sy 7034 week7

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

Research Questions to Research

Design (SY7034)

Edmund Chattoe-Brown

ecb18@le.ac.uk

Thursdays 1500-1700 (Brookfield 0.24)

WEEK 7

1. Plan

• Administration.

• Building on your formative: A range of challenges.

• Case study discussions: Key themes.

2. Administration

• Registration.

• “Official” formative feedback.

3. Reminders and revisits• Google test (and google scholar.) <youth political participation

uk>, <attitudes to the legalization of prostitution media effects>.

• Media effects on prostitution may be original but how much of it is distinctive from media effects generally?

• What theories are relevant to your research?

• Don’t just cite supporting research: Also need to say what was discovered (analysis) and what “contradictions” are.

• Focusing down versus “bigging up” literature review.

• Reread and ask: What is “boilerplate?”

• Going back to start: Not recommended. Supervision avoidance?

4. Research design challenges• I am interested in online and offline

determinants of political activity amongst youth. I will recruit online.

• How to measure the skills acquired from paid work that are relevant to academic performance.

5. Technical but important• Evidence of not reading the assignment description

(particularly as regards comparing alternative research designs).

• Citations without references (and vice versa) are not much use!

• What do I need references for? (Verstehen.)

• Page count: Why do you think I ask for this?

• On all these points, please get into the general habit of following good practice/guidance.

6. Tricks and tips• After you have finished writing, look at your citation

distribution. Are all parts of your argument equally well backed up? (Look also at what you cite.)

• Post hoc ergo propter hoc (“We didn’t have any trouble with the heating till you moved in”.) Do other things reasonably explain the observation you report? If so, your task is to eliminate alternatives not just endorse one “reasonable” account. (Example: Football attendance.)

• Word spell/grammar checker?

• Checking snowball samples ex post: Wright and Decker.

• Most effort on “weakest links?”

7. Reading round• Fear of crime versus crime statistics.

• Vignettes.

• Socialisation?

8. Case study 1 (5 minutes)• I want to measure the effect of media on attitudes to

the legalisation of prostitution. Split sample: Give one group negative stories and the other positive stories too as part of semi structured interviews about attitudes to legalisation of prostitution.

• Work in pairs.

• How could this basic design be improved?

• What are its potential hazards?

9. Case study 2 (5 minutes)• I will administer an extensive questionnaire to

Chinese students at Leicester about all aspects of their wellbeing.

• Work in pairs.

• What theories/hypotheses might be used to inform this research?

• What research design hazards need to be avoided?

• Under what circumstances could such research be useful to improve wellbeing?

10. Case study 3 (10 minutes)• Quantitative research tends to show low youth participation in politics

(for example voting.) I want to explore the role that social networking sites have in political participation among the young.

• Work in pairs.

• What research design would be needed to show this effect?

• What theories/hypotheses might be used to inform this research?

• What research design hazards need to be avoided?

• Under what circumstances can social networking sites have an effect on political participation while quantitative research shows low youth participation in politics overall?

11. Break

• 10 minute “comfort break”.

12. Case study 4 (10 minutes)• I want to study the effect of Indian immigrants on UK culture

through research on religious festivals like Diwali.

• Work in pairs.

• Who would your respondents be and why?

• What theories/hypotheses might usefully inform this research?

• Should this research be longitudinal or cross sectional? What research design would support each different approach effectively?

• What research design hazards need to be avoided?

13. Case study 5 (10 minutes)• Research tends to show paid work has a negative effect on the

education of students. This disregards the skills they acquire in paid work.

• Work in pairs.

• What research design would be needed to show this effect?

• What theories/hypotheses might be used to inform this research?

• What research design hazards need to be avoided?

• Under what circumstances might paid work increase student skills while still having a negative effect on their education?

• Is this advocacy research?

14. Example: Interlocking challenges• Suitcase/tower metaphors.

• Research on whether “commercialization” and “commodification” are alienating football’s “traditional” fan base.

• “Who cares” problem: Are gates falling? Are profits falling? (Desk research.)

• Only if yes to both, clubs might care about why people stop attending.

• Why do people stop attending? (Prices, life changes, “alienation”, other.)

• Alternative hypotheses: People are not alienated at all, just broke.

• Hazards of unclear terms: Measuring commercialization and commodification. Does talk of “financial alienation” undermine the term altogether?

• Is “why do people stop attending football matches regularly?” less at risk of prejudging the question?

• Problem of “negative recruiting?”

15. Exercise 1 (20 minutes)• How would you measure the impact of British culture on

Kurdish migrants?

• Work in pairs.

• What theories/hypotheses might usefully inform this research?

• What methods and research designs would best demonstrate these effects?

• How would you design effective questions to get at these effects? (For a survey or qualitative interviews?)

16. Formatives• Very short. Not marked. Feedback.

• What is your research question?

• What is the point/value of your research?

• On what research is it based?

• What is the distinctive contribution/added value of your research?

• What are the pros and cons of two alternative research designs for this question? [Explain.]

• What ethical or practical problems can you foresee with this research? What kinds of solutions can you foresee?

17. Advice• Ideally, you should be able to “blow up” each section of the

formative into an effective section of the summative on the same topic.

• Think more now so you can think less later. Don’t just chop your notes up into bullet points. (Mark Twain: “I’m sorry I wrote you a long letter. I didn’t have time to write you a short one.”)

• Don’t write a prospectus: “I will solve the sampling problem.” I can’t feed back on that.

• Don’t pad, dodge or write boiler plate.

• The more you put in, the more you will get out.

• Questions?

15. Exercise 2 (if time)• Is this really qualitative or quantitative? Depends exactly what you want to know (and perhaps why.)

• Example 1: Impact of Indian culture.

• Example 2: Football attendance.

• Example 3: Wellbeing of Chinese international students.

• Example 4: Young people, politics and online social networking.

16. Other• Gorard: Get ready for the start of real research

design.

• Questions?