description of potential risk faced by the participants The researchers need also to describe the safety precautions they will take for protecting against or minizming potential risks
o
Provide an explicit risk-benefit analysis, explaining why the risk to participants are reasonable in relation to the anticipated benefits.
o o o
A summary of relevant incentives and research-related costs. A listing of any available alternatives to the study A description of how and where research materials will be stored and a discussion of confidentiality
o
The IRB proposal must include a copy of the informed consent form to be used in the study
EXPEDITED REVIEW is restricted to those studies that involve no more than minimal risk and otherwise fall into one of several specified categories, such as survey research on nonsensitive topics.
MINIMAL RISK defined in federal regulations as the probability and magnitude of harm or discomfort anticipated in the research are not greater in and of
themselves from those ordinarily encountered in daily life or during the performance of routine physical or psychological examination or tests FULL REVIEW all members of the IRB receive the protocol and read it carefully before meeting to discuss it and the other studies on the agenda.