Media Research
There are different ways of analysing the output of
media. These range from informal,
unstructured commentary on a collection of newspaper articles to the formal
quantitative content analysis of a systematically collected sample.
Documentary Research is sometimes called
Secondary
Research - sometimes Desktop Research and
sometimes
Library
Research. To do it, you systematically and
objectively locate (find), evidence relevant to your research, in documents
that are already in existence (secondary data), rather than collecting your
own
(primary) data. This evidence is analysed, evaluated, and,
possibly, synthesised in your report or dissertation, in order to establish
the facts and/or draw conclusions.
Triangulation:
In connection with research, triangulation usually means using three (or
more)
research methods in a study in the hope that they will reach the
same
results. The idea was described by Eugene Webb and others in
1966.
AVOIDING TRAPS WHEN WRITING QUESTIONS FOR QUESTIONNAIRES
AND INTERVIEWS
Adapted from
Kane, E. 1985
Doing Your Own Research
This is a list of traps to avoid when you write your questions. Some
of them are based on common sense, but others might strike you only when
you get baffling or useless replies. A question that to you seems
extra carefully worded may be a mindbender to your respondents.
Pretesting your questions
on a practice group will
help to ensure that you give your respondents appropriate questions and
all the relevant choices of answers.
The double question: Like 'Do you walk to school or carry your
lunch?' The wording of such questions makes them difficult or
impossible to answer accurately. Some may contain two or more unrelated
parts. Some may contain contradictory parts, the answers to which may be
different: 'Would you agree that it is not unlikely that our next mayor
will not be a woman?'
The wrong choice question: 'Is your hair yellow, purple,
green or blue?' needs to have an alternative. Commonsense is often not
enough to ensure you give respondents enough choice, for what may appear
bizarre or unthinkable behaviour to you (and therefore ignored in your
questionnaire) may be a way of life to some of your respondents.
The 'fuzzy word' question: 'Should middleaged people live it
up?' has two problems. 'Middleaged' does not mean the same age group to
everyone, and 'living it up' can mean anything from wearing red to keeping
a harem. Fuzzy words can creep into almost any question: 'Do you attend
dances frequently?' (or 'rarely' or 'occasionally' or 'often') will give
meaningless answers.
The cover the world question: 'What do you think of the
President?' could refer to the man or woman personally, or to how s/he is
carrying out the role of president of a company or a nation. 'What's the
neighbourhood like?' is useful in some interviews, but if you know what
aspect of the neighbourhood interests you, ask specifically about that.
Jargon questions:
Jargon and
technical terms
should be avoided. 'Do you feel that your husband has a
self actualising autonomous personality structure?' is an affront
to the respondent and also to the English language. Also, be careful
about words that have one meaning to the professionals in your field and
another, or none, to the public. 'Culture,' 'personality,'
'role,' or 'institution,' cannot be treated as if all respondents
shared a common understanding of the professional meaning you intended.
More generally, the language and style of the questionnaire must be
comfortable'to the respondent. 'Writing down' is insulting, and using
dialect or 'in' words to reach a group of which you are obviously not a
member is usually inappropriate.
The kitchen sink question: 'Please list all the places
you have worked in the past five years, the type of work done and salary
received, and why you left.' To save confusion in replying,
recording and coding the answers, ask each part of the question separately.
Dream questions: Hypothetical questions do not
necessarily produce comparable answers from different respondents. 'What
kind of education would you like for your child?' might produce a
'sky's the limit' answer from a person who is stating an absolute ideal;
from another person you might receive a modest statement of the best he
or she thinks the child is likely to get. Make sure you know whether your
question examines wishes or expectations.
Leading questions: 'Why are you happy here in
Newtown?' or 'Why do you think the community looks up to doctors?' gives
the respondent little opening to say s/he is miserable in Newtown and
thinks that most of the people in the community feel that doctors are
charlatans.
Hearsay questions: 'Do you think your
neighbours are happy about the new school?' Do not ask one person the
opinions or attitudes of another, unless you wish to compare the first
person's impressions with facts that you will establish from the second
person.(Or unless you are a socal scientist studying perception). You
cannot cut down on your
sample number
by
asking a small number of people what they think the attitudes of other
people might be.
Fallout questions: These are sets of questions
in which something important gets lost on the way. Here is a real life
example: a woman who normally dyes her hair red went to a hairdresser who
required that his clients fill out a questionnaire before getting their
hair done. Bad dyes of any colour will turn hair red. The questionnaire
asked:
- 1. Do you colour your hair? Yes..... No.....
- 2. If yes, does it ever turn red? Yes..... No....
- 3. If yes, what product do you use?
...................................................
The conclusion which the hairdresser drew was that anyone who answered
'yes' to Question 2 was using bad hair dye a conclusion that was
invalidated by the women purposely dying their hair red.
If uninfluenced answers are required, you do not put questions in the
form of 'You don't think . . . do you?'
But the researcher's biases can be projected in more subtle ways. In an
example of mothers with children under five, the focus of inquiry might
be their views about adult education opportunities for themselves, and
their aspirations for their children. The wording of these questions can
easily imply that adult education or certain kinds of educational
aspirations are
something the researcher values, and therefore the mother may feel she is
expected to make particular choices.
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