such as the Brazilian census. To learn about micro-level issues, such as the influence of peers on an individual’s decision to drop out of school, you will need to examine small-group interactions at the micro level. Figure 2.2 illustrates the different levels of analysis.
▼ Figure 2.2 The Social World Model and Levels of Analysis
Designing the Research Plan.
Step 4 is vitally important because the researcher evaluates the various methods used to collect data for research studies and selects one or more that are appropriate for the research question. These include questionnaires, interviews, observational studies, secondary data analysis, content analysis, and experiments. Some methods produce quantitative (numerical) data whereas others supply qualitative (nonnumerical) data such as individuals’ responses to interviews. Questionnaires and secondary data analysis tend to be quantitative and used when conducting macro- and meso-level studies. Interviews, observational studies, and content analysis usually produce qualitative data or a blend of quantitative and qualitative data and are primarily used for micro-level research. Some studies include both quantitative and qualitative data.
Interviews are research conducted by talking directly with people and asking questions in person or by telephone. Structured interviews consist of an interviewee asking respondents a set list of questions with a choice of set answers. Unstructured and semistructured interviews, which allow respondents to answer questions in a more open-ended manner, allow for follow-up and additional questions as they evolve in response to what the researcher learns as the research progresses.
Questionnaires contain questions and other types of items designed to solicit information appropriate to analysis of research questions (Babbie 2014). They are convenient for collecting large amounts of data because they can be distributed by mail or sent by e-mail to many respondents at once.
▲ Census questionnaires are taken in the United States and many other countries every 10 years. Sometimes it is difficult to gather accurate data on the entire population, as in the case of homeless people or those in remote areas. Census worker Danielle Forino gathered data in Maine, where she had to use an all-terrain vehicle and sometimes snowshoes in remote sections of the North Maine Woods.
© AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
Observational studies (also called field research) involve systematic, planned observation and recording of interactions and other human behavior in natural settings (where the activity normally takes place, rather than in a laboratory).
They can take different forms: (1) observations in which the researcher actually participates in the activities of the group being studied or (2) observations in which the researcher is not involved in group activities but observes or records the activity. It is important for observers to avoid influencing or altering group functioning and interaction by their presence.
Thinking Sociologically
If you were trying to compare how effectively two professors teach a research methods course offered in your department, what variables might you use, and what variables might you need to control? How would you set up your study? What methods would you use?
Secondary analysis uses existing data, information that has already been collected in other studies—including data banks, such as the national census. Often, large data-collecting organizations, such as the United Nations or a country’s census bureau, the national education department, or a private research organization, will make data available for use by researchers. Consider the question of the dropout rate in Brazil. Researchers can learn a great deal about the behavior of school dropouts as a group from analysis of information gathered by ministries or departments of education. Likewise, if we want to compare modern dropout rates with those of an earlier time, we may find data from previous decades to be invaluable. Secondary analysis can be an excellent way to do meso- or macro-level studies that reveal large-scale patterns in the social world.
Content analysis entails the systematic categorizing and recording of information from written or recorded sources—printed materials, videos, radio broadcasts, or artworks. With content analysis (a common method in historical research and the study of organizations), sociologists can gather the data they need from printed materials—books, magazines, newspapers, laws, letters, comments on websites, e-mails, videos, archived radio broadcasts, or even artwork. They develop a coding system to classify the source content. A researcher trying to understand shifts in Brazilian attitudes toward youth poverty in favelas could do a content analysis of popular magazines to see how many pages or stories were devoted to child poverty in the Brazilian media in each decade from the 1960s to the present. Content analysis has the advantage of being relatively inexpensive and easy to do. It is also unobtrusive, meaning that the researcher does not influence the participants being investigated by having direct contact with them. Furthermore, examining materials in historical sequence can be effective in recognizing patterns over time.
An example of historical research using existing materials to examine social patterns is illustrated in the next Sociology in Our Social World. In this case the researcher, Virginia Kemp Fish, studied records and writings of early women sociologists in Chicago to discover their contributions to sociology and to the betterment of society.
Sociology in Our Social World
The Hull House Circle: Historical Content Analysis in Sociology
▲ Jane Addams: social researcher, critic, and reformer.
© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, one of several such residences established in urban immigrant neighborhoods. Settlement houses created a sense of community for residents and offered a multitude of services to help residents and neighbors negotiate poverty. In addition to offering services, Hull House was the location for a group of women social researchers, reformers, and activists. Well-known social activist Jane Addams (1860–1935), who received a Nobel Peace Prize, was one of them. These women had obtained college degrees in some of the few fields then open to women (political science, law, economics), and they used their education and skills to help others and to do research on social conditions, contributing to the development of the science of sociology. Until recently, women sociologists, such as the members of the Hull House Circle, have not received much attention for their contributions to the science of sociology. Yet some of the earliest social survey research was conducted by the women connected with Hull House, sometimes employing the Hull House residents to collect data. For example, these women led the first systematic attempt to describe an immigrant community in an American city, a study found in Hull House Maps and Papers (Residents of Hull House [ca.1895] 1970).
Historical research can be an important source of data for sociological analysis, for historical circumstances help us understand why things evolved to the present state of affairs. Virginia Kemp Fish, who originated the designation Hull House Circle, researched historical literature to learn more about the lives and contributions of these women and their place in the sociological literature. She examined records, letters, biographies, and other historical sources to piece together their stories (Fish 1986).
