Practical Social Investigation

Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Social Research

Richard Lampard,Christopher Pole

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317903468
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

Practical Social Investigation provides, within a single text, an introduction to a wide range of both long-standing and newer social research methods. Its balanced and integrated coverage of qualitative and quantitative approaches demonstrates that they can be complementary. While research practice is emphasised, readers are encouraged to reflect on methodological issues as well as being provided with tools for their own research.This coherent, accessibly written book draws upon the authors' extensive experience of conducting research and teaching research methods. Numerous examples, based on real research studies, illustrate key issues in a way that acknowledges both the messiness and the creativity of social research.

Chapter 1 Introducing social investigation: what is research and why do we do it?

Introduction

The concern of this opening chapter and of this book as a whole, is with research as an activity. We are concerned with the process, procedures, theories and practicalities of doing research. The style we shall adopt, therefore, is an active style which seeks to take the reader through the various stages of social research, not in an uncritical, step-by-step way which assumes that research is always neat and tidy, but in a way that shows that research can be challenging, confusing, frustrating but above all very rewarding.

Our starting point is one which assumes that research is undertaken for a reason. The reasons may be many and varied. For example, we may be required to do a piece of research as part of a degree course, or we may be asked to do a piece of research for an organisation or a group that we belong to, looking into specific aspects of their work. We may choose to do research because of long-standing curiosity about a particular topic, or we may do some research in advance of a journey or some other kind of important event. Whilst the specific reasons for the research may vary, in all cases the basic reason remains the same.

Quite simply, we do research because we want to find something out. Or, put more scientifically' we want to gather more knowledge about a particular topic.

We can dress research up in all kinds of scholarly language, but ultimately, the reason for it is:

to know more at the end of it than we did at the beginning.

Reducing research to such a simple characterisation is useful as it cuts away some of the mystique which surrounds it. In addition, by talking about gathering knowledge or finding out, we emphasise the importance of the research process, of actually doing research. If we know more about a particular topic after doing the research than we did before it, then the research process, the doing of it, must be the important bit.

However, at another level, characterising research in such a simplistic way may mean that we by-pass some of its important aspects. For example, seeing research merely as a means of finding things out may be accurate, but it does not provide us with an understanding of the way in which research is done, or of the relationship between the way it is done and the knowledge which it produces. Neither does it tell us much about the different kinds of research that we might do or the different kinds of knowledge that they can produce.

On the other hand, by starting in such a simple way we can gradually build up to more complex questions about the nature of the knowledge that research yields and the relationship between this and the research tools that are deployed in order to generate the knowledge. However, in order to understand how to do research we first need to know what research is. Let us begin, therefore, by asking this most basic question.

What is research?

Whilst we may see research quite simply as a means of finding out or acquiring more knowledge, we should also see it as doing something special. When we talk about knowledge in the context of social research we refer to attempts to know things in a way which goes beyond description, anecdote or common sense. This is not to decry description, anecdotes or common sense, since they all have an important contribution to make to what we know about the world and how we know it, but in research terms we are looking for a kind of knowledge which is more enduring and more universal than that which applies only to particular events or situations. More formally, by conducting research, the researcher is attempting to make a contribution to his/her field of enquiry and, consequently, to what we know about the social world.

This attempt to get to know more about the social world has been characterised in many different ways: as a journey (Delamont, 1992), as fun (Schratz and Walker, 1995), as being nosy (Blaxter et al, 1996), as something approaching an art form (Wolcott, 1995), or even as akin to slaughtering a pig (Eco, 1988, cited in Schratz and Walker, 1995).

Each of these definitions refers to a process. The suggestion is that, in order to make a successful journey, slaughter a pig, practise an art form or be nosy, there are a number of specific procedures that we must undertake. In addition, the journey, the slaughter, the art and being nosy imply change. We have travelled from one place to another, we have meat products (though at the cost of the life of the pig), we possess an artefact or the experience of creating art, or we know more about a particular situation. The implication is that by undertaking these diverse activities we move from one situation to another and, presumably, our lives (though not those of the pig or, for that matter, vegetarians) are better for it. They, like research, are seen to be worthwhile activities.

However, while analogies of this kind may make us think constructively about the nature of research, they can take us only so far. Moreover, some analogies may confuse more than they enlighten. To pursue any meaningful discussion of research and the research process we need to move from general characterisations and analogies to definitions which dispense with the imagery and get to the heart of what research involves.

Drawing on a number of sources which have influenced the ways in which we have thought about and practised research over the years, including other texts, lectures and above all our experience of doing research, we offer the following definition:

Research is a careful search, capable of withstanding close examination, for information which can be used to produce or enhance knowledge.

The intention here is to emphasise a number of things:

• Research is a process.
• Research has to be planned and well thought through.
• Information or data on their own do not necessarily constitute knowledge.
• Research has to be able to stand up to challenges from those who may wish to question or discredit its methods and the findings which are generated by the application of those methods.

In more technical language, we are saying that research is a process whereby we seek knowledge about a given phenomenon which is valid and reliable. By this we mean that we need to be confident that the methods used in the research are sound and that the knowledge produced is well grounded in the data which have been collected. Taking this down to the bare essentials once more, we are saying that research is about the search for knowledge.

In offering our own definition of research in this 'active' way we are well aware that we open ourselves up to challenges and disagreement. We welcome this, and as this is a book about 'doing' we hope to encourage thought, debate and argument right from the start. By thinking about and challenging definitions of research we will hopefully become more familiar with what it is and also see ways of enhancing the definition and of thinking critically about approaches to doing research.

In saying that research is about finding or about producing knowledge we assume either that knowledge is there to be discovered or that it is something which is created by the research process. This is an important distinction which introduces the notion of different kinds of knowledge. We will return to this idea in more detail later in this introductory chapter and elsewhere in the book. However, at this early stage, where we are considering approaches to research, it may be useful to start to consider how different approaches to research can produce different kinds of knowledge.

Approaches to research

Having suggested that there may be different kinds of knowledge it would also seem logical to suggest that different kinds of knowledge are linked to different kinds of research. For example, we are all no doubt familiar with depictions of the eccentric scientist conducting research with steaming flasks and test tubes; similarly we may all have been stopped in the street and asked questions by a person with a clipboard intent on discovering our views on a particular product; likewise we will have read or heard of opinion polls, particularly around general election times, which report on the popularity of political parties. We will also be aware of research in a slightly less obvious way as we go about our everyday lives: for instance, if we watch a TV documentary, especially of the 'fly on the wall' variety, or see a film or read a book, or travel in a car or use a piece of household equipment.

All of these depictions, practices and products make use of research. The point that we wish to make is that we live our lives surrounded by research, using things that are the fruits of research. Moreover, we also conduct our own research as part of everyday life, in order to make decisions and to take action based on those decisions. Some of these decisions may be very important, even life changing. For example, before we apply for a job or a place at university, or buy a house or a car, we engage in a form of research by gathering information from various sources, evaluating and analysing this information, accepting some as more important than others, rejecting some as unreliable or irrelevant. Eventually, on the basis of our endeavours, we come to a conclusion and make the decision upon which we will base our action. Similarly, a form of research often underpins more trivial or mundane activities. For example, even the weekly or daily act of food shopping involves research, as we decide what we need to buy in order to cook the evening meal and from which store(s) this is best purchased.

In terms of our definition of research, all of these instances involve a careful search for information which will provide us with knowledge about a particular situation. On the basis of this information we take action. To take appropriate action, we need to be sure that the information has been collected carefully and thoughtfully. We can then have confidence in the actions that we take based upon it.

In many of the everyday situations described above we carry out and use research without thinking about it. It forms part of our lives. However, if we do stop to think about the activities that we engage in and the kinds of information that we base our decisions and actions on, then it becomes obvious, very quickly, that we use different kinds of information upon which to base our decisions and actions and that these different kinds of information are collected by different methods.

Let us return to our earlier examples to illustrate the point. The eccentric scientist is likely to be conducting an experiment with the test tubes and chemicals, perhaps measuring the effect of a particular process or procedure; the market researcher is looking for opinions on a particular product; the film maker or author may draw together information from a variety of sources in order to make their film or book seem realistic or true to life; and before deciding which university to apply to, we will doubtless read the prospectus, look at its position in the 'league tables' of university performance and visit the university on an open day. In each of these situations information is being collected but it is being collected in different ways and, moreover, the kinds of information being collected are also quite different.

For example, the scientist is likely to generate numerical information which gives precise measurements about different aspects of the experiment. The market researcher may write down the things people say to him/her, or he/she may tick appropriate pre-specified boxes which provide the best summary of the answers given. Alternatively, he/she may tape-record your voice as you express your opinions. In researching your university choice you may have obtained written information from the prospectus, acquired other published material from a particular department and, on the basis of an interview or an open day, you will have your own observations of the university. You may also have had the chance to ask questions of members of staff or current students, so you will be able to draw on a variety of information sources.

With the examples above we have begun to identify different kinds of information. Some is numerical, some is text-based, some is based on observation and therefore visual, whilst some is verbal, taken from conversations or interviews. For the purpose of understanding research and the research process, we can begin to classify the information further in a way which begins to tell us something about its nature. To start with, let us call the information 'data'. By using this term we give it a more dynamic quality by implying that we are going to analyse and draw conclusions from it. We may also begin to think about the origin of the data. Were the data collected at first hand by the researcher from those who are the focus of the research? If so we would call this primary data. Or were they collected in a sort of second hand way, where the researcher is more distant from those who are the focus of the research? For example, research based on official statistics or the analysis of text would fall into this category. In such cases, we would call the data secondary data.

We may also find it useful to think about the data in terms of two broad categories: qualitative or quantitative. By quantitative we refer to data which are numerical and based on counting or enumerating. These may be measurements or scores attributed to particular things. By qualitative we refer to data which seek to convey the essence or the quality of the experience. These may include speech, observations, written text or pictures. Although these two categories are used for sorting data into separate and different types, there are some forms of data which fall into both categories or between the two. For example, certain kinds of interviews may be tightly structured, sticking to a pre-determined schedule (see Chapter 6). So whilst the data they collect are based on speech they are counted and turned into numerical measurements of the given phenomena. Nevertheless, despite possible ambiguities, the distinction between qualitative and quantitative data remains useful in thinking about research and what we hope it will achieve.

In using different approaches to our research and collecting different kinds of data, we may be hoping to say different things, to address different questions and to produce different outcomes from our research. For example, we may wish to say with some degree of certainty how many times a particular activity occurs in a given population in order to make plans for the provision of an essential service, For instance, a large city would need to know how many children between the ages of 5 and 11 years were registered within its boundaries now, and how many could be expected to be registered within its boundaries in the future, in order to fund the appropriate number of primary schools. Alternatively we might wish to know something about the way in which the teaching of maths was approached in those schools and, therefore, some close observation of maths lessons would be called for. Although these examples are simplistic, they serve to emphasise that there is an important link between the way in which data are collected, the type of data collected and the use(s) to which they are put. To plan the number of primary schools there is a need for precise statistics in order to match the number of places to pupils, not just in the short term but also over many years. The local education authority will need to be confident that this research is accurate before committing funds to a building programme. In the case of maths teaching, there is a need for data which convey a sense of the nature or quality of the experience. Consequently, the data need to be more qualitative, providing a picture of what it would be like to be experiencing the maths lessons.

So far, the key issues raised within this introduction are:

• Research is part of part of our everyday lives.
• Research is about the careful collection to information to produce or enhance knowledge.
• There are different kinds of knowledge. Some may be discovered, while others may be created.
• Different approaches to research produce different kinds of knowledge.
• We use different kinds of knowledge, e.g. qualitative and quantitative, to understand different kinds of situations.

Some of these statements may seem a little confusing at first but we will return to them in other parts of the book.

Why do research?

Having started to define research in terms of the collection of information and the provision of knowledge, it may be possible to take this definition a little further by considering why people conduct research. If we begin to examine what it is people hope to achieve by conducting research, then we may be able to understand more clearly what the research process entails and what research is about.

There may be many reasons for embarking on a piece of research and the reasons may be complicated by issues surrounding who the research is for, who is paying for it and to what use it will be put. However, irrespective of whether the research is being carried out for a policy maker who wants to know how to introduce changes within an organisation, for a company that wants to know what the level of demand for a new product is likely to be, for a university course or for your own curiosity, it is important to pose four questions prior to starting the research.

1. Why am I doing this research?
2. What is the need for this research?
3. Where will the research lead?
4. What are the i...