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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.

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.

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). By studying their writings and activist work, Fish showed how they supported each other’s work and scholarship and provided emotional encouragement and intellectual stimulation. Fish also considered women’s professional styles as compared with the styles of men. Whereas men often received their training and support from a mentor (an older, established, and respected man in the field), the women of Hull House operated within a network of egalitarian relationships and interactions.

According to Fish’s research, the data and documents collected by their leader, Jane Addams, and other Hull House women provide baseline information that has been used as a starting point or comparison for later studies—for social researchers in the fields of immigration, ethnic relations, poverty, health care, housing, unemployment, work and occupations, delinquency and crime, war, and social movements.

In experiments, all variables except the one being studied are controlled so researchers can study the effects on the variable under study. An experiment usually requires an experimental group, in which subjects in the group are exposed to the variable being studied; this process is to test the effects of that variable on human behavior, and a control group, in which the subjects are not exposed to the variable the researcher wants to test. The control group provides a baseline with which the experimental group can be compared, as shown in the example of Hector.

Experiments conducted in a lab can often provide the most accurate test of cause and effect. They make it possible to control most variables (eliminating irrelevant spurious variables) and determine the sequence in which variables affect each other. By separating the sample into experimental and control groups, the researcher can see if the study’s independent variable makes a difference in the behavior of people who are exposed to that variable compared with those who are not. Psychologists use lab experiments, but few sociologists use this method because many sociological questions cannot be studied in controlled settings. For example, Hector’s environment in the favela cannot be studied in a laboratory setting.

Control and experimental research projects outside of a lab setting are more common among sociologists. For example, researchers may want to determine whether a new teaching method using technology might help children from Hector’s favela. Researchers can do so by comparing a control group, exposed to the usual teaching method, and an experimental group, provided with the new method or experimental technology. We must ensure that the control and experimental groups of children are at the same academic level and that the teachers are equally motivated and prepared when teaching both classes. With this carefully designed research project, we can conclude that the new approach increases learning if the children in the experimental group score significantly higher on the final exam than those in the control group.

Triangulation refers to the use of two or more methods of data collection to enhance the amount and type of data for analysis and the accuracy of the findings. To study Hector’s situation, a research study could use macro-level quantitative data on poverty and on educational statistics in Brazil and micro-level interviews with Hector and his peers to determine their goals and attitudes toward education. If all findings point to the same conclusion, the researcher can feel much more confident about the study results.

▲ Social scientists are not the only professionals who use triangulation. Journalists also consult a variety of sources, including social scientists, to put together news broadcasts.

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