Understanding Research (15 page)
Read Understanding Research Online
Authors: Marianne Franklin
Remembering that our topic, research questions, and rationale are that the dog should be wagging the method/s’ tail, one way to plot a course through these philosophical and methodological undercurrents in a way that makes sense for your project is to leave aside this particular distinction. Make a mental note as you must; acknowledge the predominant research culture you are working within as required. In the meantime work on considering whether the course of inquiry you are working on calls for you to make a start gathering your data and from there applying any particular analytical framework to make sense of your findings.
The five areas below describe core methodological approaches in operation today. They are presented here as a sort of survival guide to help you plot a course in practical terms in light of the various theoretical and practical debates that affect our choice of topic and eventual research question. This overview concentrates on these distinctions as practicalities: (1) ways of gathering data; (2) ways of analysing the material. Note too that these are not mutually exclusive terrains by definition, nor are they synonymous with particular disciplines or schools of thought per se. However, each one also has come to be associated with particular disciplinary ‘homes’; e.g. surveys in election or public opinion research, focus groups for media and communications studies, participation-observation for anthropological fieldwork on the ground or in online settings such as computer games.
Given that there are various worldviews and positions on the ‘What is science?’ question underpinning these clusters at any point where they diverge and intersect, how their respective ‘rules and procedures’ for gathering and analysing the material work is the task of
Chapters 6
and
7
. At present we are getting a sense of the lay of the land as we firm up the research question, make our first plans, and get acquainted with the literature. The highways and byways of this larger terrain include ways of working that can be characterized as
ethnographic, surveying
and
interviewing, archival
and
textual
approaches to documents,
experimental
and
alternative
pathways:
In the field where full immersion (part-time, periodic, or longer intervals) by the researcher engaging in participation-observation research provides close-up, intimate knowledge of the field and its inhabitants, data is gathered in real-time, using field notes, interviews, photographs or diagrams of the terrain, and personal accounts of changing relationships between research subjects as well as between them and the researcher. Involvement in the lives of others, development of closer working relationships, friendships, and trust between researcher and researched are integral. Entries and exits need to be negotiated. The governing style and rationale is ‘rich description’. Distinctions need to be made between
- doing an ethnography and designing ethnographic projects;
- how much observation vis-à-vis how much participation;
- degrees of ethical considerations and long-term effects of the researcher’s presence in a community or field more complex;
- work traditionally undertaken in cultures/settings foreign to those of the researcher, nowadays also carried out for varying degrees of virtual (simulated/computer game) fields.
Where larger, or smaller selections of human subjects are given a set of questions, designed to elicit responses that test a hypothesis, or provide more complex information about a given topic. Results are collated and analysed by statistical means but not exclusively; e.g. some surveys ask open-ended questions or require respondents to provide their own views. These findings need to be analysed qualitatively as they cannot be easily quantified. Distinctions need to be made between
- Formats for interviews: one-to-one based on semi-structured or unstructured forms of question and response between researcher and respondent provide more personalized information; these can follow on from larger-scale surveys or questionnaires.
- Focus groups: small group sessions where particular tasks or questions are put to the group; the researcher is facilitator rather than participant. The aim is to ascertain how different people respond to the same material, for example, an image, TV programme, film. Focus groups can comprise like-minded or diverse groups. Data is recorded and transcribed for analysis at a later date by the researcher.
- Sorts of question-design along with format and style of the interview/focus-group exchange, recording, and analysis of the responses as both statistical and textual data.
- Whether selection of respondents can be carried out randomly (larger samples) or in concentric circles of nearest neighbour (snowballing) or based on the researcher’s immediate networks of friends.
- Generalizations based on whether the findings are in direct proportion to the size and randomness of the sample.
Where access to original documents, their analysis or ‘textual analysis’ of images as well as written text are paramount. Within this area a number of specific methods have become codified, all of which concentrate on unravelling how meaning is made through language, or visual images; e.g. semiotics, discourse analysis, framing analysis. These include:
- Textual analysis is a term that can be literally applied to the analysis of policy documents as well as a particular approach to meaning-making (written and visual) in terms of ‘social text’. Here various sorts of interpretive techniques and linguistic methods are applied to the material.
- Archival work for historical purposes based on available material and piecing together conclusions based on that. Archives can be hard copy or digital.
- Policy analysis can entail the retrieval, reconstruction of policy output; it can also entail the tracing of policy-making processes (such as drafts, bills, Green/White Papers) as they emerge; the written texts, and those writing the texts can be treated as distinct or linked objects of inquiry.
Where testing or observing behaviours of individuals or groups is carried out in a controlled, or semi-controlled setting (laboratory, public place). The design of the experiment; its physical and psychological parameters, ethical issues around the implications for human, or animal subjects, and elimination of bias are controlled in varying degrees.
- This sort of work aims to test a hypothesis in terms of dependent versus independent variables.
- Findings can be analysed statistically but not exclusively in that the researcher’s point of observation is integral to the aims and objectives of the experiment.
- Used in audience effects research in media and communication studies, sociological work on social or cultural attitudes such as prejudice or sex–gender stereotypes.
- Based on theories of human behaviour and motivation which come under scrutiny in studies of cause and effect; for example, the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes race-experiment; reproductions of versions of the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ (most recently depicted in the film
Die Welle
).
Hybrids of the above on-the-ground, virtual (web-based), or semi-virtual (online/ offline) settings whereby the data gathered, observation–observer relationship, or analytical techniques diverge from the above in form and substance (e.g. action research, virtual ethnography, simulations, ‘virtual methods’). Designs based in ‘mixed methods’ can fall under this category, along with radical departures based on other cultural models of knowledge production (e.g. Carver and Hyvarinen 1997, Couldry 2000, Giri 2004, Smith 1999).
These broad categories for data-gathering can accommodate both qualitative (nonquantifiable) and quantitative (statistical/quantifiable) findings. They also lead onwards to more detailed, and more nuanced methodological discussions, debates, and alternatives in their own terms. The point here is that as your research project develops, particularly as your research question and knowledge of the field in terms of theoretical and empirical literature already available sharpen, these rubrics can open up avenues that lend themselves to your inquiry.
The above coping strategies will start to make more sense as you proceed further into gathering and analysing your material. Let’s review these initial stages before moving deeper into the research terrain.
- There are general and particular rules of thumb for embarking upon what are commonly characterized as qualitative- or quantitative-style research when not a mixture of the two. It is the execution, respective weighting, and presentation of these elements that are informed by deeper, underlying tensions between underlying worldviews and the way any approach develops and gets institutionalized, or not, over time.
- As we approach the last two chapters of
Part 1
where research designs and research divides appear to walk hand-in-hand, I would stress that in order for a project to get out of the starting blocks, we need to make an analytical and pragmatic distinction between how worldviews, research question formulations, and other planning matters impinge on the inquiry and then set our priorities for the time being without undue worry about how the project ‘looks’. - To extrapolate: rather than pretending that there are methods and accompanying theoretical frameworks that either transcend or can resolve this particular dialectic, or trivializing what are very real power hierarchies at work in terms of which research gets the thumbs up – good grades, public recognition, research funding – or leads to future employment, the best way to cope when these distinctions start to impact on your work is (try) not to panic. Put them off until a later day, take in the lay of the land first or step up to the plate and engage in the big debates, ask these difficult questions of yourself, your peers and your
supervisors. But at the same time make some initial decisions, strike out on a path. You can review, retrace your steps every so often along the way.
Reflect on these matters for sure but do try and keep moving. Ironically, your eventual topic is not
a priori
confined to one sort of method, theory, or broader school of thought. Unless you are doing a research project that focuses on these meta-level or philosophical questions per se (and even then you still need to focus and give shape to them) keep the distinction between these abstract questions and their practical dimensions in mind. This way you can avoid getting too bogged down in a meta-methodological morass.
1
To recall, the first is mandatory for research-funding bids or applications to Ph.D. programmes. The second encompasses anything from templates to help students along in their planning, a guide for preparing for supervision meetings, to a written document submitted as a piece of work for research skills/methods courses. Some supervisors may expect you to submit a research plan to them in any case.
2
See the relevant sections in Blaxter et al. (2006), M. Davies (2007), and Gray (2009).
3
See Gray (2009) and Creswell (2009) for some good discussions on using writing as a way of thinking.
4
Wise words from my own research office support staff member on submitting a funding bid.
5
See Berg (2009), Blaxter et al. (2006), Creswell (2009: 129
passim
, ch. 7), M. Davies (2007), Gray (2009).
6
Creswell devotes a whole chapter to the Purpose Statement (2009: 111–26).
7
Thanks to Susan Banducci for this reference (personal information).
8
These terms might be familiar to some of you from studying maths in school, where you learned the formula for a line (Y = mX + b).
9
This topic fills volumes. For references that have certainly helped me along the way in terms of the way they speak directly to, and from hands-on experiences, see, Fabian (1983), Marcus (1995) and Smith (1999).
10
As a research subject in a research project where videos played a key role yet not all interviewees wanted to be identified, the researcher filmed only our hands. I have also done work with people who prefer not to be recorded. Others have been happy to be videoed, recorded and named in any citations yet also wish to vet the sections that appear in the final report.
11
Any funded research these days comes attached with the caveat that an ethics form and committee-based procedure is a co-requisite if not prerequisite for funding.
12
Material for this and other ethics-related sections are based on my role as vice-chair of my department ethics committee and membership of the university ethics sub-committee at time of publication. My thanks to past and current research students for their permission to be able to draw on their dilemmas and material in these discussions (see also
Chapter 5
). Thanks go out as well to my ethics committee colleague Tim Crook at Goldsmiths, whose legal knowledge and intrepid eye for the practical nuance and limits have taught me much. My own hands-on learning of these matters has also been informed by Helen Lee, Johannes Fabian, and Niko Besnier in particular.
Living with and defending our choices
Topics covered in this chapter:
- Institutional and geographical research settings
- Literature searches and the ‘literature review’
- Historical and philosophical context
- Purpose and categories of literature reviews
- Practicalities – pitfalls, rules of thumb, where to go
- Acknowledging sources – what is
plagiarism
? - (Inter)disciplinary identities