Nonreactive Research

1
Nonreactive Research Secondary Analysis

• ?????????????
• ???? ??????
• Social Research Methods, Spring, 2007
• March 814, 2007

2
Reactive vs. Nonreactive Research

• Reactive Research experiments, survey research
• Reactive the people being studied are aware of
  that fact

• Nonreactive Research those being studied are not
  aware of the fact
• Four techniques
• Nonreactive measures
• Content analysis
• Existing statistics
• Secondary analysis

3
Also could be called unobtrusive research
(??????)

• Historical/comparative analysis can be seen as
  unobtrusive research as well.

4
Why nonreactive (unobtrusive) research?

• methods of studying social behavior without
  affecting it (????????????)
• such methods can be qualitative or quantitative
• pay attentions to validity and reliability

5
Nonreactive Measurement (???????)

• Note People leave evidence of their social
  behavior or actions naturally.
• The logic of nonreactive measurement researchers
  notices something that indicates a variable of
  interest (??????????????)
• So, the researcher infers from the evidence to
  behavior or attitudes without disrupting those
  being studied. (??????????,?????????)

6
Varieties of Nonreactive or Unobtrusive
Observation

• Physical Traces
• Erosion measures (?????) selective wear, Ex
  worn tiles on the floor in a museum
• Accretion measures (?????) deposits of something
  left behind, Ex garbage, liquor bottles, etc
• Archives marriage records, family portraits,
  etc.
• Observation peoples wear, behaviors, etc.

7
Nonreactive Measurement

• Recording and Documentation
• Conceptualization
• Link a construct to nonreactive empirical
  evidence (??????????????????)
• Operationalization
• Systematically notes and records observations
  (?????????)
• Rule out reasons for the observation other than
  the construct of interest (??????)

8
Content Analysis gather and analyze the content
of text (???? ????????????)

• the content words, meanings, pictures, symbols,
  ideas, etc.
• the text (??) anything written, visual, or
  spoken, a medium for communication
• ???? ?????????

9
Content Analysis

• can be quantitative or qualitative
• qualitative researchers treats documents as
  cultural objects
• discover content in a different way
• compare content across many texts and analyze it
  with quantitative techniques

10
Topics Appropriate for Content Analysis

• Well suited to the study of communication
  (??????)
• Who say what, to whom, why, how, what effect
• Generalization limited to the cultural
  communication itself (???????????)
• Three types of research problems
• Involving a large volume of text (?????????)
• A topic to be studied at a distance (??????)
• Reveal messages in a text that are difficult to
  see (?????????????)

11
Measurement and Coding

• Need careful measurement, make replication
  possible (????,????????)
• Clear conceptualization
• Operationalization define a coding system
• How to systematically observe and record content
  from text (??????????????)

12
Measurement and Coding

• Units a word, a phrase, a theme, a newspaper
  article, etc.
• Other units possible
• Measure What?
• Structured observation systematic careful
  observation based on written rules (??????
  ?????????????????)
• Mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories
• Four characteristics of text content frequency,
  direction, intensity, and space

13
Coding, Validity, and Reliability

• Manifest (??) Coding coding the visible, surface
  content (?????????????)
• Ex counting the of times a word used in a text
• Highly reliable, but validity questionable
• Latent (??) Coding look at the underlying,
  implicit meaning in the content of a text
  (???????????????)
• Less reliable, validity better
• Intercoder reliability consistency across coders

14
Ex How to conduct content analysis research?

• Formulate a research question
• Units of analysis
• Sampling often use random sampling
• Manifest or latent coding, written rules for
  coding, recording sheet
• Variables and constructing coding categories
• Inferences content analysis describes what in
  the text

15
Strengths and Weaknesses of Content Analysis

• Advantages
• Its economy in terms of time and money (??)
• Safety (??)
• Studying a long period of time (????????)
• Unobtrusive seldom has effects on the subject
  being studied
• Disadvantages
• The limitation of recorded communications
  (??????)
• Problems of validity and reliability

16
Existing Statistics/Documents Secondary
Analysis (??????/?????????)

• Appropriate Topics difficult to specify topics
• Any topic with publicly available information
  could be studied (????????????)
• Topics involving information collected by large
  bureaucratic organizations
• Social Indicators (????) indicators of social
  well-being

17
Locating Data

• Documents and existing statistics
• Government or international agencies and private
  sources
• May take time and efforts to locate

• Secondary survey data
• Secondary analysis analyzing data, not
  collecting data
• Ex General Social Survey (GSS), ????????????

18
Limitations of existing statistics/secondary
analysis

• Danger of 2nd data analysis and existing
  statistics research
• Use existing statistics/2nd data not appropriate
  for his/her research question
• The researcher does not understand the
  substantive topic
• The fallacy of misplaced concreteness
  (???????????)

19
Limitations of existing statistics/secondary
analysis

• Units of analysis and variable attributes
• Aggregate vs. individual
• Validity
• Definitions not match
• A proxy for a construct (?????????)
• No control over how information is collected

20
Limitations of existing statistics/secondary
analysis

• Reliability stability reliability, equivalence
  reliability, representative reliability
• Missing data data lost or never been collected

21
Issues of Inference and Theory Testing

• Limited inferences from nonreactive data
• Ethical concerns
• The privacy and confidentiality of using
  information gathered by someone else
• Official statistics are social and political
  products