SC2145 Vle

Social research methods
A.P. Kelly
SC2145, 2790145
2011
Undergraduate study in
Economics, Management,
Finance and the Social Sciences
This subject guide is for a 200 course offered as part of the University of London
International Programmes in Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences.
This is equivalent to Level 5 within the Framework for Higher Education Qualifi cations in
England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ).
For more information about the University of London International Programmes
undergraduate study in Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences, see:
www.londoninternational.ac.uk
This guide was prepared for the University of London International Programmes by:
Aidan P. Kelly, BA, MA, Lecturer in Social Research Methods, Department of Sociology,
Goldsmiths, University of London.
This is one of a series of subject guides published by the University. We regret that due to
pressure of work the author is unable to enter into any correspondence relating to, or arising
from, the guide. If you have any comments on this subject guide, favourable or unfavourable,
please use the form at the back of this guide.
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Published by: University of London
University of London 2007
Reprinted with minor revisions 2011
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Contents
Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1
What this course is about .............................................................................................. 1
Aims ............................................................................................................................. 1
Learning outcomes ........................................................................................................ 2
Syllabus ......................................................................................................................... 2
The importance of social research methods .................................................................... 2
Structure of the course................................................................................................... 5
Prerequisite ................................................................................................................... 6
Essential reading ........................................................................................................... 6
Further reading.............................................................................................................. 6
Online study resources ................................................................................................... 8
Using the internet .......................................................................................................... 9
How to use the textbook and readings ........................................................................ 10
Hours of study and use of this subject guide ................................................................. 12
The examination and examination advice ..................................................................... 13
Part A: Social research strategies ......................................................................... 15
Chapter 1: What is social research? ...................................................................... 17
Aims and objectives ..................................................................................................... 17
Learning outcomes ...................................................................................................... 17
Essential reading ......................................................................................................... 17
Further reading............................................................................................................ 17
Websites ..................................................................................................................... 17
Works cited ................................................................................................................. 18
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 18
Research strategies ...................................................................................................... 19
Research design .......................................................................................................... 24
Research methods for data collection and analysis ....................................................... 27
Principles and practice in social research ...................................................................... 30
Social research and academic sociology ....................................................................... 30
The reaction against positivism and the paradigm wars ................................................ 31
Methodological awareness in sociology and social research .......................................... 32
The biographical context .............................................................................................. 34
Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 35
A reminder of your learning outcomes.......................................................................... 36
Sample examination questions ..................................................................................... 36
Chapter 2: Concepts in social research ................................................................ 37
Further reading............................................................................................................ 37
Websites ..................................................................................................................... 38
Works cited ................................................................................................................. 38
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 38
What is a concept? ...................................................................................................... 38
Theory, concepts and concept formation....................................................................... 40
i
145 Social research methods
Concept formation in sociology: the case of social exclusion ......................................... 41

Operational definitions in quantitative social research .................................................. 41
Coding and recoding in quantitative social research ..................................................... 42
Linking concepts and the outcomes of social research .................................................. 43
Sensitising concepts................................................................................................... 43
Social exclusion in qualitative social research ............................................................... 44
Retroduction and double-fitting ................................................................................. 44
Conceptual modelling .................................................................................................. 44
Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 45
Part B: Qualitative social research........................................................................ 47
Chapter 3: Designing qualitative social research ................................................. 49
Further reading............................................................................................................ 49
Works cited ................................................................................................................. 49
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 50
Sources of qualitative data ........................................................................................... 53
Non-probability sampling and theoretical sampling ...................................................... 56
Prestructuring of qualitative research design ................................................................ 57
Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 57
Chapter 4: Qualitative data analysis .................................................................... 59
Further reading............................................................................................................ 59
Websites ..................................................................................................................... 59
Works cited ................................................................................................................. 59
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 60
Research questions and qualitative analysis ................................................................. 60
Validity in qualitative data analysis............................................................................... 64
Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 65
Part C: Quantitative social research ..................................................................... 67
Chapter 5: Designing quantitative social research .............................................. 69
ii

Further reading............................................................................................................ 69
Works cited ................................................................................................................ 69
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 70
Research questions and quantitative designs ................................................................ 72
Descriptive quantitative social research ........................................................................ 72
Hypothesis testing and evaluation research .................................................................. 72
Interpretative model building ....................................................................................... 73
Synthetic model building.............................................................................................. 74
Contents
Causal models in quantitative social research ............................................................... 75

Validity in social survey research .................................................................................. 76
Causal inference in the classical scientific experiment ................................................... 78
The panel study ........................................................................................................... 79
The social survey the random sample one-group, post-test only design .................... 80
Causal modelling and survey design............................................................................. 81
Designing social surveys: interview schedules and questionnaires ................................. 82
Multi-dimensional attitude scales ................................................................................. 83
Sample design, sampling theory and statistical inference .............................................. 84
Secondary analysis of large-scale social surveys ............................................................ 85
Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 86
A reminder of your learning outcomes ......................................................................... 86
Chapter 6: Analysing quantitative data ............................................................... 89
Further reading............................................................................................................ 89
Websites ..................................................................................................................... 90
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 90
Univariate analysis ....................................................................................................... 91
Sampling distributions, standard error and confidence intervals .................................... 91
Exploring causal models .............................................................................................. 93
Bivariate data analysis ................................................................................................. 93
Measures of association and bivariate tables ................................................................ 95
Measures of association based on proportionate reduction in error (PRE) ..................... 95
Measures of association based on Chi-square: Cramers V ........................................... 96
Which measure of association do we use in our crosstabulations? ................................ 97
Multivariate analysis .................................................................................................. 101
The elaboration paradigm .......................................................................................... 105
Causal modelling and path analysis ........................................................................... 110
The assessment of indirect effects .............................................................................. 113
Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 115
A reminder of your learning outcomes........................................................................ 115
Sample examination questions ................................................................................... 116
Part D: The context of social research ................................................................ 119
Chapter 7: The ethics and politics of social research ......................................... 121
Aims and objectives ................................................................................................... 121
Learning outcomes .................................................................................................... 121
Essential reading ....................................................................................................... 121
Further reading.......................................................................................................... 121
Websites ................................................................................................................... 121
Works cited ............................................................................................................... 122
Introduction .............................................................................................................. 122
The ethics of social research....................................................................................... 122
Feminism and the politics of social research ............................................................... 125
The politics of identity ................................................................................................ 126
Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 127
A reminder of your learning outcomes........................................................................ 128
Sample examination questions ................................................................................... 128
Appendix: Sample examination paper............................................................... 129
iii
Notes
iv
Introduction
Introduction
What this course is about
Welcome to this course 145 Social research methods. This subject
guide aims to help you learn about social research. In this introduction, I
want to point out some features of learning about social research methods
and discuss how to use this guide and its associated readings.
Social research methods is a technical subject that has its own language
and this language must be used in a very precise way. When studying
social research methods what may seem to be everyday terms, such as
validity have a much more specific meaning. In this course, the precise
meaning of technical terms has to be learned and then used carefully,
especially in the examination. That is why one of your first tasks will be to
start a glossary of your own.
As students of social sciences, you will be familiar with the idea of
sociology as a multi-paradigm discipline: sociology does not have a single
paradigm of interlinked theory and method. Debates and controversies
abound! By far the deepest divide, up until recently, has concerned the
philosophical basis of sociological research and the choice of appropriate
social research methods. This divide has a long history and it widened
considerably during the 1970s. Many textbooks introduce sociology
students to the debate between the positivists who argued that social
science was similar in method to the natural sciences, and the antipositivists who argued that the nature of the subject matter made the
idea of a social science a contradiction in terms. The division between
positivism and anti-positivism has become synonymous with that between
qualitative and quantitative social research strategies. The so-called
paradigm-wars between these opposing strategies are thought to be
outdated, but the conflicting perspectives live on in the structure of
textbooks on social research methods and in this subject guide. It seems
impossible to teach social research methods in any other way than to
consider quantitative and qualitative approaches separately. As far as the
practice of social research is concerned, it is also important to keep in
mind three developments:
the increased willingness to use both quantitative and qualitative
strategies
the argument that choice of strategy is based on the research question
and what sort of answers are to be pursued
the shift of emphasis in the paradigm wars, away from quantity versus
quality, to the debate questioning the existence of a social reality that is
independent of our means of studying it.
This subject guide retains the old distinction between qualitative and
quantitative research strategies as it is reflected in the essential textbook.
Aims
This course is designed to:
describe the key components of social research
develop skills and knowledge about quantitative and qualitative social
research
identify criteria used to evaluate the quality of social research.
1
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, and having completed the Essential reading and
activities, you should be able to:
formulate researchable questions
define a research strategy and design a research project to answer a
research question
discuss the practice and principles of qualitative and quantitative social
research
use skills and knowledge acquired in the course to evaluate the quality
of published research by sociologists and other social scientists.
Syllabus
The contexts of Social Research: Social research as a professional activity.
The market for social research outputs. The contexts of data collection.
Social research and academic sociology. Philosophy and the practice of
social research. The cultural context and ethnocentrism. Developing
research proposals in context.
Models and Modelling in Social Research: Ontological and epistemological

status of models. Models and researchable questions. Exploratory and
Confirmatory approaches to model building. Flexibility in Research Design.
The use of models in quantitative and qualitative social research.
Concepts in Social Research: Approaches to concept formation in Sociology.
Theory and concepts. Induction and deduction. The use of concepts in
qualitative and quantitative social research. Coding qualitative data.
Operationalising concepts. Complex concepts: property spaces.
Qualitative Social Research: Sources of qualitative data: the interview,

focus groups, participant observation and field work methods, documents.
Sampling in qualitative social research: grounded theory and theoretical
sampling. Analytic induction and qualitative classification analysis. Small
N research and case studies: thick description.
Quantitative Social Research: Sources of quantitative data: the social survey,
administrative and official statistics. Secondary analysis of survey data.
Designing social surveys. Quasi-experimental designs. Units and levels of
analysis. Graphics and visualising data. Explanation and causal inference.
Deciphering and Evaluating Social Research Outputs: The components of a
social research publication. Identifying components. Reconstructing the
research project. Validity in quantitative and qualitative research.
The importance of social research methods

We only need to consider one important aspect of modern societies
to justify the importance of learning about social research methods.
Whatever the merits of the description, the phrase the information
society conveys the importance of data in all its forms to everyday life in
the contemporary world. Large corporations and governments construct
massive datasets and have teams of employees who work as data miners
to interrogate these datasets. Consider the following instances:
Modern supermarkets such as Tesco collect data on every consumer
who has their store card. The consumer is then sent special offer
vouchers targeted to reflect their purchasing history which increases
the chances of the consumer revisiting the store.
2
Introduction
Political parties use opinion surveys and focus groups to monitor the
likely reaction to new policy developments or to indicate the points of
advantage the party has over its political rivals.
Governments and large businesses are increasingly evidence-based in their
approach to decision making. It is a feature of contemporary societies
that people make, or claim to make, decisions based on data: data about
impact of medicines, data about impact of marketing campaigns, data
about sports performance. If it moves, that movement is being recorded
and stored on a database somewhere. Nowhere is private and protected
from data collectors: mobile phones record calls made and their duration
and spy software invades our personal computers to record keystrokes
and websites visited often without our knowledge or permission. Search
engines such as Google also collect the same kind of data about the
websites we visit.
Apart from our worries about the invasion of privacy represented by these
developments, the very existence of these data mines should sensitise us to
the need to understand how data is constructed, collected and analysed.
Knowledge of research methods will lead us to analyse the data collection
techniques used and the potential impact of the methods on the analysis
of the data collected. Conclusions that others may draw from the analysis
of such data can be scrutinised using principles and techniques of social
research methods. In everyday life everyone will be affected by the results
of analysed data, it is therefore important that we learn how to scrutinise
the strategies, methods and techniques of those that produced these
findings.
Example: Breastfeeding and educational achievement

The Guardian newspaper has published research findings that suggest
that children of mothers who breastfeed achieve better results in school.
Knowledge of research methods will mean that you are extremely sceptical
about such results presented in the media. This result might be an
instance of the spurious relationship resulting from a failure to meet the
criteria of causal inference. If highly educated mothers are more likely to
breastfeed their children and highly educated mothers are more likely to
have children who do well at examinations, then it will be the case that
breastfeeding will appear to be related to examination passes, but it will
be an association that is not a causal relationship between two variables.
The association is a product of a common antecedent variable the
mothers education.
In learning about social research, it is important to recognise the different
types of knowledge that you will gain:
insights into the practical implications of debates over the philosophy
of social science for the conduct of social research
knowledge of how the choice of research strategy, e.g. quantitative
or qualitative research, reflects the research question addressed and
constrains the possible outcomes of social research
knowledge of the technical requirements or best practices that govern
and inform contemporary social research and the criteria used by
professional audiences to evaluate social research.
Having access to the body of knowledge about research methods will allow
you to acquire three key skills:
the ability to be systematic in the design and conduct of your own
research and in the description and evaluation of others research
3
the ability to deploy an informed scepticism when making judgments

about your own and others social research
the ability to place research projects, including your own, within a specific
social context. This includes an ethical context, a political context and
an academic context as well as the immediate context of data collection
that may influence or may have influenced the construction of the data
collected.
Knowledge of social research methods will provide you with a checklist of
issues surrounding the conduct of social research. Thus when confronted with
a journal article reporting on a research project, you will have a new way of
reading that article. Your reading will be informed by your ability to identify
the key components of a project and a knowledge of the potential weaknesses
of the research. It will then deploy a properly informed skepticism an
unwillingness to accept the validity of arguments and evidence until a set of
criteria has been applied.
One of the significant advantages of Brymans book Social Research Methods
is his continual reference to actual empirical studies. You may also wish to
consult the book by Devine and Heath entitled Sociological Research Methods
in Context (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1999), which summarises and comments
on eight recent sociological studies. Without referring to these and other
empirical studies, learning about social research methods can become a
very artificial, even abstract experience. Since there are limits to the amount
of research you can conduct on your own while doing this course, I urge
you to develop knowledge of actual examples of the way in which research
methods are used and with what results. In this way, you can judge research
by the outcomes of social research processes: what findings do the methods
produce and how useful are they in advancing your understanding of the
social world? This seems far more sensible than evaluating a research method
by reference to some pre-existing philosophical scheme such as positivism
and interpretivism. Although it is important to understand the philosophical
underpinnings of research strategies, these, in my view, have become far too
dominant in the practice of teaching social research methods. What I want
you to be able to say after taking this course is that you have:
studied a range of social research methods
seen what kind of research results from a choice or choices of method
acquired an awareness of the contribution research can make both to our
understanding of the social world and to the way it is changing.
Thus, whatever political views you may have about current social
arrangements you should be able to conduct empirical social research that
can inform debates about these and you can evaluate the research of other
sociologists and assess its relevance for current social debates.
Not all students have the ambition to become professional social researchers.
However, all social science students should recognise the valuable intellectual
and practical skills that are acquired through knowledge of social research
methods.
My own approach to social research may be described as a pragmatic realism.
I assume that there is a social world out there, independent of our private
conceptions, which we can explore and attempt to model. This assumption
allows me to conduct research that may or may not lead me to find out
things we do not already know. If the results enhance understanding of the
social world then this justifies spending time and resources on the conduct of
social research. What other justification can there be for the conduct of social
research?
4
Introduction
Structure of the course

This course is divided into three problem areas that you are required to
address:
Parts A and D: The nature of social research and The context of

social research
In Part A of the guide, you will be learning about the nature of social
research and its key components. This involves exploring the process of
social research and the specific issues of deduction and induction in social
research especially in relation to concepts and concept formation.
As well as knowing how to do social research, it is important to
understand the social and intellectual factors that influence the nature of
social research. In Part A, these include:
philosophical positions and methodological awareness
practical matters such as the people and places involved.
And in Part D, the following influences on research practice are reviewed:
ethical constraints and values
the politics of social research, including the influence of feminist
politics on the conduct of social research.
Part B: Qualitative social research

In Part B, we will be looking in detail at qualitative social research,
including:
the research questions typical of qualitative research
the balance between induction and deduction in the qualitative
research process
the sources of qualitative data including ethnography, participant
observations, interviews and documents
issues relating to time order and comparison in selection of sites,
subjects and data
the process of analysing qualitative data
the criteria used to evaluate the quality of qualitative research.
Part C: Quantitative social research

In Part C, we will be examining quantitative social research, including:
the research questions typical of quantitative research
the balance between induction and deduction in the quantitative
research process
the sources of quantitative data
issues relating to sampling and experimental design, including time
order, selection of sites, comparison groups
the process of analysing quantitative data, including establishing causal
inferences
the criteria of validity and reliability in quantitative social research.
Prerequisite
If you are studying this course as part of a BSc degree, you must already
have studied 21 Principles of Sociology. You may wish to refresh
your understanding of social research you gained from 21 Principles of
Sociology, especially Chapters 2 and 3.
Essential reading
The Essential reading for this course is from one textbook:
Bryman, A. Social Research Methods. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
second edition [ISBN 9780199264469].
Detailed reading references in this subject guide refer to the edition of the
set textbook listed above. New editions of this textbook may have been
published by the time you study this course. You can use a more recent
edition of any of the books; use the detailed chapter and section headings
and the index to identify relevant readings. Also check the virtual learning
environment (VLE) regularly for updated guidance on readings.
Further reading
Please note that as long as you read the Essential reading you are then free
to read around the subject area in any text, paper or online resource. You
will need to support your learning by reading as widely as possible and by
thinking about how these principles apply in the real world. To help you
read extensively, you have free access to the VLE and University of London
Online Library (see below).
* = edited collection which contains many supplementary readings.
** = particularly recommended reading.
** Ali, S. et al. Politics, Identities and Research in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching
Society and Culture. (London: Sage Publications, 2004) [ISBN
9780761955986].
Aneshensel, C.S. Theory-Based Data Analysis for the Social Sciences. (London:
Pine Forges Press, 2002) [ISBN 978-0761987369].
** Arbor, S. Secondary Analysis of Survey Data in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching
Social Life. (London: Sage Publications, 2002) second edition [ISBN
9780761972457].
Blalock, H. Are there really any constructive alternatives to causal modeling,
Sociological Methodology 21 (1991), pp.32535.
Blalock, H. The Operationalism Controversy in Blalock, H. and A.B. Blalock
(eds) Methodology in Social Research. (London, New York: McGraw-Hill,
1971) [ISBN 0070941815].
Blumer, H. The Ethics of Social Research in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching
9780761972457].
Bryman, A. Quantity and Quality in Social Research. (London: Routledge, 1988)
[ISBN 9780415078986].
Bryman, A. Paradigm Peace and the Implications for Quality, International
Journal of Social Research Methodology, 9(2) 2006, pp.11126.
Byrne, B. Qualitative Interviewing in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society and
Culture. (London: Sage Publications, 2004) [ISBN 9780761955986].
Dale A., S. Arber and M. Procter Doing Secondary Analysis. (London: Allen and
Unwin, 1988) [ISBN 9780043120422] Chapters 811.
* Devine, F. and S. Heath Sociological Research Methods in Context.
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1999) [ISBN 9780333666326] Chapters 1, 7 and
10.
6
Introduction
Devine, F. and S. Heath Sociological Research Methods in Context. (Basingstoke:
Palgrave, 1999) [ISBN 9780333666326] Chapter 9 Disarming Patriarchy.
De Vaus, D. Analyzing Social Science Data. (London: Sage Publications 2002)
[ISBN 978-0761959380]. Especially Chapter 32, How and When to
Use Cross Tabulations and Chapter 35, How to Interpret a Correlation
Coefficient.
De Vaus, D. Surveys in Social Research. (London: Routledge, 2002) fifth edition
[ISBN 9780415268585].
De Vaus, D. Research Design in Social Research. (London: Sage Publications,
2001) [ISBN 9780761953470] Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 12.
** Fielding, J. Coding and Managing Data in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching
9780761972457].
Fielding, N. Ethnography in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching Social Life. (London:
Sage Publications, 2002) second edition [ISBN 9780761972457].
Gilbert, N. Research Theory and Method in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching
9780761972457].
* Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching Social Life. (London: Sage Publications, 2002)
second edition [ISBN 9780761972457].
Hammersley, M. The Politics of Social Research. (London: Sage Publications,
1995) [ISBN 9780803977198].
Healey, J. Statistics: a Tool for Social Research. (Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth,
2005) seventh edition [ISBN 9780534627942].
Kirk, J. and J. Miller Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Social Research.
(London: Sage Publications, 1986) [ISBN 9780803924703].
Layder, D. Sociological Practice: Linking Theory and Social Research. (London:
Sage Publications Ltd., 1998) [ISBN 9780761954293] Chapters 3, 4 and 5.
Lewins, A. Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis in Gilbert, N. (ed.)
Researching Social Life. (London: Sage Publications, 2002) second edition
[ISBN 9780761972457].
Marsh, C. The Survey Method: the Contribution of Surveys to Sociological
Explanation. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1982) [ISBN 9780043100158].
Procter, M. Analysing Survey Data in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching Social Life.
(London: Sage Publications, 2002) second edition [ISBN 9780761972457].
Ritchie, J. and J. Lewis Qualitative Research Practice. (London: Sage
Publications, 2003) [ISBN 9780761971108].
Robson, C. Real World Research. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002)
second edition [ISBN 9780631213055] Chapter 2 Approaches to Social
Research.
* Seale, C (ed.) Researching Society and Culture. (London: Sage Publications,
2004) second edition [ISBN 9780761941965].
** Seale, C. Coding and Analysing Data in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society
and Culture. (London: Sage Publications, 2004) [ISBN 9780761955986].
** Seale, C. Statistical Reasoning: Causal Arguments and Multivariate
Analysis in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society and Culture. (London: Sage
Seale, C. et al. The Quality of Qualitative Research. (London: Sage Publications,
1999) [ISBN 9780761955986] Chapters: Trust Truth and Philosophy,
Guiding Ideals and Grounding Theory.
Tonkiss, F. Analysing Text and Speech in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society and
Tonkiss, F. Focus Groups in Seale, C (ed.) Researching Society and Culture.
Wooffitt, R. Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis. (London: Sage
Online study resources

In addition to the subject guide and the Essential reading, it is crucial that
you take advantage of the study resources that are available online for this
course, including the virtual learning environment (VLE) and the Online
Library.
You can access the VLE, the Online Library and your University of London
email account via the Student Portal at:
http://my.londoninternational.ac.uk
You should have received your login details for the Student Portal with
your official offer, which was emailed to the address that you gave
on your application form. You have probably already logged in to the
Student Portal in order to register! As soon as you registered, you will
automatically have been granted access to the VLE, Online Library and
your fully functional University of London email account.
If you forget your login details at any point, please email uolia.support@
london.ac.uk quoting your student number.
The VLE
The VLE, which complements this subject guide, has been designed to
enhance your learning experience, providing additional support and a
sense of community. It forms an important part of your study experience
with the University of London and you should access it regularly.
The VLE provides a range of resources for EMFSS courses:
Self-testing activities: Doing these allows you to test your own
understanding of subject material.
Electronic study materials: The printed materials that you receive from
the University of London are available to download, including updated
reading lists and references.
Past examination papers and Examiners commentaries: These provide
advice on how each examination question might best be answered.
A student discussion forum: This is an open space for you to discuss
interests and experiences, seek support from your peers, work
collaboratively to solve problems and discuss subject material.
Videos: There are recorded academic introductions to the subject,
interviews and debates and, for some courses, audio-visual tutorials
and conclusions.
Recorded lectures: For some courses, where appropriate, the sessions
from previous years Study Weekends have been recorded and made
available.
Study skills: Expert advice on preparing for examinations and
developing your digital literacy skills.
Feedback forms.
Some of these resources are available for certain courses only, but we
are expanding our provision all the time and you should check the VLE
regularly for updates.
Making use of the Online Library

The Online Library contains a huge array of journal articles and other
resources to help you read widely and extensively.
Introduction
To access the majority of resources via the Online Library you will either
need to use your University of London Student Portal login details, or you
will be required to register and use an Athens login: http://tinyurl.com/
ollathens
The easiest way to locate relevant content and journal articles in the
Online Library is to use the Summon search engine.
If you are having trouble finding an article listed in a reading list, try
removing any punctuation from the title, such as single quotation marks,
question marks and colons.
For further advice, please see the online help pages: www.external.shl.lon.
ac.uk/summon/about.php
Using the internet

The internet is a vast and increasingly valuable source of information,
knowledge, arguments and research findings.
Unless otherwise stated, all websites in this subject guide were accessed in
April 2011. We cannot guarantee, however, that they will stay current and
you may need to perform an internet search to find the relevant pages.
To start finding out more about social research methods, try this website:
www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/researchtools/
Here you can find many links and addresses related to directories and
gateways that provide an entry point for resources collated specifically
for a chosen area that you could search and browse. In addition, there
are article references and abstracts databases which provide searchable
information about where you can find publications and articles in journals.
There are also research information databases that let you explore details
of current research and data, including both quantitative and qualitative
data.
The following databases provide a good starting point for identifying
publications about social research methods:
http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/ Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), accessible
via the ISI Web of Knowledge (WOK), indexes around 5,000 journals
spanning 50 social science disciplines and covers scientific and technical
items. It covers most of the major journals that address research methods
dating back to 1973. From a search, you can obtain titles and, for over half
the author abstracts, you can retrieve titles of citations references.
http://zetoc.mimas.ac.uk/ ZETOC is a searchable database of the British
Librarys Electronic Table of Contents (ETO). This includes almost 15
million journal articles from over 20,000 journals, and titles of papers
from over 70,000 volumes of research proceedings.
www.csa.com/factsheets/assia-set-c.php Applied Social Science Index and
Abstracts (ASSIAnet) provides online abstracts from around 650 UK, US
and international journals in the field of health and social science dating
back to 1987.
Online access to web sources may be restricted to students and staff at
higher educational institutions. You should always consult your own
library to see which ones they subscribe to.
To search the web for supplementary tutorial assistance from course
documents use Google scholar as available on the free browser from

Firefox (www.mozilla.com/en-US/). Many online resources explain
concepts and techniques used in social research. You can also consult the
website, (www.oup.com), which provides a list of selected web links made
available to those who have purchased the Bryman text.
Online journals and texts

Online journals and texts allow you to read publications and documents
such as official and unofficial reports, reviews, on-going debates and press
articles. Freely accessible full text peer-reviewed journals include the
following:
Sociological Research Online is an online journal that publishes
high quality applied sociology articles, focusing on theoretical,
empirical and methodological discussions. www.socresonline.org.uk/
Social Research Update is a quarterly electronic journal that covers
new developments in social research. Each issue covers a different
research methods topic spanning qualitative and quantitative methods.
It is pitched at a level that can be appreciated by both novice and
expert reader. www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/
The Qualitative Report is an online journal dedicated to qualitative
research and critical inquiry and which serves as a forum and sounding
board for researchers, scholars and practitioners. www.nova.edu/ssss/
QR/index.html
Forum for Qualitative Social Research (FQS) is a free
multilingual online journal for qualitative research that aims to
promote discussion and cooperation between qualitative researchers
from different countries and social science disciplines.
www.qualitative-research.net/
Examples of journals of interest for social research methods that allow you
to browse tables of contents and/or abstracts online are:
Sociological Methodology is an annual volume on methods of
research in the social sciences.
Social Science Research is a quarterly journal that publishes papers
devoted to quantitative social science research and methodology.
International Journal of Social Research Methodology
(IJSRM) is a relatively new journal covering a mix of academic and
theoretically slanted methodological articles and articles relating to
research practice in professional and service settings.
How to use the textbook and readings

This subject guide aims to assist your private study, including the reading
of the course textbook and other more specialist readings. It is a guide to
the required reading and directs you to approach the reading with certain
questions or issues in mind.
I have chosen not to follow the same structure as Bryman and you will
be required to take what you have learned from Bryman and other
readings and bring it to this subject guide. I wish to avoid presenting social
research in a way that allows qualitative research to be seen as a critical
reaction to quantitative social research. Also, I wish to engage your mind
in a creative and exploratory way with the practice of social research.
10
Introduction
The kinds of research questions addressed by qualitative social research

allows this to happen more spontaneously. In addition, taking a slightly
different approach provides more of a test of your understanding of what
you have read in the textbook. This subject guide requires you to use the
Bryman textbook and readings in a creative way. There is no substitute for
reading Bryman and supplementing this with some of the further reading
I suggest. You must not rely on this subject guide alone. This guide alone
does not provide a basis for the successful completion of the course.
I would begin this course by reading and making notes on whole chapters
of Bryman in the following sequence:
Part A of the subject guide
Chapter 1 Social research strategies
Chapter 2 Research designs
Chapter 3 The nature of quantitative social research
Chapter 13 The nature of qualitative social research
Part B of the subject guide
Chapter 14 Ethnography and participant observation
Chapter 15 Interviewing or Chapter 16 Focus groups
Chapter 19 Qualitative data analysis
Chapters 21 and 22 on combining qualitative and quantitative social
research
Part C of the subject guide
Chapter 7 Asking questions
Chapter 5 Structured interviewing
Chapter 4 Sampling
Chapter 10 Secondary Analysis
Chapter 11 Quantitative Data Analysis
Part D of the subject guide
Chapter 25 The ethics and politics of social research
Logics and logics in use

In his book The Conduct of Inquiry, Abraham Kaplan makes a distinction
between the logic that governs the production of social science and the
logic as it is presented in finished published accounts of social science
research.
Social scientists present their work in a recognisably logical way. There
are beginnings, endings and ordered steps governed by rules along the
path from initial hypothesis to research conclusions. Similarly, when social
scientists are writing textbooks on research methods they often follow a
similar practice. I have also attempted to display social research methods
as a sequence of topics. However, it can be misleading to view the process
of research in this way because the process of learning about research
methods is not a linear progression of incremental steps.
The reconstructed logic of methodology textbooks can be a misleading
version of the actual research process. Although some parts of the research
11
process can be mechanistic or highly structured processes, others are not.

In the case of qualitative social research, rules of conduct have not been
fully developed and the consequence is that rules are constructed by the
researcher during the process of data collection and analysis. In qualitative
research, the absence of rules generates the need for creativity and
flexibility that are seen as an advantage rather than a drawback.
There must be a sequence to learning about the various topics covered in
a social research methods course. However, it is often apparent to students
and tutors that the first topics covered would be easier to understand
if the students had already completed the topics that follow! It is quite
normal to teach students how to design research before covering matters
of data analysis, even though it is considerably easier to understand how
to ask research questions and design social research when the problems of
data analysis and the shaping of research outcomes have been addressed.
Learning social research methods is iterative, not sequential, and this
means that you will need more than one run through of the complete
materials to understand properly each of the topics that make up social
research.
Learning by doing
This subject guide has to convey knowledge of research methods by
means of addressing required readings and assessing students ability
to reproduce descriptions, evidence and arguments under examination
conditions. This has to be the case in the nature of the degree programme
offered by the University of London. It is not possible to assess students
ability to apply what they have learnt through projects or coursework
exercises requiring the collection and analysing of data.
There is no reason why you should not practise qualitative observation and
perhaps some restricted form of simple counting in your everyday life. We
will be requiring you to undertake social research practice yourself at some
stage. However, I would encourage you to begin to address your everyday
life as an apprentice social researcher. There is no reason why you should
not become a trained observer of social life, developing a systematic
approach to the observation of selected social settings. For example:
Social interaction in bus queues and on bus journeys. How do people
start up conversations with strangers? What is the content of the
conversations you overhear?
Collect your local newspapers for several weeks and list the content of
stories and the priority given to stories by their placement in the paper.
Classification is something you can practice in a wide range of social
settings. At a sports event, can you identify and classify different types of
sports fans by their demeanour at the fixture concerned?
This will be taken up again in the chapter on qualitative research methods.
Hours of study and use of this subject guide

If you are intending to study this course over the period of one year, we
would expect you to be spending at least seven hours per week on it.
On the following page is a map of the sequence of reading and the
associated preparation for your examination that you are strongly advised
to follow during the academic year. If you are taking longer than one year
to study the course, then adjust this table accordingly.
12
Introduction
The examination and examination advice

Important: the information and advice given here are based on the
examination structure used at the time this guide was written. Please
note that subject guides may be used for several years. Because of this
we strongly advise you to always check both the current Regulations for
relevant information about the examination, and the VLE where you
should be advised of any forthcoming changes. You should also carefully
check the rubric/instructions on the paper you actually sit and follow
those instructions.
The examination paper is divided into three sections and you have
three hours to answer three questions, choosing one question from
each section.
At the end of each chapter in this guide, you are provided with sample
examination questions which can be answered using this subject guide and
the essential readings identified. You cannot rely on this guide alone; it is
a guide to the reading of the textbook and other readings that you must
study thoroughly if you are to pass the examination.
A general piece of advice on the examination is to use, as much as
possible, examples of social research that illustrate or support your
argument. This will allow you to convey to the examiners how the
arguments and debates over social research methods are actually reflected
in the way empirical social research is conducted by professional research
practitioners.
Remember, it is important to check the VLE for:
up-to-date information on examination and assessment arrangements
for this course
where available, past examination papers and Examiners
commentaries for the course which give advice on how each question
might best be answered.
13
Month
Practical
September/ October
Read the introduction to the

subject guide.
Sections and topics
Buy Bryman, Social Research

Methods
October
Complete reading and note

Prepare outline examination
taking on Chapters 1, 2, 13 and answers on the nature of
3 of the textbook.
social research strategies.
November

taking on Chapters 14, 15 or
16, 19 of the textbook.
Begin observing and making

field notes on everyday social
situations.
December

taking on Chapters 21 and 22
of the textbook.
Practise answering one

question from Part A of the
example paper.
answers on Qualitative Design
January

taking on Chapters 7, 5, 4 and
10 of the textbook.

answers on Qualitative
Analysis.
February

taking on Chapters 11 and 12
of the textbook.
Practise answering one

question from Part B of the
example paper.
answers on Quantitative
Design.

Practise answering two
taking on Chapters 25, 26 and questions from Part B of the
24 of the textbook.
example paper
answers on Quantitative
Analysis
March
Practise answering two

questions from Part C of the
example paper.
answers on the Ethics and
Politics of Social Research.
April
14
Practise full examination paper

answers under untimed and
then timed conditions.
Part A: Social research strategies
Part A: Social research strategies

In Part A, we look in detail at the two main social research strategies.
We then focus specifically on the nature and role of concepts in social
research. We will cover the following topics:
the nature of social research and its key components
how these components vary in quantitative and qualitative research
strategies
concepts and how they are formed in qualitative and quantitative
research strategies
how these concepts are linked in theoretical schemes or models.
The first chapter of this guide What is Social Research? is perhaps
the most important chapter of the book as it defines the distinctive
qualitative and quantitative strategies that Bryman, in the course
textbook, has used as an approach to learning about social research
methods. This first chapter is concerned with the underlying philosophical
positions associated with qualitative and quantitative social research.
These opposing philosophical stances, often termed positivism and
interpretivism, are the basis of the so-called paradigm wars that have
dominated debates about methods in many social science disciplines and
in the practice of social research.
The chapter will attempt to re-orient your perspective on social research
methods away from these philosophical inputs, to focus more on research
questions and particularly on research outcomes. This focus on outcomes
arises from a pragmatic stance that insists that, although social research
necessarily involves reflection and reflexivity, the purpose of research
is to seek understanding in order to change social arrangements. This
is consistent with Brymans view that while philosophical stances are
important to understand, they should not be seen as the only influences of
the practice of social research.
15
Notes
16
Chapter 1: What is social research?

Aims and objectives
This chapter will:
introduce you to the nature of social research
define research strategy, research design and research method
illustrate how the above differ in the two major approaches to social
research
consider the link between philosophies of social science and the
practice of social research
define the intellectual and social contexts influencing the practice of
social research.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this chapter and having completed the Essential reading and
explain the difference between research strategies, research designs
and research methods
discuss the nature of quantitative and qualitative research strategies
demonstrate an understanding of the relevance of philosophy
(epistemology and ontology) to the practice of social research
distinguish between types of methodological awareness and assess their
implications for the practice of social research
describe the intellectual and social factors that influence the conduct of
social research.
Essential reading
Bryman, A. Social Research Methods, Chapter 1, pp.7578 and pp.27984.
Further reading
Bryman, A. Paradigm Peace and the Implications for Quality, International
Journal of Social Research Methodology 9(2) 2006, pp.11126.
Bryman, A. Quantity and Quality in Social Research. (London: Routledge, 1988)
[ISBN 9780415078986].
Palgrave, 1999) [ISBN 0333666321] Chapter 1 and Chapter 10.
Robson, C. Real World Research. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002)
second edition [ISBN 9780631213055] Chapter Approaches to Social
Research.
Seale, C. et al. The Quality of Qualitative Research. (London: Sage Publications,
1999) [ISBN 9780761955986] Chapter 3 on Trust Truth and Philosophy
and Chapter 4 on Guiding Ideals.
Websites
www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/researchtools/
SRA, government social research, BSA
17
Works cited
Bechhofer, F. (1996) Quantitative Research in British Sociology: Has it Changed
since 1986? Sociology, 30, and 3, pp.58391.
Becker, H.S., B. Geer and E.C. Hughes Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical
School. (Chicago; London: University of Chicago, 1961).
Berger, P. and Luckmann, T. The Social Construction of Reality. (London: Allen
Lane, 1966).
Blalock, H.M. (1989) The Real and Unrealised Contributions of Quantitative
Sociology, American Sociological Review, 54, June, pp.44760.
Blumer, H. What is Wrong with Social Theory, American Sociological Review, 19
1954, pp.310.
Cicourel, A.V. Method and Measurement in Sociology. (New York Free Press,
1966).
Douglas, J. The Social Meanings of Suicide. (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1967).
Durkheim, E. Suicide: a Study in Sociology. Translated by J.A. Spaulding and G.
Gibson (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952).
Edwards, R. Contested Terrain. (New York: Basic Books, 1979).
Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for
Qualitative Research. (Chicago: Aldine, 1967).
Goldthorpe, J.H. Progress in Sociology: the Case of Social Mobility Research,
Sociology Working Papers 200308 at: www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/swp.html
Goldthorpe, J.H. The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure. (London: Cambridge
University Press, 1969).
Hammersley, M. The Paradigm Wars: Reports from the Front, British Journal of
the Sociology of Education, 13(1) 1992, pp.13143.
Law, J. and Singleton, V. Object Lessons, Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster
University (2003) at: www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/LawSingleton-Object-Lessons.pdf
Law, J. After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. (London: Routledge, 2006).
May, C. Methodological Pluralism, British Sociology and the Evidence Based
State: a Reply to Payne et al., Sociology, 39(3) 2005, pp.51928.
Oakley, A. Gender Methodology and Peoples Ways of Knowing: Some Problems
with Feminism and the Paradigm Debate in Social Science Sociology, 32(4)
1998, pp.70731.
Oakley, A. Paradigm Wars: Some Thoughts on a Personal and Public Trajectory,
International Journal of Social Research Methodology 2(3) 1999, pp.24754.
Payne, G., M. Williams and M. Chamberlain Methodological Pluralism in British
Sociology, Sociology, 38(1) 2004, pp.15363.
Selvin, H. Durkheims Suicide: Further Thoughts on a Methodological Classic
in Nisbet, R.A. (ed.) Emile Durkheim. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1965).
Williams, M. Social Research the Emergence of a Discipline?, International
Journal and Social Research Methodology, 3(2) 2000, pp.15766.
Zimmerman, D. Record-keeping and the Intake Process in a Public Welfare
Agency in S. Wheeler (ed.) On Record: Files and Dossiers in American Life.
(New York: Russell Sage, 1969) pp.31954.
Introduction
Social research is a practical activity aimed at answering a research
question by means of a research strategy, a research design and a method
(or methods) of data collection and analysis. Any research strategy has
implications for research design and the use of methods of data collection
and analysis (research methods). In this chapter, we will be very much
concerned with the three components of social research:
18
strategy
design
method.
In learning about social research in this chapter, we will be examining
two major research strategies: quantitative and qualitative. When we talk
of quantitative research strategies, we mean counting the numbers of
people (or other social units such as groups, households, or communities)
in defined categories. For example, Durkheim used counts of the number
of people (per thousand) in a community who had committed suicide.
Qualitative research strategies record and analyse talk and actions, or
analyse text that someone has written. This distinction between quantitative
and qualitative social research serves as a vehicle to learn how to describe
strategy, design and method in social research.
Social research is a technical subject and has a precise language. Although
not every term used has been defined in the literature in exactly the same
way, it is important for the purposes of this course that you are both clear
and consistent in the use of technical language. Accordingly, this chapter
includes a large number of definitions that you will need to:
remember
understand
apply.
Activity: starting a glossary
You will find it useful to construct your own glossary that will force you to define key
concepts and will be a reminder of their precise meanings. Social research has a technical
language that you must use with precision. You may keep your glossary on cards with a
card index system or you may order them in a Microsoft Word file.
To understand what social research is about you must clearly understand
what is meant by each of the following:
a research strategy
a research design
a research method.
We will now examine each of these in turn.
Research strategies
A research strategy is a collection of philosophical and theoretical
commitments that may influence decisions made about the research design
and the choice of specific methods of data collection and analysis. Strategy
also relates closely to the questions the research can address and determines
the type of findings that can result from the research. In this chapter, I
will be using the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research
strategies to introduce you to the defining characteristics of social research.
Qualitative research strategies are meaning-centred and informed by the
interpretivist tradition in social theory. In this tradition, the description
and explanation of the social world must refer to subjective meanings.
Interpretivist research aims to reveal the meaningful aspects of cultures as
in the case of social anthropology and Chicago School of sociology. This
tradition has used ethnographic methods to reveal the meaning of other
cultures, including sub-cultures in urban and rural areas. Ethnography
involves observing communities, interviewing individuals, reading the
19
text found in documents, and collecting this data directly in the natural
context shared by those being studied. This use of the natural context is
essential if the researcher is to learn to see the social world as it is seen by
those being studied. The aim of ethnographic methods is learning to see
the social world as it is seen by those being studied. Qualitative research
often aims to explain social action in terms of the subjective meanings of
the actor and the constructions placed upon their actions by themselves
and other actors. Ethnography is a way of accessing those meanings. Thus
if we attempt to understand the reason why some young women decide
to have children (the problem of teenage pregnancy), we must refer to
the frame of reference that informs such decisions. Although constructed
as a problem by policy makers, teenage pregnancy may represent an
attractive change of lifestyle for young women since it can lead to greater
autonomy and status. An interpretivist sociological explanation provides a
meaningful account of the action concerned.
For quantitative social research, the social world consists of contingent
relationships between well-defined concepts. Quantitative research
strategies emphasise the measurement of concepts and can be described
as variable-centred in contrast to meaning-centred. Examples of variables
include the annual income of a household or the number of children in
a household. A sample of data collected for these variables will tell us
what the averages are and how typical they are. If we are using systematic
randomly sampled data, we can estimate the accuracy of our descriptions
for the population as a whole. There may be contingent relations between
variables, for example, income may influence the number of children in
a household. There is no certainty or determinism, only defined odds,
that an income level will be associated with the number of children. These
contingencies are often relatively stable, but may vary between regions
and may change over time.
In sophisticated data analysis, we would want to assess:
the explanatory power of each variable
how much confidence we can have in the estimates of explanatory
power.
Subjective meanings are not necessary for these contingencies to operate
effectively. After all, the consequences of smoking were experienced by
those who died of lung cancer whether or not they subjectively attached
that risk to their smoking behaviour.
So far, we have seen that qualitative and quantitative social research have
very different core themes: one is meaning-centred, and one is variablecentred. These distinctions are not mutually exclusive in research practice,
but here they are used to help us identify the differing aims of each of
the two major research strategies. Qualitative research seeks to reveal
subjective meanings in cultures and sub-cultures, while quantitative social
research seeks to establish contingent relationships between variables.
Activity: identifying types of research projects
Using the short summaries of research projects in the Bryman textbook place the research
projects described in Box 2.17 p.44 and Box 2.24 p.49 in the cells in the following table:
Qualitative research
Descriptive research
Explanatory research
Table 1.1 Summaries of research projects
20
Quantitative research
Epistemology and research strategies

All aspects of social research tend to imply a specific intellectual stance in
relation to epistemology. Epistemology concerns the theory of knowledge
and is the study of how we can come to accept that a research finding is
true. Qualitative social research seeks to establish knowledge of the social
world by the study of peoples own interpretations of the social world.
Those who practice quantitative social research use a version of the natural
science method for establishing knowledge and are often called positivists.
Positivism is not the only way of describing those who favour a scientific
approach and those that argue that quantitative data analysis provides
important insights into the social world. I prefer the term realism since
this conveys a commitment to a scientific approach, but has a much more
sophisticated view of the process of scientific research than that conveyed
by the term positivism.
Ontology and research strategies

Ontology refers to the nature of the social: social constructs for
interpretivists and social objects for positivists. The contrasting
epistemologies of positivism and interpretivism are linked to contrasting
versions of ontology namely objectivism and constructionism. In Durkheims
classic study Suicide, he aimed to establish sociology as a discipline in the
French academy by arguing and demonstrating that social facts, such as
the suicide rates of a community, were social objects, that they were things
that were:
external to the people in that community
constrained a number of them to commit suicide.
His research sought to establish that the measured variation in the objective
conditions of social integration, prevailing in different regions and nations,
determined the suicide rate in those regions and nations. He did this using
the classical techniques of multivariate analysis (Selvin, 1965).
In the interpretivist tradition, Douglas (1967) displays the rival ontology
used in qualitative strategies. He shows that suicide is a social construct by
describing:
how the label suicide was attached to an action as a result of a process
of negotiation that constructed the meaning of the action
how even in the classic, discipline-defining study of Suicide Durkheim
was unable to explain variations in suicide rates without some references
of the social meanings of the social facts of suicide.
It is widely accepted in contemporary sociology that the social involves both
meaningful construction and objectification and that these two processes
are continuous and inseparable (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). However,
quantitative research is predominantly concerned with the influence of
object-like institutionalised constructions on social action, while qualitative
research is concerned with the process of constructing and negotiating
fluid-like social constructs.
The difference between the two approaches can be made clear by examining
the case of attitudes, such as political attitudes. In quantitative attitude
research, it is assumed that people have varying attitudes to political parties
and that these can be recorded using standardised measuring instruments
such as questionnaires. Thus attitude is presumed to be a reasonably
coherent and stable set of values and beliefs that can be measured by
asking people a series of questions about political issues. What is called
multi-dimensional attitude scaling measures subjects attitudes and then
21
correlates these summary scales with other social variables such as gender,
income, social status, etc. that explain variations in attitudes to political
parties. Attitudes are assumed stable social objects that can be used to
explain why people support and vote for political parties.
For interpretivists, multi-dimensional attitude scaling imposes the
researchers construction of meaning on the subjects own perspective.
Surveys pre-structure the subjective in order to develop standardised
measures. Using the qualitative research strategy one could first explore the
assumed coherence stability of attitudes by analysing their expression in
specific contexts such as a focus group. We will be exploring the validity of
attitude measurement in a subsequent chapter, but it is worth considering
why most political parties now use focus groups rather that relying solely
on survey methods to establish public opinion on political issues. Focus
group methods collect data on the expression of attitudes in a more
natural setting of a group discussion. The attitudes expressed to a survey
interviewer may be influenced by the specific context of the interview.
In survey research, the attitude is expressed in the researchers words as
defined in the questionnaire, and the research cannot measure how stable
or sincerely held the attitude or opinion is. Focus group methods access
attitudes largely in the form of the subjects own words, and the method
allows for the possibility that attitudes can be measured by the developed
position on an issue taken by a group after some discussion. The more
natural the research situation, the more valid the respondents measured
attitudes are likely to be.
Qualitative research strategy Quantitative research strategy
Defining
characteristics
Meaning-centred
Variable-centred
Descriptive aims
Detailed descriptions of
core meanings of a culture.
Interpretation of the meaning of
action.
Summary descriptions (averages

and variation) of social variables
and the degree of confidence in
these estimates.
Relationship
between theory
and research
Theory generation by means

of revealing or reporting the
constructions of reality in talk and
text including official documents.
Theory testing via the

establishment within a specified
context of contingent relationships
between variables taken as
representing theoretical constructs.
Epistemology
Interpretivism. The human

nature of social objects requires
reference to the subjective
meaning when explaining social
action. Theory is generated by
analysis of the subjective.
Positivist or post-positivistic.
Theoretical models are developed
by deduction and tested by
measurement of concepts
and applying criteria of causal
inference.
Ontology
The social world is constructed

in our attempts to understand it
and act upon it.
There is a knowable social world

independent of our constructions
of it.
Theoretical
perspectives
Symbolic Interactionism to
post-modernism. Social structure
is formed by institutionalised
meanings and constructs.
Structural behaviourism. Meanings

and action derive from occupancy
of structured social locations.
Table 1.2 The components of social research strategies
22
It is possible that survey methods can measure some well-defined

attitudes. For example, peoples attitudes to the British monarchy may be
regarded as unproblematic to measure. However, survey methods may
be less suited to establish attitudes to topics that are more remote from
everyday experience and less well defined, such as the use of stem cell
research in medicine.
This example flags up the possibility that relevance of ontological
commitments to research practice is itself an empirical question. In their
study of alcoholic liver disease, Law and Singleton describe how the
patient experience and organisational processes that are supposed to
structure pathways through diagnosis, treatment and outcome are in fact
ill-defined with unstable and problematic connections between activity
and outcomes. In these circumstances, they argue, orthodox approaches
to social research may not capture what they call a mess (Law and
Singleton, 2003). However, it is incorrect to assert that mess characterises
every social context. Some social contexts are highly structured with
well-defined social processes that secure a fairly stable and regular set of
outcomes. For these contexts what he terms standard research methods
remain important (Law, 2006, 4).
We can think of gender socialisation and education as involving relatively
well-defined institutionalised social processes that are productive of stable
and regular outcomes. Goldthorpe (2003), for example, has used a case of
social mobility research, to react against the abandonment of traditional
(quantitative) research strategies. Some ontological assumptions suit some
but not all research topics.
We have established that the two major strategies of social research
have contrasting stances on both epistemology and ontology. The third
component of the research strategy concerns the relationship between
theory and research.
Theory and research strategies

Qualitative research is often described as inductive. Induction describes
the process of constructing and validating theory using data analysis. Data
analysis precedes theory construction. One methodology for qualitative
and inductive theory construction is grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss,
1967). Grounded theory involves working as closely as possible with the
constructs used by the people who are being studied and building up
from these to abstract concepts that may be linked together in qualitative
models of processes or meaning systems. Quantitative social research is
usually organised around the aim of testing theory. A common practice
in quantitative social research is to review both theoretical and research
literature with the aim of summarising previous research in the form
of a causal model. This model of the contingent relationships between
theoretical concepts is then translated into a model of variables or
indicators of concepts that informs a research design. The data analysis
is then conducted to evaluate the relative importance of each causal
variable in the model or to determine whether the most important causal
mechanisms are operating to determine outcomes (Blalock, 1989).
It is important to see how these three components of research strategy
tend to hang together: an interpretivist epistemology, constructivist
ontology and an inductive view of the relationship between theory and
research, positivistic epistemology, objectivist ontology and a deductive
view of the research process. This synergy between elements of research
strategy facilitates learning about social research, but you must expect to
come across quantitative research that uses inductive data dredging or
23
qualitative research that aims to test theories using a realist ontology and
deductive logic.
Activity: clarifying key concepts in social research
Having read and made notes on Brymans Chapter 1, what do you understand by the
following?
Epistemology
Ontology
Induction
Deduction.
Try to remember definitions then check with your own glossary or notes taken from Bryman.
Research design
A research design provides a framework for the collection and analysis of
data. This framework references three dimensions:
the scale of data collection (includes defining units and spatial limits)
the use of time order
the use of inter-group comparisons or the comparative dimension.
Scale
Research designs can be large scale or small scale depending on what the
key requirement is: an in-depth study of a small number of people (usually
to generate ideas) or a large-scale study of systematically selected subjects
that can be taken as representative of a wider population. Most research
designs are a compromise between these equally desirable requirements.
In an ideal world, it would be desirable to have many detailed observations
on a large number of subjects, but this would be very expensive and
impractical to organise. As we shall see throughout this course, practical
matters compromise the pursuit of ideals in social research. Since the scale
of research is measured in units, a research design must define what the
unit of analysis is. A unit might be a person or a household, a school or an
area of a country in quantitative research. In qualitative research, the unit
of analysis might be a person to be interviewed, but it could also be a wide
range of other units such as a fragment of talk or text or one of a number of
documents or narratives. Scale determines the actual or potential number
of units to be included in the research. Units are selected within a specific
spatial context that forms an important part of a research design. The
research design will thus include a definition of the space within which the
data is collected. This might be a nation-state, a region, a town, city, or a
smaller location such as an organisation or part of an organisation such as
medical clinic or classroom.
Time order
Time order refers to measurement of change or collection of data over time.
We can study classroom behaviour of children over a six-month period or
we can survey opinions from one year to the next to see if people change
their attitudes to political issues. The changes recorded in the data can be
used to establish the sequence of events, for example, first, this happens,
then that happens, or if this happens, then that follows, in most cases.
In qualitative research, we might want to identify stages in professional
socialisation. For example, are professional ideals in medicine developed,
reinforced or abandoned during professional training (Geer, et al., 1961)?
24
In quantitative social research, it would be necessary to collect data over

time if we wanted to know whether good teaching practices produced high
achievement or whether the presence of high-achieving students stimulated
the adoption of good teaching practices.
Comparison
A basic feature of most social research is comparison or implied comparison.
Systematic comparison is a basic feature of much social research. The term
comparative method is often restricted to studies comparing two or more
national cultures, but in its broader sense it is a feature common to all
social research. Even when there is no direct comparison involved, implicit
comparison is used. For example, when studying the informal sub-culture
of male schoolchildren we may be comparing them with girls even though
girls are not included in the research design.
Making comparisons between groups often begs the question: why are
the differences observed? If two groups have different ways of organising
marriage partnerships, the question arises as to why this is. The answer
may lie in another characteristic of the group or the way it has evolved in
its own specific context.
Comparison group research is a characteristic of the classical experiment. In
a randomised clinical trial (RCT) for a new drug, volunteers are randomly
allocated to two groups. First, the health status of each group would be
assessed and then over time both groups take a unit of treatment (e.g. a
pill). The treatment group are given the drug under trial; the other
group, known as the control group, receive a placebo. After the course
of treatment is finished, both groups are assessed for health status. If the
treatment has been effective, the health status of the treatment group
should have increased significantly more than that of the control group.
Because we have selected the subjects at random, the only difference
between the groups was whether they took the treatment or the placebo,
all other rival explanations for differences in health outcomes having been
eliminated by random allocation of volunteer subjects to each group.
Comparison group research is also undertaken in non-experimental designs.
Comparison groups allow the researcher to assess the impact of variables
in context or show how qualitative sequences may vary across contexts. For
example, in the 1980s, the dramatic increase in levels of unemployment
in the UK prompted a number of qualitative studies of the impact of high
unemployment. One such study by Avtar Brah reports interesting insights
into the experience of Asian Youth (Brah, 2005). It was not part of her
research aims, but the use of a comparison group of white youths might
have shown the Asian experience to be distinctive. Comparison groups are
useful to establish whether findings are common to all groups or are unique
features of specific groups.
Activity: choosing a research design
Part 1
Why would a researcher adopt each of the following dimensions of research design?
a small-scale study
a large-scale study
a comparative study
a non-comparative study
a study that collected data over time
a one-shot or cross-sectional study.
25
Part 2
The Goldthorpe et al. study of The Affluent Worker is described by Bryman (2004, 56)
as a case study design since it was based on a single town Luton. They concluded
that the privatised community experience in Luton was associated with instrumental
collectivism or the use of trade union power for monetary gain rather than pursuit of
wider political goals. How might the addition of comparison groups of Liverpool and East
London car workers have compromised or enhanced the findings of the Luton study?
Similarly, if they had returned to the same research sites three years later, what would a
time order dimension have added to the possible conclusions?
Research design involves the following three components:
Scale that determines the number of units to be selected; a sampling
component that defines both the unit(s) of analysis and the ways in
which these are to be included in the study; a spatial element that
defines where the research is to take place.
A time component that defines the beginning and end of data collection
and any stages in between.
The use of comparison or comparison groups.
As we shall see later on in this chapter, it is unrealistic to view social
research designs as flowing directly from a set of theoretical and
philosophical commitments. It is a useful learning device to see the link
between research strategy and research design as this is reflected in
the separate components of research design. Table 1.3 shows how the
components of research design vary according to the research strategy
deployed to answer the research question.
Research design
components
strategy
strategy
Research question
e.g. how do disciplinary

incidents get raised and
resolved in the classroom?
e.g. what social factors

explain variations in access to
the internet?
Spatial elements: where

Small number of school sites: National sample of
research activity is located better few but in-depth
households: better many with
minimum detail
Sampling:
Non-random sample of
Random sample of
incidents guided by need for respondents guided by the
theory construction
need to be representative
a. what units are to be

selected?
Discipline incidents in
classroom lessons
Households and the members

within the household
b. how many units are to

be selected?
Enough to generate theory
Enough to be confident in
findings
c. how are units to be

included in the study?
Informal theory-guided
selection and additions to
sample
Choice of multi-stage,
randomly selected sample of
households
Time elements
Process-oriented study that

may seek to establish stages
in a process or a typical
sequence of events
Time order required to

establish causality. Annual
revisit to panel of households
to measure changes over time
Comparison groups
Not typical
In experimental designs and

comparative studies
Table 1.3 Components of research design by research strategy

26
Research methods for data collection and analysis

This subject guide is called Social research methods, but the term research
methods in this guide is reserved for those research instruments that are
constructed to either guide or standardise data collection. Qualitative
social research uses a variety of data collection methods. The classic
method is ethnography: studying people by description of the culture
and action. In participant observation studies the researcher attempts
to take the place and play out the roles of someone who belongs to the
social group being studied. The participant observation may be covert, or
undertaken with the understanding of those being observed. Qualitative
research also involves non-participant or more artificial settings such
as the interview and the focus group. The research methods chosen
by qualitative social researchers reflect five specific methodological
commitments:
depicting the social world as seen through the eyes of subjects
description in context
emphasis on process
flexibility and limited structure
concepts and theory grounded in data.
Qualitative research methods allow the researcher to discover how the
social world is constructed by the people studied. The aim of the research
may be to report how the culture of the people observed challenges
popular but false stereotypical perceptions. Qualitative research may
reveal aspects of the social world that may or may not be recognised by
those being studied. The sociologist might reveal the taken for granted
assumptions that are often found or hidden rules governing decisionmaking. For example, in the 1970s, Zimmerman (1969) studied a welfare
agency in which the following rules applied:
Whatever a client said that bore on their ineligibility for welfare
benefits was taken at face value, believed and not subject to further
investigation.
Whatever a client said that bore on their eligibility for welfare benefits
was not believed unless there was documentation supplied to support
the truth of the statements made.
The commitment to seeing the social world through the eyes of the subject
reflects a commitment to understanding the social world via gaining access
to the subjective meanings by which it is understood by participants.
The outcome of qualitative social research is an enhanced interpretative
understanding of the social world.
The qualitative researchers commitment to description-in-context
reflects the belief that all action is to be understood as a reflection of the
qualitative context in which it takes place. Describing the context in detail
is required to comprehend what might otherwise be incomprehensible
behaviours.
Qualitative social research is distinctive in its concern with social processes.
Whereas quantitative research often takes cross-sectional snapshots of
the social world at one moment in time, the design features of qualitative
research reflect a concern to see how social processes emerge within
the wider context. The use of techniques such as participant observation
illustrates this commitment to process. A strong example of this tradition
comes under studies of becoming, or more formally, in the study of
27
status passage. Whether it is concerned with becoming a marijuana user, a

qualified medical practitioner, or a Moonie, qualitative research is keen to
establish stages in the process of transition from one social status to another.
Qualitative research designs are characterised by flexibility and limited
structure: the idea is to let analysis and findings emerge from the
data over the time-period of the study. Research questions, concepts
and theory may not be defined or may only be defined as working
framework that is subject to change during the unit of the project. This
approach is crystallised in Blumers famous call for sensitising concepts
in social research (Blumer, 1954). Concepts and theory are grounded
in data because any premature closure of concept formation and theory
development is to be avoided.
Quantitative social research is most often associated with social surveys.
Survey analysis is used most frequently to collect information from large
samples of individuals. These samples are selected to be representative of
whole populations. Quantitative social research can also take other forms.
Government administrative systems routinely collect data and this can be
analysed using social research methods. Government statistics are compiled
on an area basis and researchers can attempt to establish descriptive and
causal findings from an analysis of the data.
Quantitative techniques can also be used in the structured observation
of social settings and in the content analysis of large text files such as
newspaper archives. Even qualitative social researchers can advocate some
limited use of counting. In using these data sources, quantitative social
researchers are often seen to exemplify the following preoccupations:
measurement of concepts to test and refine theories
causal inference and model building
generalisation of findings
replication of studies.
Measurement is important in quantitative social research because it is the
only way of demonstrating the contingent relationships between concepts.
To establish that social class influences life expectancy, it is necessary to
measure class by placing individuals within a social class classification
scheme. If we then use data measuring the age at which people die, it is
possible to see if there are social class differences in the mean age at death.
Without measurement, it is impossible to establish contingency. Where
there is a lack of measurement, we are unable to test the related theoretical
ideas. A practical example concerns car insurance. If insurance companies
could get accurate estimates of how well people drive, then they would use
this data to predict accident rates and thus determine insurance premiums.
Instead they use a number of proxy measures of driving ability such as age,
number of previous claims, number of driving convictions etc. In social
research we measure education by the qualifications gained but this is not
necessarily a precise guide to knowledge and skills.
Measurement and the establishment of contingency are not sufficient
since such contingencies may reflect chance or spurious relationships
between concepts. To establish the validity of a contingency relationship,
quantitative social research must establish that the findings meet
the criteria of causal inference. A valid model is a set of contingent
relationships between concepts that has been established by both
measurement and causal inference. What are these criteria of causal
inference? They are association, time order and lack of spuriousness.
28
Association: for the units being studied the values of one variable
are dependent on the values of another (i.e. there is a contingent
relationship between two variables).
Time order: or a change in the values of one (so-called independent)
variable at t1 results in a change in the value of the other (or dependent
variable) at t2.
Lack of spuriousness: establishing that the contingent relationship
between the dependent and the independent variable is not the
product of a third common or antecedent variable.
Quantitative social research requires quite complex multivariate analysis to
establish that the contingent relationship between two variables is true or
to establish in what contexts it is true. Thus we might want to conclude that
in most advanced industrial societies (context) there is a close relationship,
controlling for other influences (such as age, gender and parental social
class), between educational achievement and occupational status.
There are two further preoccupations to consider. Quantitative social
research often uses research designs based on systematic sampling
techniques that ensure that the findings relating to a sample can be
generalised to the wider population from which the sample was drawn.
Using techniques of statistical inference and significance tests, the degree
of confidence in the generalisation can be established. Test results show
whether confidence is established at the 95 per cent, 99 per cent or 99.9
per cent levels. Such tests can only be used with systematic random
sampling and this is usually found only in quantitative social research.
The transparency of data collection techniques and methods of analysis
in quantitative social research means that the replication of studies is
relatively straightforward. Although replication remains rare in practice,
the possibility of confirming or rejecting the findings of previous studies is
possible. In qualitative social research, improvements are being made to
increase the degree of transparency and the archiving of qualitative data
does facilitate replication of the data analysis stage.
Quantitative social research is variable-centred. It seeks to test and
develop theoretical models of concepts by measurement and causal
inference. In measuring concepts such as education, these social objects
reflect real underlying causal forces. If they did not then there would
be no contingent relationships between measured social objects. In
measurement, the research is reifying social constructs, making them
object-like and the validity of measurement is confirmed where contingent
relationships can be established and thus useful research findings result
since our knowledge of the forces of the acting is enhanced.
Research method
components
strategy
strategy
Methods/instruments of
data collection
Aims to maximise openness

of response in interviews/
unstructured interview/
focus groups.
Aims to standardise
meaning of response in
survey questionnaires and
records of official activities.
Data analysis strategy
Revealing implicit meanings.

Coding text to categories
and modelling connections
and/or sequences to convey
plausibility.
Estimating descriptions
and (causal) associations
between variables to meet
criteria for inference.
Table 1.4 Example research methods by research strategy

29
The research strategies we have outlined in section 1.1 are linked to

research designs and to the criteria that are applied to evaluate the validity
of social research findings. Our consideration of validity criteria is left
to later chapters, as are some of the more technical aspects of research
design.
Activity: the main components of research design
What are the main components of research designs?
Principles and practice in social research

In this second section of the chapter, we examine some of the influences
on the practice of social research. Social research takes place within an
intellectual and social context. Certainly, the conduct of social research
is influenced by intellectual concerns such as the philosophy of social
science (epistemology and ontology) and sociological theories. However,
it is necessary to correct the view that philosophical and theoretical
considerations are the dominant influence on social research practice. The
practice of social research is influenced directly by:
The methodological awareness of the researcher(s) that is influenced
by career biography and training opportunities. This methodological
awareness defines the relationship between theoretical and philosophic
issues and research practice.
The practical constraints and facilities that are present in the
immediate context of social research, the context of data collection, the
relationship between the researcher funding agencies and those being
researched.
The influences on social research practice are summarised in Figure 1.1.
Social research and academic sociology

It might be thought that academic influences on research strategy and
design are all-powerful. After all, social researchers can only claim a
degree of validity for their research findings since research is scrutinised
by other researchers in the professional community. Failure to comply with
these established standards can mean the research will not be published
and the credibility and reputation of the social researcher is seriously
undermined.
However, there are many disciplinary and sub-disciplinary groups with
their own methodological preferences. Sociologists vary considerably
in the stance they take on theoretical and methodological issues, but
there have been distinct theoretical and philosophical trends that have
influenced research strategies and research designs of sociologists.
There is a tendency in British academic sociology to emphasise the
theoretical and philosophical inputs to the research process rather than
the potential outcomes. Professional social researchers, on the other hand,
must produce findings that can be warranted as knowledge by their
rather different research community. Both academic and professional
social researchers may be required to be more outcome- and audienceoriented if they are seeking external funding for research.
Social scientists may choose research strategies that reflect long-held
and much cherished tenets about the philosophy of social science, but
methodological decisions are affected by the specific social context. Among
these influences are research funding and publishing opportunities, intraprofessional rivalries, power relations between academics and those who
30
take part in research (Oakley, 1999). Social research is a social product

shaped by the context in which it is produced. It is influenced by cultural
(including intellectual), material conditions and practical constraints and
facilities.
Although all researchers should strive to implement the ideal research
design, it is impossible to do so in practice because the conduct of research
involves compromises with circumstances in which it is conducted. It
would also be wrong to suggest that all research complied in every way
possible with the prescribed ways of conducting research.
Type of research
The audience and its expectations
Doctoral research
Funded by individuals and government

grants. The need to meet the expectations
of available supervisors and internal and
external Examiners.
Academic research
Funded by Government Research

Councils run by senior academics but
also by charities, industries etc. The need
to meet the requirements of journal and
book publishing referees.
Funded academic research
The need to meet general research

quality standards as applied by academic
judges.
The need to meet expectations defined
by research funded under specific funding
programmes such as the e-society
programme
Government social research
Government issues invitations to tender

stating requirements. Guidelines govern
what projects and methodologies are
likely to be acceptable.
Private sector research
In market research and public opinion

polling strictly commercial considerations
will tend to define what research is done
and the costs of carrying it out.
Table 1.5 The audiences for social research
The reaction against positivism and the paradigm wars

Evidence suggests that interpretivism won the paradigm war and
positivism, as represented by quantitative social research, lost. Bechhofer
(1996), in a survey of articles in the top British Sociology journals, found
that two thirds of articles published contained no quantitative data, and
only 16 per cent of articles contained any serious statistical analysis.
Sociologists, he concluded, were illiterate as a far as quantitative
literature is concerned and he detected a profound distaste and contempt
for what was termed number crunching, empiricism and positivism. A
recent analysis of articles and conference papers found between 1416
per cent were quantitative and only a further 7 per cent were using mixed
methods. Around 80 per cent were either non-empirical or used qualitative
data only (Williams, Hodgkinson and Payne, 2004). Of the conference
papers for 1999 and 2000 none used multivariate analysis and only 6 per
cent of journal articles used the technique.
31
If sociological research has a qualitative bias this is not the case with social
research in general. Much of the research conducted outside academic
departments is quantitative. Quantitative sociology is also conducted by
sociologists in academic departments other than sociology, such as social
policy, health, education, urban studies and human geography. Much
empirical research has been marginalised by the sociological mainstream
only to flourish in these other institutional contexts (May, 2005).
The increasingly technical nature of all social research has given rise to
an increasingly large number of Masters degrees that offer social research
training. Students taking these degrees are not pursuing a doctorate but
preparing to enter the increasingly large number of opportunities to put
social research skills in practice. In Britain, the growing importance of
social research has been signified by the Labour governments espousal of
the doctrine of evidence-based policy.
In the employment context, it is not surprising that Williams (2000) has
argued that social research has become professionalised. Certainly, there
are a number of professional bodies for social research that are involved
in developing a body of knowledge and ethical standards. Such bodies are
unlikely to pursue one or other research strategy on epistemological or
ontological grounds.
More recently, there has been some concern within sociology and attempts
to re-address quantitative methods, perhaps in response to demands
of research funding agencies. It highlights a retreat from the view that
research design and methods are inextricably linked to intellectual and
philosophical matters alone. These links can be clarified by use of the
concept of methodological awareness.
Methodological awareness in sociology and social

research1
In this section, we will briefly examine how the concept of methodological
awareness mediates the relationship between philosophical and
theoretical perspectives on the one hand and the practice of social research
on the other. Seale (1999) has developed the concept of methodological
awareness to describe the way in which practising research can use the
competing philosophical positions related to social research as resources
to inform and stimulate reflection as to the most appropriate ways of
conducting social research. Seales idea can be developed to allow for the
possibility of various forms of methodological awareness, including the
following:
Principled awareness.
Pragmaticist awareness.
Pluralist awareness.
Principled awareness
Should the practice of social research be strictly informed by answers
to philosophical questions about ontology and epistemology? If so then
research strategy, by which we mean epistemology, ontology and the
theory-research relationship is the foundation of research practice.
Research practice informed by such principled methodological awareness
must be guided by a specific concept of the nature of the social (ontology)
and a specification of the means by which knowledge of the social is
obtained and verified (epistemology).
32
I am not covering
two other forms
of methodological
awareness: scepticism
(whereby all methods
are treated as equally
suspect), and standpoint
awareness that views
oppressed social
groups, such as women
(for feminists), or the
proletariat (for Marxists),
as having privileged
insights into the nature
of the social.
Philosophy is therefore given the position of providing the foundations

upon which the project of social research must be based. In most sociology
methods textbooks, the implied methodological awareness is of this
principled type. Bryman makes an important statement when he argues
that there is no necessary connection between philosophical positions
and the practice of social research. He argues (Bryman, 2004, pp.2125)
that practical considerations prevent such a close relationship between
philosophy and research practice. Bryman recognises that even the most
ardent subscriber to a philosophical position may have to compromise on
the ideal research design in order to work around the practical difficulties
encountered during the conduct of research. Like Bryman, Seale (1999)
is an experienced social research practitioner, and drawing on his own
experience of research, he rejects the traditional view that philosophy
lays the foundations for research practices. Rather, he argues we should
treat philosophical stances as resources to be drawn upon and evaluated
during the research process. When preparing to embark on a project
and during the conduct of social research, philosophical positions can
be assessed for their relevance to the research question and to research
practices.
Pragmaticist awareness
One significant constraint on the nature of the research strategy to be
adopted, is the research question to be addressed. The form of the research
question is not always under the control of the research practitioner, and
in these circumstances social researchers may be constrained to choose a
strategy that will lead findings that bear directly on the question. Even if
the researcher is able to control the specification of the research question,
they must keep one eye on the funding for their next project and may
see the audience for research findings as a significant influence (if the
principle funding agencies are included in that audience).
A pragmatic methodological awareness is perhaps becoming more
common (Robson, 2002, p.43). It offers the researcher the prospect of
choosing the research strategy and research design which offer the most
promising outcomes given the nature of the research question and the
audience for the research.
Pluralist awareness
Another methodological awareness that avoids the principled adoption
of a research strategy is methodological pluralism. One example of this
pluralist tendency is the rise and growth of the multi-methods movement
in social research (Bryman, 2002, pp.45165). This position insists that
both quantitative and qualitative strategies are equally valid since their
different instruments of data collection and analysis capture different
aspects of the social world. The pluralist awareness requires the use of
multi-methods in social research whereas the pragmatic awareness insists
that this is an empirical question and depends upon the circumstances.
We started this chapter by using the distinction between quantitative and
qualitative research as a learning device. We are now in a position to see
how such different research strategies relate to significant philosophical
and theoretical debates within academic sociology. However, the textbook
relationship between philosophy and method is the threatened emergence
of forms of methodological awareness that challenge the dominance of the
principled awareness.
There are a number of influences on the conduct of social research that are
encouraging social researchers to adopt a pluralist or pragmatist approach
33
to social research. Rather than be overly concerned with philosophical and

theoretical inputs, the modern social researcher may be more concerned
with the outputs (the findings and the publications arising from social
research) and the outcomes of their research. What is the best strategy to
use if we aim to answer the question: What will be the outcome of the
research? Is it likely to have positive consequences for the researchers,
the funding agencies and those subjects who might gain from the
implementation of research findings? These non-philosophical questions
shape the choice of research strategy in social research.
The biographical context

The skills of social research are learned by using them alongside
others who are more practised in the skills and principles. A period
of apprenticeship is required before being deemed a practitioner. In
sociology, most academics are required to have a doctorate. Doctorate
research closely approaches the craft model where an aspiring sociologist
produces a piece of research that signifies entry into the profession. During
apprenticeships, skills are acquired and norms concerning standards are
internalised.
If this model is dominant, then the dominant paradigms in sociological
research will be reproduced in postgraduate training. Although he was
arguing the case for under-graduates, Bechhofer (1986) argues that the
influence and example of teachers tends to orient sociologists to particular
kinds of research topic and, where empirical data are used, to approaches
using no quantitative methods or very simple techniques.
It might be said that the preponderance of qualitative methods merely
reflects a pragmatic decision by sociologists to avoid using those methods
that they have not qualified to use. However, such are the perceived needs
of the public and private sector for an increased supply of quantitative
social researchers, that the ESRC has taken initiatives to sustain or
increase the supply of quantitative social researchers. This demand has
become embodied in the research programmes of all PhD students that
it funds. Therefore, whatever the theoretical interest of the students
concerned they have to complete an advanced course in quantitative social
research.
Undoubtedly the actual practice of social research is influenced by the
organisation of training and by the abilities of recruits entering into the
profession. Funding agencies have also articulated a need to improve
training in quantitative research techniques in order to enhance the
capacity to undertake such research that would otherwise remain
constrained by institutional factors.
Activity: investigating influences on social research practice
Figure 1.1 summarises the influences on social research practice. Philosophical debate
and theoretical developments are important, but so are a number of other factors. You
can explore some of these influences yourself by visiting the websites of organisations
such as the Social Research Association, the Economic and Social Research Council and
Government Social Research agencies.
What sort of research are they concerned with? Is it qualitative or quantitative or both?
What kind of training is on offer? Is it qualitative or quantitative or both? If government
is attempting to recruit social research officers, what skills are they looking for? What
have you found out about the market for professional social research practitioners?
34
Academic sociology
Theoretical paradigms
(structuralisms,
interactionisms, marxisms,
Foucault and post-isms,)
Biographical context
Abilities acquisition of
craft skills career
trajectories, apprenticeship
& sponsorship
Professional social
research associations
(BSA, SRA, MRA,) values,
ethics, norms of good
practice
Methodological
awareness
Principled,
pragmaticist,
pluralist, sceptic
Social research
practice
Practical constraints
and facilities.
Contexts of data
collection, researchersubject interaction,
Access, exchange
relationships.
Philosophies of social
science Epistemology
and ontology (positivism,
empiricism idealism,
constructivism,
interpretativism,
critical realism)
Formal research training

provision MA/MPhil/PhD
quantitative qualitative
IT provision specialist
training initiatives (ESRC)
Corporate, private sector

and government funding
agencies.
Definitions of aims,
methods, preferred
outcomes
Figure 1.1 Mapping the contested terrain of social research in Britain
Conclusions
In this chapter, we have sought to clarify the nature of social research.
We have distinguished between three aspects of social research: research
strategy, research design and research method. There are two main
research strategies, quantitative and qualitative, and these are associated
with different positions on the philosophy of social science: qualitative
social research is for the most part interpretivist, constructionist, and
inductive; quantitative social research is often depicted as positivistic,
objectivist and deductive.
Research design is concerned with the scale of data collection, time
order and comparison groups. As Bryman (2004, Table 2.1, p.56)
describes, qualitative research is usually small-scale, over time and
without comparison groups whereas quantitative social research is often
large-scale, cross-sectional, and frequently with comparison groups.
Recently, quantitative social research has introduced more time-ordered
data collection (e.g. panel studies). Research methods are the forms of
data collection and analysis that reflect the major preoccupations of the
quantitative and qualitative research strategies. Qualitative social research
depicts the social as seen through the eyes of subjects, description in
context, emphasis on process, flexibility and limited structure, concepts
and theory grounded in data. These preoccupations lend it to use
methods such as ethnography and in-depth interviews using analytical
techniques such as grounded theory. In quantitative social research,
the pre-occupations are the measurement of concepts to test and refine
theories; causal inference and model building; the generalisation of
findings, and the replication of studies. These preoccupations are
reflected in the use of large-scale standardised sample surveys and
multivariate analysis.
35
We sought to understand the factors that influence the choice of

research strategy and associated research design and research methods
components of social research. We considered the influence of academic
sociology with its tendency to adopt specific philosophical and theoretical
commitments. During the paradigm wars, quantitative and qualitative
research strategies were depicted as polar opposites and as inherently
incompatible strategies. The debate over paradigms assumed the form
of a principled methodological awareness defined as the argument that
research strategies, designs and methods should follow the implications
of theoretical and philosophical positions. Practising social researchers
are much more likely to have a pluralist or pragmatic methodological
awareness. The multi-methods or pluralist version of methodological
awareness argues that all methods capture some aspect of the social and
are equally valid as research strategies. Pragmaticist awareness views
the choice of method as influenced by the need to secure an appropriate
outcome such as the answer to a research question or findings that might
improve the social world in some desirable way.
Social research is thus more accurately seen as a contested terrain
(Edwards, 1979): a workplace for social research practitioners where
the influence of dominant paradigms, agencies and audiences for social
research, practical considerations and the researchers own biographical
context are worked out.
A reminder of your learning outcomes

At the end of this chapter, and having completed the Essential reading and
explain the difference between research strategies, research designs
and research methods
discuss the nature of quantitative and qualitative research strategies
demonstrate an understanding of the relevance of philosophy
(epistemology and ontology) to the practice of social research
distinguish between types of methodological awareness and assess their
implications for the practice of social research
describe the intellectual and social factors that influence the conduct of
social research.
Sample examination questions

1. Assess the view that the quantitative and qualitative research strategies
form two opposing paradigms in social research.
2. Assess Brymans argument that there is no necessary connectedness
between the philosophy of social science and the practice of social
research.
3. What factors influence the choice between a quantitative and
qualitative research strategy?
36
Chapter 2: Concepts in social research

Aims and objectives
This chapter will:
explain the nature of concepts and the relationship between the
concepts used in the social sciences and those used in everyday life
compare approaches to concept formation in sociology in qualitative
and quantitative social research
use the practice of coding data to illustrate the contrasting approaches
to concept formation found in both the qualitative and quantitative
social research strategy
examine the differences between induction, deduction and retroduction
in social research.
Learning outcomes
distinguish sociological concepts from those used in everyday life
discuss the differences between the typical processes of concept
formation found in qualitative social research compared with
quantitative social research
describe the process of coding as a way of classifying data using a
theoretical scheme, and as a way of generating general categories by
identifying similar contents in the data
discuss the differences between induction, deduction and retroduction
as descriptions of the process of social research.
Essential reading
Bryman, A. Social Research Methods, pp.6570 and pp.27172 plus indexed
references to coding
Further reading
** particularly recommended
Blalock, H. The Operationalism Controversy in Blalock, H. and A.B. Blalock
(eds) Methodology in Social Research. (London, New York: McGraw-Hill,
1971) [ISBN 0070941815].
** Fielding, J. Coding and Managing Data in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching
Social Life. (London: Sage Publications, 2002) second edition
[ISBN 9780761972457].
Gilbert, N. Research Theory and Method in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching Social
Life. (London: Sage Publications, 2002) second edition
[ISBN 9780761972457].
Layder, D. Sociological Practice: Linking Theory and Social Research. (London:
Sage Publications Ltd., 1998) [ISBN 9780761954293] Chapters 3, 4 and 5.
** Seale, C. Coding and Analysing Data in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society
and Culture. (London: Sage Publications, 2004) [ISBN 9780761955986].
37
Websites
Rose, D. and K. OReilly Final Report of the ESRC review of Government Social
Classifications. (Swindon: ESRC, 1998) at http:/Governmentstatistics.co.uk
Works cited
Dale, A., S. Arber and M. Procter Doing Secondary Analysis. (London: Allen and
Unwin, 1988) Chapters 811.
Blumer, H. What is wrong with social theory?, American Sociological Review,
19 1954, pp.310.
Burchardt, T. et al. Social Exclusion in Britain 19911995, Social Policy and
Administration, 33(3) 1999, pp.22744
Crompton, R. Measuring the Class Structure in Class and Stratification: an
Introduction to Current Debates. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993).
Crompton, R. and J. Scott Class analysis: Beyond the Cultural Turn in Devine,
F. et al. Rethinking Class: Culture Identities and Lifestyle. (London: Palgrave,
2005).
Jackson, P., N. Stevenson and K. Brooks Making Sense of Mens Magazines.
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001).
Introduction
In this chapter, we deal with the basic building blocks of social research:
concepts. Concepts are crucial to social research because they are the key
to description and explanation:
Concepts are linked empirically in various ways to data and these
linkages aim to provide descriptions or accounts of the social world.
Concepts are linked theoretically to form sequences of defined stages
in a social process, or to classify descriptions or typical forms, or linked
to form explanations.
As in the case of research strategies, approaches to concept formation
reflect contrasting ontological and epistemological themes in the
philosophy of social sciences.
First, we will be looking at what concepts are and how they function
in everyday life, and in sociology and social research. This will involve
considering how sociological concepts are formed, defined and changed
over time. The process of concept formation is rather different in
quantitative and qualitative social research and this difference is summed
up in comparing the use of two terms:
operational definitions
sensitising concepts.
Of particular importance is the relationship between abstract concepts
used in theoretical thinking and empirical data. This relationship between
concepts and data is further explored by examining one of the most basic
functions of social research: the process of coding data in quantitative and
qualitative social research.
What is a concept?
Concepts are so fundamental to our way of thinking about the world that
it is all too easy to take them for granted. Here are two different ways of
describing concepts:
Labels: concepts allow us to label experience by applying the concept
to an experienced event, observation and meaning.
38
Categories: concepts divide the social world into fragments that are
differentiated.
The concept of crime labels a wide range of events that have been
observed and have a shared meaning, albeit one that can be contested
and refined or expanded. The concept of father is a category that
separately defines a person as different from non-fathers; again the
concept of father, and what it might involve, are not precisely defined and
may change over time.
We inherit a vast range of concepts embodied in our language and we use
these to participate in the social world. In everyday life, we do not have
to use precisely defined concepts. For example, when young people use
the word cool to describe actions, it has only a very vague definition or
perhaps it is simply a way of affirming that actions are approved to some
degree. In social research, we must go beyond everyday concepts and be
more systematic in the way in which we define concepts, relate them to
empirical materials and deploy them in interpretations of the social world.
This does not mean that at all times, in social research, concepts are
precisely defined. As we shall see, sometimes it is important to have only
working definitions of concepts that are refined in relation to data and
only precisely defined at the conclusion of the research process.
Abstraction
An abstract concept can be defined with reference to the specific instances
that it labels or categorises. In practice, using empirical referents as
examples will help to clarify and convey the meaning of a concept. It
may be hard to define sport as an abstract concept other than by using
examples such as netball, basketball, soccer, cricket and rugby to convey
the meaning. However, my copy of the Pocket Oxford Dictionary (Oxford
University Press, seventh edition, 1984) offers a formal, more precise
definition:
outdoor competitive activity usually involving physical exertion
The concept of sport specifies an abstract content that can be seen in

all the various sporting activities. Even so, it is often possible to think of
exceptions to such definitions such as, in this case, indoor athletics. On
the other hand, we may quibble as to whether a sport can avoid physical
exertion, in which case archery might be excluded from our definition.
The abstract version of the concept of sport may be precisely defined
as a construct. The concepts of everyday life are directly linked to the
empirical things they describe, the constructs of social science require
a specification of how they can be measured. For example, the abstract
concept of institutionalised racism must have a set of specified measures
before it can be recognised and analysed in social research.
Concepts transcend, but are related to the world of experience.
Dictionaries are continually revised to refine definitions as well as to
include new concepts, and the same is true in social research.
Activity: defining the concept of household
My Pocket Oxford Dictionary (Oxford University Press, seventh edition, 1984) defines
household as occupants of a house regarded as a unit. Draw up a list of everyday words
that mean the same or have a similar meaning to the word household. What other
words describe those living together in households? Then attempt to define the concept
of household as it might be used in sociological research. Complete the right-hand
column of the table below by inserting a new definition of household, including each of
the following possible components of a definition:
39
Component
Definition
Sharing
Accommodation
Domestic
Sleeping
Food preparation
Table 2.1 Defining the concept of household
Do households have to be defined using all these words?

Do we have to allow for variation by using phrases like usually?
Will just one or more of the above possibilities provide for a better definition that that
provided by my dictionary?
Theory, concepts and concept formation

In the previous section, we learned that conceptualisation involves two
discrete elements:
an abstract label or category
a set of empirical referents described by the abstraction.
In social research, when we define a concept as an abstraction, and
then link this abstraction to a set of empirical referents, we are thinking
deductively, working from theory or applying theory to data. We can
think up a theoretical definition of a religion in which something is a
religion if it meets the following criteria:
belief in superhuman power
belief in an afterlife
belief that obedience to superhuman power will lead to afterlife.
We can then analyse all belief systems and decide which are religions and
which are not religions.
On the other hand, when we use a set of empirical referents to generate
and define an abstract concept, we are thinking inductively, working
from data to theory. Here we might start by finding out about all belief
systems and then try to see what they have in common. This may lead to
different subtypes of religion.
Concept formation in sociology and social research can be a largely
theoretical activity. In the case of social class, for example, attempts to
define the concept of social class as a relation to the means of production,
or a labour market position came prior to the development of a
classification scheme designed to measure social class in social research
(Crompton, 1993). Historically, the Registrar Generals classification was
not based on such theorisations, it was designed as a practical way of
categorising people who did similar sorts of work in order that deaths in
these occupations might be recorded, data collected and death rates across
different occupational groups compared. This practical classification
scheme lasted from its inception in 1911 until 2001 when it was replaced
by the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification.
40
Concept formation in sociology: the case of social

exclusion
The concept of social exclusion is a useful one to examine since it has
quantitative and qualitative aspects and is fundamentally concerned with
social relationships. Following the review by Burchardt et al. (1999), the
concept of social exclusion can refer to each of the following social groups:
those whose circumstances have led them to be separated from the
bureaucratic forms of the state that would otherwise include them in
systems of income support, the educational system, gaining access to
employment, and health services
those groups that are unlikely to experience regular secure
employment and [whose] economic insecurity excludes [them from]
participation in otherwise normal aspects of social life.
those who live in well defined, but separate areas of cities and urban
conglomerations [that are] spatially and socially marginal, like ghettos
or no-go areas for those not socially excluded.
Activity: conceptualising social exclusion
Consider each of the above dimensions of social exclusion.
Some social researchers (Burchardt et al. 1999) argue that the socially excluded are those
that have:
low income
little savings
no secure employment
little involvement in politics
or are socially isolated.
Now consider how each of the above applies to university students and then consider
how university students may experience these social conditions yet still think of
themselves and be regarded by others as socially included. Does social inclusion involve a
positive account of a future?
Operational definitions in quantitative social research

Operationalisation describes the process of turning an abstract concept
into a set of empirical referents that can be measured. These are known as
variables. This also involves a final stage of instrumentation, which is the
design or definition of a set of operations that result in data (such as in the
administration of an interview schedule with a specific question designed
to measure a concept).
Quantitative social research is much concerned with measurement
problems. What is the best way to assess the academic ability of a child?
Is a maths test to be preferred to an English test? How many questions
should we have in the maths test? Are some questions better measures
than others? Measurement problems abound in deciding how to ask
questions for social surveys. Sometimes there are lengthy debates about
how to do so as in the case of the ethnicity question that was used in the
census 2000.
At times, social researchers have been tempted to prefer the practical
activity of measurement to the more theoretical work of conceptualisation.
Why bother with defining the concept of intelligence if in the end we
will only analyse the results of our measurements? This attempt to
41
define social science as only concerned with the empirical process of

measurement has been termed the operationalism controversy (Blalock,
1969). In contemporary social research there is a more developed interrelationship between theoretical constructs and the empirical indicators
that measure them.
The process of forming operational definitions may also involve deciding
on categories after data is collected. A good example of this is the concept
of age. Age is a concept that may appear to be unproblematic as it can
be measured in years by collecting the date of birth. Complexity arises
when deciding how to group people of similar ages to simplify analysis
and presentation of findings. The process of conceptualisation involves
defining age boundaries of the groups and here there are choices:
age as life-cycle where the cut off points that define groups are taken to
define childhood, adolescence, adult, middle age, elderly
age as maturity is more simply defined as passage of time under 20s,
30s, etc.
age as generation defines groups in terms of historical periodisation
of cultural and social changes such as in terms of those who reach
maturity before the Second World War, after the Second World War,
during the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties.
Here the link between theory and measurement is apparent since the
choice, in quantitative research strategies, will be based on the causal
content that age has for the concept it is being linked with:
Variations in health are best explained by maturity.
Variations in life cycle might be closely linked to household formation.
Variations in political interest and party identification by generational
definitions of age.
The process of concept formation should not be seen in isolation from
such theoretical themes and the need for theoretical explanations. Rather
than see causality as the impact of one measured concept on another,
sociology is committed to identifying mechanisms that translate the causal
components of a concept into their effects on another concept.
For instance, if we find that people who do not own cars are more likely
to experience ill health, we may not necessarily conclude lack of car
ownership is a cause of ill health until we can identify a mechanism that
links car ownership to ill health. We can more readily accept the link
between social class and ill health because there are numerous risk factors
and lifestyle factors linking class position to experience of good or poor
health. In the case of housing deprivation, we have mechanisms that allow
us to develop a meaningful account of how such deprivation leads to ill
health.
Coding and recoding in quantitative social research

In quantitative social research, concepts may be used to describe, or
may be linked together in a contingency relationship. The outcome of
quantitative research is the establishment of a probabilistic contingency
relationship between two or more concepts defined in a causal model.
Indicators in government surveys have too many categories and the
researcher is required to reduce these down. This is a process know as
recoding. Recoding is a crucial part of the process of concept formation in
secondary analysis. The reduction in categories aims to:
42
avoid unnecessary complexity in theory and interpretation of findings

by reducing the number of categories down to a number which is
sufficient to make the point being argued
combine those categories that are very similar
reduce sample size problems when using crosstabulations.
Linking concepts and the outcomes of social research

For qualitative social research, concepts may be linked in a variety of ways:
Concepts may be linked only in comparison to mark out differences, for
example, in cultures. Concepts such as matrilineal and patrilineal are
deployed to mark out differences.
Concepts may be linked in a time order process such as in Beckers
study of marijuana users where three stages were conceptualised and
where each stage was a prerequisite for moving on to the next stage.
The process of coding can be deductive: a developed theoretical scheme
is used to classify data into different categories defined theoretically. The
same process may be inductive when similar data are labelled in a way
that describes this common content in the data.
Sensitising concepts
In qualitative social research, there is often a commitment to viewing the
social world through the eyes of the people being studied. This implies
that as far as possible the social world is to be understood largely in
terms of the concepts used by the people being observed. There is the
commitment to be appreciative of the culture being studied and reporting
back on its conceptual schemes to the wider academic audiences. In this
case, the concepts developed would have to be defined broadly in order
to accommodate an anticipated range of usages in the data collected
and so that the data collected throughout the fieldwork stage of research
can influence both the formation and deployment of concepts. Concepts
formed in the initial stages of data collection and analysis would only be
working concepts or what Blumer (1954) came to describe as sensitising
concepts.
In opposition to survey research practice, where concept formation
processes lead to a well-defined and fixed set of categories, Blumer
suggested that social science should not prematurely close down
definitions of concepts. Concepts and their definitions should remain
open to revision and refinement in the process of data collection and
analysis.
The idea of sensitising concepts is closely associated with the idea that
in qualitative social research, concepts should emerge from the data
collected. Bryman uses the example of emotional labour from Hochschild
(1983).
Activity: understanding an emergent concept
Look at Box 13.2 in Brymans textbook:
1. How would you define emotional labour?
2. What examples are given of people who are required to do emotional labour in their
occupations?
3. Why is emotional labour more common in gendered occupations?
4. Can you think of other contexts where emotional labour is performed?
43
5. How did the concept emerge from the process of doing qualitative research?
A further example is taken from Brymans own research on appraisal schemes in higher
education where the concept of procedural compliance emerged to interpret his findings
(Bryman, 2004, Box 13.9, p.283).
Social exclusion in qualitative social research

Forming a concept of social exclusion in qualitative research involves some
theoretical predispositions, such as a commitment to understanding social
exclusion as it is seen through the eyes of those thought to be excluded.
In turn, this would involve gaining access to accounts of how exclusion
occurred, if it did, in the life history of those included in the research.
The research would focus on the constructions of exclusion, whether
these were contested or normalised in dialogues between the excluded
and others. Similarly, there would be a concern with agency: how the
circumstances did not determine exclusion, but allowed the negotiation
and construction of relationships.
The outcome of qualitative research on social exclusion would be a set or
list of related concepts describing subjective perceptions of the excluded.
A typology of relationships between the individual and the social is
also possible, as is an account of the process of social exclusion as it
occurs over time, identifying stages in the transition from integration to
exclusion. Given the spatial dimensions of social exclusion, a comparative
ethnography of selected housing estates might document these outcomes.
Retroduction and double-fitting

Deductive concept formation means defining abstract concepts then
selecting instances of data that the concepts describe. Inductive concept
formation derives abstract concepts from the classification of observed
instances of data. Although many textbooks see qualitative social research
as inductive and quantitative research as deductive, it is important
to recognise that this is an over-simplification. Indeed, it is hard to
think of a concept that has emerged independent of any empirical
reference. Similarly, pure induction seems impossible given the preconceptualisation of the social world in the language that we use to
interpret every observation.
It is useful to have the concepts of induction and deduction to describe
different approaches to social research, but in the case of concept
formation there is a process of double fitting which describes a process of
two-way interaction between observation and conceptualisation. This is
called retroduction and appears to some degree in all social research.
Conceptual modelling
In the social sciences, the formation of concepts is not a well-structured
process with a well-defined end point. For this reason, the idea of
conceptual modelling is a preferred way of thinking about the process
rather than the closed version of operationalisation and the open
version of sensitising concepts. In the practice of social research, we may
come to undertake a project with a concept of social exclusion pre-selected
in very general terms but sufficiently open for our observations of the
social to allow it to be reconfigured. Concepts are likely to remain highly
contested.
44
Concepts are abstractions, mental objects/linguistic codes, that describe

empirical referents or traces. They can act to select how we see the
world (constructionism), but concepts do not encompass the whole of
the knowable social world (realism). Concepts are useful descriptions
embodied in interpretations/theories/explanations of the social that work
for the purposes of those who adopt them until there is a crisis in the
conceptual paradigm accepted by a research community (pragmatism).
The idea of conceptual modelling recognises that the data may be
pre-conceptualised, but not necessarily closed to modification or
reformulation. A concept is not taken as reproducing reality but is
intended (for some purpose) to be an insightful version of the whole and
thus can be evaluated in terms of its purposes (pragmaticism). Concepts
that prove not to be useful in some theoretical or practical way are likely
to abandoned and replaced.
Conclusions
In this chapter of the subject guide, we have seen that concepts are
categories or labels that refer to empirical referents. We have distinguished
between theoretical constructs (defined abstractly and can be related to
empirical traces or instances) and constructs that are invented to describe
empirical traces. These are processes of deductive and inductive concept
formation.
As we described in Chapter 1, the quantitative research strategy is typically
deductive in the approach to concept formation. We can use the example
of social survey research to help justify and describe the processes of
deductive concept formation. However, we have also shown how in the
increasingly popular technique of secondary analysis quantitative social
research may involve a process of inductive concept formation.
Similarly, the qualitative research strategy is typically viewed and justified
as an inductive approach attempting to reveal the social as it is seen by the
people who inhabit it. However, we have also seen how in some instances
qualitative can be deductive and how it necessarily involves some degree
of deduction.
An important lesson of this chapter is that although useful as learning
devices, the description of the two research strategies by Bryman and
others is a necessary oversimplification and thus we must be careful not to
apply it to reproduce stereotypes of the research process.

distinguish sociological concepts from those used in everyday life
discuss the differences between the typical processes of concept
formation found in qualitative social research compared with
quantitative social research
describe the process of coding as a way of classifying data using a
theoretical scheme, and as a way of generating general categories by
identifying similar contents in the data
discuss the differences between induction, deduction and retroduction
as descriptions of the process of social research.
45

1. Compare and contrast the process of concept formation in qualitative
and quantitative social research.
2. Examine the role of deduction and induction in qualitative and
quantitative social research.
46

In Part B, we are concerned with qualitative social research. In the next
two chapters, we will look at qualitative research design and qualitative
data analysis from a predominantly subtle realist perspective. In the
first chapter, we will challenge the view that qualitative research is a
purely inductive method. This challenge will take the form of listing
those components of research practice that must be defined before the
commencement of data collection and analysis. It also considers the case
of funded qualitative research in which certain aspects of research must
be well defined if the application for funding is to be successful. Although
qualitative social research is usually described as inductive, induction
in qualitative social research is more about sustaining conceptual and
methodological openness and flexibility in the conduct of data collection
and analysis. We shall see that both intellectual and practical influences
are important in shaping the design of qualitative research.
Learning about and learning how to conduct qualitative social research
is no easy task. Research practice is much less codified as a set of rules
than is the case with quantitative social research. Although there are an
increasingly large number of textbooks that attempt to generate good
practices for the conduct of qualitative research, these are resisted by
some qualitative researchers. The process of conducting qualitative
research is not only less well defined, but may be more of a skill acquired
in practice rather than one that is acquired by taking courses. In addition,
it is now the case that there is a further sub-division between those called
subtle realists (Hammersleys term) who are prepared to use language as
a resource to uncover the social world through qualitative data collection
and those influenced by post-modernist ideas and discourse analysis. In
discourse analysis, there is no reality to be discovered and the outcome of
social research can only be a description of the methods used by subjects
to construct social reality. This difference is the latest version of the
paradigm wars and, as we shall see in Chapter 4, this war now debates
the use of language in social research and resurfaces again when Bryman
considers how qualitative research should be written up (2005, pp.5013).
47
Notes
48
Chapter 3: Designing qualitative social research
Chapter 3: Designing qualitative social

research
Aims and objectives
This chapter will:
define the components of qualitative social research designs
illustrate the issues in qualitative research design with special reference
to ethnography
introduce the concept of purposive and theoretical sampling.
Learning outcomes
explain and assess the degree to which qualitative research involves the
specification of a research design prior to the conduct of data collection
and analysis
describe the sources of qualitative data such as ethnographic, in-depth
interviews, documentary evidence, and participant observation
discuss the distinctive approach to sampling that is characteristic of
qualitative social research
explain and assess the relative importance of concepts such as
induction and flexibility in the design of qualitative social research.
Essential reading
Bryman, A. Social Research Methods, Part 3, Chapters 14, 15, 18 and 19. Also
Chapters 21 and 22.
Further reading
Byrne, B. Qualitative Interviewing in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society and
Palgrave, 1999) [ISBN 9780333666326] Chapter 7.
Fielding, N. Ethnography in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching Social Life. (London:
Sage Publications, 2002) second edition [ISBN 9780761972457].
Kirk, J. and J. Miller Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Social Research.
Miles, M. and M. Huberman Qualitative Data Analysis. (London: Sage
Publications, 1994) [ISBN 0803955405] Chapters 2, 3.
Ritchie, J. and J. Lewis Qualitative Research Practice. (London: Sage
Tonkiss, F. Focus Groups in Seale, C (ed.) Researching Society and Culture.
Works cited
Garfinkel, H. Studies in Ethnomethodology. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
1967).
Marshall, C., and G.B. Rossman Designing Qualitative Research. (London: Sage
Publications, 1995).
49

Scott, J. A Matter of Record. (Cambridge: Polity, 1994).
Seale, C. et al. Introduction: Inside Qualitative Research in Qualitative
Research Practice. (London: Sage Publications, 2004)
Silverman, D. Doing Qualitative Research. (London: Sage Publications, 2005)
second edition.
Skeggs, B. The Formation of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. (London:
Sage Publications Ltd., 1997)
Introduction
The chapters that make up this second part of the subject guide are
designed to assist your learning about qualitative social research. In
Chapter 1 we learned that understanding social research involved being
very precise about the meaning of each of the following:
a research strategy
a research design
a research method.
If you are still not sure about the precise differences between these
components of social research you should read the chapter again. In
Chapter 1, we also identified the characteristics of the qualitative research
strategy, and these are reproduced in Table 3.1.
Defining characteristics
Meaning-centred
Descriptive aims
Detailed descriptions of core meanings of

a culture. Interpretation of the meaning of
action.
Relationship between theory and

research
Theory generation by means of revealing or

reporting the constructions of reality in talk
and text including official documents.
Epistemology
Interpretivism. The human nature of social

objects requires reference to the subjective
meaning when explaining social action.
Theory is generated by analysis of the
subjective.
Ontology
The social world is constructed in our

attempts to understand it and act upon it.
Theoretical perspectives
Symbolic interactionism to postmodernism. Social structure is formed by

institutionalised meanings and constructs.
Table 3.1 Qualitative research strategy
As described in Chapter 1, the choice between qualitative and quantitative

research strategy has been at the centre of the debate over the
methodology of the social sciences. However, in this subject guide, we
shall be paying more attention to research questions and the outcomes of
social research.
In this chapter, we are specifically concerned with one research method,
ethnography and the methods of data collection used in ethnography
(participant observation, interviews and analysis of documents). Bryman
(2004) in his discussion of the preoccupations of qualitative social
research, states that ethnography is a method of data collection and
analysis that has the following preoccupations:
50
depicting the social world as it is seen through the eyes of subjects

providing description in context
emphasising process (rather than structure)
flexibility and limited structure in the research process
developing concepts and theory grounded in data.
Any attempt to describe the process of research design in qualitative
research is faced with the problem that many advocates of qualitative
approaches are committed to the process of induction. A commitment to
induction implies that the defining components of the research design
and the methods of data collection and analysis, including the research
questions and outcomes, are determined during the conduct of the data
analysis. In qualitative research research design is a continuous process
that is present during most phases of the research process. Thus, it is
misleading to think of the conduct of qualitative social research as one that
follows a logical three-stage sequence of:
1. research question
2. design of data collection
3. data analysis.
Activity: models of the research process
Bryman, on p.269 of the course textbook, presents a more complex model of the stages
of qualitative research. Examine this diagram now and list the differences between
Brymans models of the quantitative and qualitative research process.
Whatever the researchers degree of commitment to inductive research,
some decisions must be taken before embarking on data collection and
analysis. Academic social researchers embark on research projects that
are informed by their prior intellectual commitments to study the social
world with certain issues or problems or questions in mind. These issues,
problems or questions are likely to be linked to general theoretical
frameworks and, in some instances, to more specific theoretical themes.
All these have implications for the research design decisions and methods
of data collection and analysis.
Activity: prior intellectual commitments in the research process
Examine the summarised study of East End detectives by Dick Hobbs in Devine and Heath
Sociological Research in Context and look up the indexed references to Hobbs work in
Bryman. What prompted Hobbs to decide on his approach to his study of detectives?
All research is likely to be informed by prior experience that will include
theoretical thinking and informal analysis of data collected by informal
means. Data is routinely collected in everyday life, and some researchers
have pointed out the value of investigating topics that arise from personal
experience. These make it difficult to determine when the research process
actually begins. David Silverman (2005, 150) advises those thinking
about doing a social research project to search for data that might inform
the conceptualisation and theoretical thinking about a topic, rather than
doing data collection and analysis only after a research proposal has been
drafted. Before data collection can take place, a topic at least, and perhaps
a research question should be defined. Additionally, decisions should be
made about which social settings to observe, how these are to be selected
or sampled and how data is to be recorded or otherwise assembled.
51
In the case of applying for funding for qualitative social research, the
researcher will be constrained to make more explicit the design decisions
they will make or at least are likely to make during the unit of the
proposed research. Agencies and organisations that fund social research
will want to be convinced of the likely success of the research they are
funding and they will employ academics and others to review applications
or to establish the likely value of conducting the research.
According to Marshall and Bensman (1995), qualitative research proposals
typically include the following three sections:
an introduction containing an overview of the proposal, a discussion of
the topic or focus of the inquiry and the general research questions, the
studys purpose and potential significance, and its limitations
a discussion of related literature that situates the study in the ongoing
discourse about the topic and develops the specific intellectual
traditions to which the study is linked
the research design and methods, which detail the overall design, the
site or population of interest, the specific methods for gathering data,
a preliminary discussion of strategies for analysing the data and for
ensuring the trustworthiness of the study, a biography of the researcher,
and ethical and political issues that may arise in the conduct of the
study.
Marshall and Bensman (2005) also provide a detailed description of a
research proposal that is summarised in the following table.
Introduction: including an overview, and description of the topic and purposes of the
research. The potential significance of the research should be identified.
Framework and general research questions: including a review of literature,
and theoretical traditions, previous research. This section should conclude with an
assessment of theory and its relationship to the proposed research.
Design and methodology: including overall approach and rationale; site and
method of data selection (sampling), research methods chosen and data-analysis
procedures to be adopted.
Research staff and resources: including senior researcher experience
and performance in qualitative research and a review of ethical and political
considerations.
Table 3.2 Sections of a qualitative research proposal
In order to demonstrate the possibility of achieving satisfactory research

outcomes, applications for the funding of qualitative research must outline
research questions, settings, timings and locations of data collection, and
proposed methods of data analysis. The quality of such outlines, along
with other factors (including reputation, record of accomplishment of
previous research, organisational support, originality or contribution to
knowledge etc.) will largely determine the success of the application.
However, the proposal should reserve some essential flexibility and
openness in research questions and design because these are likely to
change during the unit of the research.
To reinforce the point as to how much thinking needs to be done prior
to the conduct of qualitative research, here are the criteria for evaluating
qualitative research, as proposed by Seale et al. (2001), that are of
particular relevance to the design stage of qualitative research:
52
The aim and purpose of the proposed research should be described

and set in its historical, political, and disciplinary contexts? Does the
proposal show how the research will provide new insights in relation to
existing knowledge?
The rationale for the design of the inquiry should be explained. What
arguments are made for a qualitative rather than a quantitative study?
The particular contributions made by different methods for collecting
and recording evidence should be understood. How good is the
rationale provided to justify the choice of methods?
A sampling method should be described and justified with reference to
ways of gaining access to sources of evidence and the implications of
these for the evidence gathered.
The researcher should demonstrate openness to emergent issues.
The rationale for the choice of analytic strategy should be clear, but
an awareness of the potential of other analytic strategies should be
demonstrated?
The implications of the investigation for broader areas of knowledge
and practice (for example, theory, policy, practice) should be explored,
and be significant.
This list implies that a considerable amount of pre-structuring takes
place before the beginning of data collection, and a certain amount of
preconceptualisation of issues and problems will be brought to the site of
the data collection and analysis.
Activity: defining plagiarism
How would you design research to reveal that what the university authorities might
define as plagiarism is very difficult to distinguish from what students might see as the
normal routines of academic work? To explore ambiguity in concepts of plagiarism how
would you embark on a qualitative study of an institution of higher education?
Would the study be entirely inductive? Would you have a research question to answer?
What are the contexts e.g. sites in which you would collect data? What time frame would
you adopt to complete the study?
Would data be collected in the form of official documents, interviews with student union
representatives, interviews with students? Could you use participant observation or
observation of meetings? Would focus groups help to explore concepts of plagiarism?
How would you record or collect and store the data to be analysed?
Finally, how would you argue that your research design was the most appropriate given
the topic of the research?
Sources of qualitative data

A popular qualitative research method in Britain is the unstructured or
in-depth interview. This is used to gain access to the social world through
structured conversation. The participants in the in-depth interview have
roles in the research context, but the interviewer begins and directs the
conversation to a minimal degree, hoping to elicit what the subject thinks
is important about the research topic and to obtain their descriptions and
explanations as far as possible in their own words. A tape recorder is used
to record the interview and this is transcribed onto a text document.
Box 15.1 and Box 15.2 on pp.32021 of Bryman describe examples of
unstructured and semi-structured interviewing. Clearly, the choice of
the degree of structure to use is a design question. Daviess research
53
on female offenders, as summarised in Box 15.6, justifies the choice of

semi-structured interviews by the nature of the research question and her
commitment to feminist research.
Apart from choosing between the various types of questions that are
available, it is necessary to design the order of the questions that in the
case of Charmazs typology (Bryman, 2004, 237) follows a time order. In
using a qualitative data collection technique, such as in-depth interviews,
there are then a number of design elements that have to be decided upon
prior to the conduct of the fieldwork. The data collection may not be fully
inductive, although it can be flexible in allowing changes to be made
during the course of the investigation.
The in-depth interview aims to get close to the subjects view of the social
world. It constructs an artificial research situation however skilled the
interviewer is in making the subject feel that they are in a natural context.
A key influence on the subject in this context will be the character and
actions of the interviewer. One way of lessening the possible effect that
researchers may have on the subjects prepared and the answers they
will give is to use the group interview or, as it is now known, the focus
group. This has become a very fashionable technique, but one that has a
long history. It involves an unstructured group interview conducted by a
moderator. The design issues in the use of focus groups are:
How many groups to use?
How to recruit members?
How to establish rapport among the group?
How and when to introduce prompts into the discussion?
What degree of moderator involvement?
Again, in the conduct of qualitative research practice it is important to
recognise that decisions made at the design stage that act to structure
the experience of the subjects being studied may impact the behaviour,
perceptions and thus the data that will be collected.
Activity: designing focus group research
Read Chapter 16 of Bryman and retrieve one element of an answer for each of the above
questions on the design of focus group research.
Focus groups encourage participants to react to each other and to be
aware of what others might think and might say. Each subject is sensitised
to the social context of the group and usually the selection process ensures
that each member is similar in social respect. Minimising the role of the
observer or facilitator brings the social interaction within the group to the
foreground in something that approximates to a research social situation.
The school of naturalism in qualitative research is closely associated with
ethnography which involves overt or covert participant observation. Covert
observation is used when access would not otherwise have been possible.
With overt participant observation, access is more likely to be regulated by
a key person or gatekeeper.
Activity: types of data in ethnographic studies
Read Bryman Box14.1 on p.292 and answer the following questions:
What does Taylors study of female drug users reveal about ethnography?
What data is collected by those using the ethnographic method?
54
Those about to embark on designing qualitative social research are forced

to decide on the balance between naturalistic and artificial forms of data
collection. The school of naturalism in qualitative research is closely
associated with ethnography and this involves either overt or covert
participant observation. With overt participant observation, access to people
and places is more likely to be regulated by a key person or gatekeeper who
represents the interests of those granting access and possibly restricting the
quality of access. Covert observation is often used when access would not
otherwise have been possible. Covert observation may interfere with data
collection by means of fieldnotes. For Fielding (2001), the construction of
fieldnotes is the raison dtre for personal observation since data that cannot
be recorded is not collected or analysed. The quality of ethnographical
observation is limited by the difficulties of gaining access and the final
quality of access. These are described in detail on pp.294300 in Bryman.
Activity: alternatives to covert observation in ethnography
What are the alternatives to covert observation when designing a study of a closed
setting?
Give examples from the study of football hooligans described in Bryman, Box 14.4 on
p.298.
Using documents
When conducting an ethnographic study a vast range of documentary
evidence may be assembled:
Personal documents such as diaries and photographs.
Official documents from public and private organisational archives.
Mass media documents such as newspapers and magazines.
In design terms, these have the great advantage of being non-reactive.
Documentary evidence has been produced without the researcher being
involved in the construction of the data. Researcher involvement may have
a part to play where access to the full range of documentation is restricted
and in the selection of those documents to include in the study.
Confronted with a vast amount of documentary evidence, the selection may
proceed by applying Scotts criteria (Scott, 1990):
Authenticity or is the evidence genuine?
Credibility or is the evidence free from distortion or error?
Representativeness or is it typical and can we assess how typical it is?
Meaning or can we understand the materials without undue uncertainty?
Activity: theoretical sampling and a study of family photographs
Look through your collection of family photographs to assess which ones you would select
as reflecting a true picture of your family life.
Having done this read Bryman pp.38486 and apply Scotts typology of:
idealisation
natural portrayal
demystification.
Count how many of each you have selected. Now, go back to your collection and select
more photographs to ensure you have equal numbers of photographs in each of Scotts
typology.
55
Then answer the following questions:

1. What research question would an analysis of family photographs allow you to
answer?
2. How would you go about selecting a sample of family photographs from a series of
households in a small community?
3. How might you try to ensure that each of Scotts criteria for selection is covered?
Non-probability sampling and theoretical sampling

Qualitative social research involves the selection of sites, people, objectives
and documents. People, interactions, instances in documents and text are
selected for a reason their relevance for the development of concepts
and theory. They are not brought to the study to be representative of any
population; selection is based on analytic importance. This is known as
non-probability or purposive sampling. Iterative theoretical sampling
refers to a technique used in grounded theory approaches where concepts
developed in the process of on-going data analysis are then used to search
for new instances and qualifying instances and new data sources are
defined to extend generality of conceptual framework and theory. This
sampling occurs at the fieldwork stage and it may only be suggested in a
research design or a research proposal. However, it is the use of an existing
or emergent theoretical framework to collect systematic data on each
concept deployed. It is an instance of design formulated during the process
of analysis.
The Jackson (2001) study, after the failure of their original systematic
sampling strategy, used snowball sampling and personal networks to get
variations in gender, sexual identity, disability, and subculture to allow
comparisons and variations to be explored.
Activity: sampling in qualitative research
Read Box 15.11 in Bryman p.335 and summarise in note form the sampling strategy in
Finch and Masons Family Obligations project.
Qualitative researchers are more committed to the idea of inductive social
research. There is a commitment to the use of sensitising concepts that
permit flexibility in description and allow a closer interaction between
conceptualisation and data collection and analysis. Qualitative research
is useful when the subject matter being investigated is relatively new or
unknown, or when the social context is less well defined and thus requires
exploration rather than measurement of concepts.
As in most things, the distinction between inductive and deductive social
research is both useful and dangerously over-simplistic. There are an
increasingly large number of books on qualitative research design and
many give advice and announce rules to govern design. Ultimately, these
are codifications of research practice that have been removed from their
context and as Seale and his co-writers argue such an approach loses the
insights to be gained from foreground research practice and the tricks
and strategies used by others (Seale et al., 2001, 1). As we have seen,
qualitative research involves deductive elements, and decisions that
need to be taken before the research process begins. The important point
in learning about the differences between qualitative and quantitative
research strategies is to know where there are similarities and where there
are differences.
56
Prestructuring of qualitative research design

So far in this chapter, we have examined how much design is possible in
qualitative research and to some extent we have challenged any tendency
to see qualitative research as something that is designed as it is conducted.
This begs the question as to how far it is desirable to design qualitative
research.
It is an important design question for qualitative researchers to decide
how far they should go in prestructuring their research activity. It is
likely that several factors will influence the extent to which a researcher
will choose to pre-structure the conduct of research practice. First, they
may be influenced by philosophical positions that require an unstructured
approach. Second the research question may be such that it requires an
unstructured approach. Third, if little is known about the research contexts
and the culture of the subjects to be found then there will be very little
basis upon which to structure the design. Fourth, if the context can only
be studied by means of covert observations then only unobtrusive methods
may be used, although other choices about research questions, sites and
contexts to be observed may be designed in the research proposed. Fifth,
if the research question is about a sensitive subject, those being studied
may resent their privacy being subject to formal methods of observation,
preferring an informal interview.
Conclusions
In Chapter 1, we learnt that induction is often held to be the defining
characteristic of qualitative social research. Its prime commitment was to
represent reality as far as possible in the concepts and meanings of those
directly involved and to minimise the contribution of the observer to the
construction of accounts of the social world. It follows that if research
is to be inductive, the degree of openness and flexibility is essential. In
practice, openness and flexibility means that the research can operate
at the stage of data collection and analysis relatively unconstrained by a
pre-determined research design. Design is more of an ongoing process
in qualitative studies, one that may continue until nearly the end of the
project.
Given the commitment to induction and flexibility, qualitative research
does not just happen; it is shaped by a context and the choices that have
to be made. We have seen that decisions to use a range of data sources, or
to make judgments on the use of naturalistic and more artificial devices
for data collection, and on the election of data for inclusion in the study,
flowing as it does from choices of time-periods of observation and sites
of data collection. Where funded research is involved, research proposals
are required and these typically include specified research questions and
at least an outline of the research design. A less well-specified account of
the proposed research will only be allowed when the prior research record
of the proposer is thought to be adequate to predict the quality of the
research outcomes.
Amongst the decisions to be made are:
Are multi-sources of qualitative data to be used, as in many
ethnographic studies?
What balance between naturalistic and artificial research contexts is
desirable?
57
How are individuals, items, contexts to be selected for inclusion in the

study? Is theoretical sampling to be practiced?
Questions remain about the time period of investigation and the sites
of data collection. Qualitative researchers often have predispositions to
use certain analytical techniques such as grounded theory, conversation
analysis, discourse analysis and narrative analysis. Once selected these
choices effectively rule out the pursuit of others.
An inductive strategy in qualitative research aims to maximise the
openness of theory, data sources and data analysis strategies. Openness
and flexibility maximise the possibility for emergence. The point about
qualitative design is not that it is inductive so much as that it is flexible
to allow induction to take place. Even where some initial decisions overly
structure data collection, they may be suspended or modified to allow
for a line of inquiry stimulated by data collected and/or inductive theory
development.

explain and assess the degree to which qualitative research involves the
specification of a research design prior to the conduct of data collection
and analysis
describe the sources of qualitative data such as ethnographic, in-depth
interviews, documentary evidence, and participant observation
discuss the distinctive approach to sampling that is characteristic of
qualitative social research
explain and assess the relative importance of concepts such as
induction and flexibility in the design of qualitative social research.

1. Compare and contrast the role of deduction and induction in
qualitative and quantitative social research.
2. What do you understand by research design in qualitative social
research?
3. To what extent is it desirable to pre-structure the conduct of qualitative
social research?
58
Chapter 4: Qualitative data analysis

Aims and objectives
This chapter will:
examine the grounded theory approach to qualitative data analysis
assess the role of so-called deviant cases in the analysis of qualitative
data
consider attempts to enhance the validity of qualitative social research
describe the influence of post-modernist social thinking on approaches
to qualitative data analysis.
Learning outcomes
evaluate the grounded theory approach to qualitative data analysis
explain why so-called deviant cases are important in the analysis of
qualitative data
examine the criteria of validity as they may be applied to qualitative
social research
compare realist and post-modernist approaches to qualitative data
analysis.
Essential reading
Bryman, A. Social Research Methods, Chapters 1922 and pp.498503.
Further reading
Lewins, A. Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis in Gilbert, N. (ed.)
Researching Social Life. (London: Sage Publications, 2002) second edition
[ISBN 9780761972457].
Seale, C. Grounding Theory in Seale, Clive (ed.) The Quality of Qualitative
Research. (London: Sage Publications, 1999) [ISBN 9780761955986].
Tonkiss, F. Analysing Text and Speech in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society and
Wooffitt, R. Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis. (London: Sage
Websites
Online QDA at: http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/Introduction/index.php
Works cited
Hammersley, M. The relationship between qualitative and quantitative
research: paradigm loyalty versus methodological eclecticism in J.
Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Research Methods for Psychology and the
Social Sciences. (Leicester, BPS books, 1996).
Scott, J. A Matter of Record: Documentary Sources in Social Research. (London:
Policy Press, 1990).
Seale, C. The Quality of Qualitative Research. (London: Sage Publications,
1999).
59

Silverman, D. Doing Qualitative Research. (London: Sage Publications, 2005)
second edition.
Silverman, D. Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and
Interaction. (London: Sage Publications, 2004) second edition.
Skeggs, B. The Formation of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. (London:
Sage Publications, 1997).
Strauss A. and J. Corbin Basics of Qualitative Research, Ground Theory
Procedures and Techniques. (London: Sage Publications, 1990).
Introduction
Qualitative data analysis is a large and complex multidimensional subject.
In this chapter of the course guide, we will be concerned with the process
of coding, the grounded theory method, and the challenge to realist
qualitative social research posed by the development of post-modernistic
approaches to qualitative data analysis.
Research questions and qualitative analysis

Apart from those researchers committed to the idea that research
questions must emerge from the context of data collection and analysis,
there are various loosely defined schools of qualitative research that allow
us to consider differences in research questions and their implications for
the design of research. Here we must address the different schools in
qualitative research. (See Bryman Box 13.1 on page 267.)
The school of qualitative research that has been described as naturalism
seeks an appreciation. Thus, Skeggs (1997) ethnography of white
working class women sought to describe the experiences of the
marginalised. The production of appreciative accounts of cultures and
behaviour is often from an implied realist position. The author rarely offers
the possibilities of alternative interpretations and this implies a view that
there is only one true version of social reality. Others may present such
alternatives in subsequent attempts to replicate appreciative ethnography.
Qualitative research is often used to investigate problems defined by
radical constructivists and more recently post-modernist social thinkers.
Here the possibility of authoritative accounts of the social is questioned
and the research question becomes How are such authoritative accounts
constructed? Here the focus shifts from the immediate descriptive analysis
to a more abstract account of the methods used by people, or for instance
agencies of the state, or professionals to construct interpretations of
the social. In discourse analysis, for instance, the research questions are
concerned with the way certain versions of the social are produced rather
than others.
Studies of the ways in which authoritative accounts are produced
include that by Garfinkel (1967) in his ethnomethodological study
of jurors. Faced with coming to an authoritative judgment as to the guilt
or innocence of the defendant, jurors are keen to display an uncommon
interest in all the evidence irrespective of its possible relevance to their
verdict. This display of non-selective neutrality allows them to display
their verdict based on the entire body of evidence and not on the selective
evidence that might have confirmed their initial hunches as to the
defendants guilt or innocence.
Similarly, Bryman (2004, page 372) summarises research on the
interpretative repertoires that can be detected in the analysis of official
and informal accounts of the research process produced by natural
scientists. Official accounts used what Kaplan, in writing about social
60
science research, called a reconstructed logic and the informal accounts

referred to the logic-in-use.
Discourse analysis conforms to the model of the qualitative research
strategy described in Chapter 1 as constructionist. However, like
ethnomethodology the interest is not on the reality of what is said about
the social but on the linguistic methods or devices that are used to
construct reality in a certain way. The interest might be, as in the work
of Foucault, in how these constructions serve powerful interests such
as those of the State. Discourse embodies constructs that reflect power
relationships. Research in this tradition finds it difficult to privilege
researchers accounts of the social over those in the social context they
are studying. The focus on the deeper structures of rules and methods for
constructing authoritative accounts distances them to a degree from this
problem of privileging knowledge but not entirely.
This post-modernist approach has come to be known as the turn to
language in social research. Rather than use language simply as a means
by which the research can access the subjective world of those being
studied, the focus of analysis is on the use made of language and the rules
governing the use of language. The question changes from what kind of
culture is described in these texts? (e.g. interview transcripts, documents
etc.) to how is language used to construct a particular view of the world?.
Or in conversation analysis, how is it decided who speaks and how is turntaking organised? Rather than thinking of language as neutral, descriptive
talk, language should be seen as rhetoric or persuasive speech. The most
powerful rhetoric is the one that claims not to be rhetorical but rather
claims to speak scientifically.
Activity: what are scientific repertoires?
Using Brymans description of this study (2004), 3723, supplemented by Wooffitt (2005,
Chapter 2), provide a summary account of the aims and findings of Gilbert and Mulkays
study of scientists use of empiricist and contingent repertoires when presenting their
research to others. In your summary try to categorise aspects of this study under the
headings provided in Box 17.5 which are the four prominent themes in discourse analysis.
The identification of methods of constructing realities tends to beg the
further question as to when and why these are deployed. For example,
Bryman (2004, page 372) reports that in Gilbert and Mulkays study,
scientists used different repertoires in different contexts. This indicates
a contingent relationship between context and repertoire use that might
account for a more traditional analysis of institutional contexts, where
power and resource relationships may determine what construction results
from the use of one kind of repertoire.
Basic qualitative analysis: Coding text fragments

Being an inductive approach, qualitative data analysis begins with a
complete set of collected data in the form of text. These texts may be:
Transcripts of unstructured interviews or of focus group discussions.
Field notes from an ethnographic study.
Documents, diaries or life stories.
Nevertheless, in each case the researcher is faced with the task of
analysing these large and complex texts.
Before analysis begins, the analyst opens a new diary to record ideas,
results and problems as the process of analysis proceeds. The initial stage
61
of analysis is usually a complete read through of the data. This may

stimulate theoretical thinking and analytical strategies that will be noted
in the diary.
Since it is rarely possible or necessary to analyse all the data there is a
process of selection involved. The selection of text for special attention
may be arbitrary, or it may be of relevance to an existing or emergent
theoretical theme. The criteria for selection of text fragments is likely
to become more explicit and if made transparent can be checked for
consistency in the selection process.
Without any premature closure, eventually these fragments of text will
be taken as instances of more general concepts. These concepts may
be closely related to the form of words in the text fragments. In welldefined areas of qualitative investigation, conceptual analysis will allow
ready coding of text fragments in terms of a loosely defined or sensitising
conceptual scheme, and less well defined concepts coding may proceed in
so-called en vivo classification staying very close to the subjects words.
Grounded theory
The grounded theory method of qualitative data analysis was developed
by Glaser and Strauss (1967) to provide a systematic approach to data
analysis that would parallel the techniques of quantitative social research
such as Lazarsfelds elaboration paradigm (see Chapter 6). Grounded
theory is only one of a range of possible approaches that shares some
basic features of qualitative data analysis. However, Bryman (2004, page
408) describes it as the most influential general strategy for conducting
qualitative data analysis.
Grounded theory is difficult to summarise but it involves the open coding
of qualitative texts in contrast to the closed coding of survey answers
into categories preformed by the researcher. Codes are attached to text
fragments in the data. Grounded theory involves a constant comparative
technique where there is comparison between:
similarities and differences between coded fragments
coherence and incoherence within categories
relative importance of categories
concept indicators and (i) each other, and (ii) existing categories
existing categories and (i) each other, and (ii) alternative conceivable
categories.
In grounded theory there is a search for deviant cases in order to develop
and refine the theoretical framework. This is an explicit rejection of
those who insist that qualitative data analysis involves only the search
for instances that confirm a theoretical argument. Some approaches to
qualitative data analysis, such as analytic induction, pursue data analysis
with the aim of achieving a universalistic explanation that applies in all
instances. Beckers study of marijuana users is an example (Becker, 1963).
In his definition of stages in becoming a user, he required that every user
went through each defined stage without exception
Some approaches to qualitative data analysis pursue data analysis with the
aim of achieving a universalistic explanation that applies in all instances.
Beckers study of marijuana users is an example (Becker, 1963). In his
definition of stages, he required that every user went through each defined
stage without exception. In grounded theory, there is a search for Deviant
Cases in order to develop and refine the theoretical framework. This is an
explicit rejection of those that insist that qualitative data analysis involves
62
only the search for instances that confirm a theoretical argument.

Although grounded theory is developed in the immediate context of data
analysis, once a number of theories have been developed in a series of
related empirical contexts it is possible to develop using the constant
comparative methods more general theories such as the theory of status
passage. Theory development is a key objective whether in context of data
or in comparison with other grounded theory results.
The outcomes of a grounded theory method of analysing qualitative data
sets may be:
List of concepts with examples of fragments.
Linked causal scheme: fragment X in the text tended to result in
following fragment Y.
Linked cluster of attributes: the following types of text fragments tend
to hang together: A, B, G, K.
Linked sequence of stages: A tends to be followed by B then C.
A typology: the concepts A and B defines types of text fragment.
Narrative: text fragment types D, H, M link to form a story or account
of an event or series of events.
Activity: the outcomes of grounded theory
Read the summaries of grounded theory projects in Box 19.4 and Box 19.5. To what
extent is it possible to identify some of the outcomes that are typical of grounded theory
research?
How do these studies exemplify the following weakness of grounded theory?
Grounded theory generates concepts rather than theoretical explanations.
Many of the criticisms of grounded theory refer to the difficulties it poses
the researcher. It is hard for the researcher to suspend concepts drawn
from their knowledge of previous research and theory. This is made more
difficult by the need to spell out such a conceptual framework in research
applications that are likely to attract funding. A criticism deriving from
the rival school of narrative analysis suggests that grounded theory rips
text fragments from their context and this can strip them of their precise
meaning in the flow of qualitative data. Finally, the division within
qualitative data analysis between those who seek to use language and text
as a representation of reality and those who are seeking methods or rules
for the construction of that reality is beginning to appear in accounts of
grounded theory.
One of the difficulties of evaluating grounded theory is that it is a large
body of literature which seems to be vague about some procedures. It is
also characterised by subtle variations and changes in the presentation of
the method by its many advocates.
By analysing the focus group data, it was possible to describe a list of
techniques that are used to express distance from the virtual identity of a
serious reader:
1. trivial context: something I read in the dentists waiting room
2. trivial reason: ?
3. trivial content
4. use of laughter its only something to joke about.
63
CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis) makes it possible

to manage very large datasets and thus enhances our confidence in the
results. Use of software to search for examples of text ensures that the
search will be accurate and complete according to a publicly available
defined criterion.
Validity in qualitative data analysis

Developments in qualitative methods have attempted to enhance claims
for validity by dealing with some perceived deficiencies in qualitative
social research as it is published. Among these deficiencies have been:
the failure to provide detailed descriptions of the research process and
the inaccessibility of field notes and/or interview transcripts when
these are not placed in archives
the use of selected telling examples or anecdotalism
search for and selection of those cases that support the argument
failure to report how representative the selection(s) are of the whole
dataset.
Also of increasing importance in qualitative data analysis are the
commitments designed to enhance the quality and validity of the
analytical processes. Two trends are particularly important (i) the
emphasis on transparency (ii) the emphasis on criteria of validity.
Transparency denotes a commitment of being as open as possible about
the process of data collection and analysis. This allows the reader to
scrutinise, as far as is possible, the decisions made by the researcher
during the research process. Such transparency is reflected in the tendency
for most, if not all, qualitative researchers to allow their data to be stored
in archives that can be accessed by other analysts. This allows for the
replication of analysis and thus validation.
In developing criteria for validity for qualitative social research, there has
been an emphasis on the need for transparency. Transparency is a basic
requirement since it allows the reader the opportunity to peer into, or at
least to imagine, the processes involved in the data collection and analysis.
It allows the reader to judge and assess the degree of confidence in the
findings and facilitates attempts to replicate data collection and analysis in
another context.
The debates concerning validity criteria in qualitative research have
centred on whether qualitative research should develop its own criteria
of validity. Recent efforts to develop these refer to trustworthiness of the
research based on credibility of findings (e.g. respondent validation)
and the extent to which the research process can be audited by outsiders
(transparency). (See Bryman, 2004, 276.)
Researchers must be able to demonstrate that their methods of analysis
can claim a degree of validity and that the conclusions are based on
evidence that has been subject to a process where it is contested. For
example, the use by data analysts of a built-in falsification strategy such
as that found in grounded theory where there is a continuous search
for data that does not support theoretical themes. Such a process would
not be found in reports of methods that involved simply the search for
confirmatory evidence: instances of data that supported a theoretical
theme.
Others might claim that simple counting and tabulations assist in
comparing different social groups and counter any tendency towards
64
anecdotalism in qualitative research. The possibility of simple counting

(Silverman) is facilitated by the use of computer assisted qualitative data
analysis.
Replication may involve the collection of another dataset e.g. develop
ideas for four focus groups then apply the scheme to others. Additional
datasets can be defined on theoretical grounds to confirm findings and
generate formal grounded theory e.g. develop theory based on mens
magazines and then do a study of womens magazines. Replication might
also involve the secondary analysis of an existing dataset lodged at
archives such as the ESRC qualidata archive.
Bryman (2004) pays special attention to the use of respondent validation
as a means of establishing the validity of qualitative research findings:
reporting back findings to those observed to confirm or revise findings in
the light of their comments. The researchers account may be accorded
privileged status when the subjects do not understand the research
findings.
Where multiple observers are involved or where it is possible for the
analysis to be replicated by another researcher in the team, an assessment
of the consistency in observation can be made. The use of inter observer
reliability to arrive at consistency in coding text across members of a
research team is a variable of the quantitative technique of test-retest (see
p.75). Similarly, where there are a large number of interviews or other
text to be coded the data could be split in half before two co-researchers
attempt analysis.
The idea of validity itself suggests that there is a social reality separate
from our perceptions of it. The concept of validity is much more important
in accounts of qualitative social research, and it can be an important
resource for qualitative researchers to consider ways in which they can
make claims for validity. As resources, validity criteria raise questions
that need to be resolved in the process of social research itself. However,
the post-modernist trend can have little regard for matters of validity, for
it rejects the idea that rules of research practice govern the production
of valid accounts of reality. The so-called rules of research practice are
merely repertoires for those who seek to have validity ascribed to the
reality within a research community.
Conclusions
In this chapter, we have examined in detail one form of qualitative data
analysis, grounded theory. We have also noted aspects of other strategies
such as discourse analysis and narrative analysis.
Using grounded theory as an example, we have been able to show how
qualitative data analysis attempts to work inductively relating theoretical
constructs developed as closely as possible to the constructs present in the
data. This is particularly suited to research questions unformed or targeted
as areas of the social about which little research has been conducted or
where the features make it difficult to use the more structured and restrict
techniques of quantitative modelling.
Grounded theory exemplifies a commitment in qualitative analysis to
examine and possibly account for all instances. In quantitative research
the probabilistic contingency model builds in the possibility of unexplained
and residual data that may be neglected in the search for variation which
can be explained. Qualitative data analysis seeks to account for all the
data or to treat data that does not fit ongoing theorisations as equally
65
important as data that does. This explicit commitment to seek out and
analyse deviant cases acts as a counter measure to any suggestion that
qualitative data analysis is characterised by a selective search for instances
that confirm theory or arguments proposed.
The trends toward combining methods and the re-engagement with
aspects of quantitative social research linked to validity and the validation
of research results question the idea that quantitative and qualitative
approaches are incompatible paradigms. The debate about methods is not
so much one of quality versus quantity, but between those who are willing
or not willing to assume that there is a knowable social world out there,
independent of our conceptualisations of it, but one that can be observed
in its effects. The practice of social research does not require belief in the
knowable social world, but only the pragmatic view that asks the question:
if we do make the assumption, does it lead us to understand the social
world in useful ways that can be acted upon?

evaluate the approach to qualitative data analysis with special
reference to the case of grounded theory
explain why so-called deviant cases are important in the analysis of
qualitative data
examine the criteria of validity as they may be applied to qualitative
social research
compare realist and post-modernist approaches to qualitative research.

1. Outline the grounded theory approach to qualitative data collection
and analysis. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this
approach?
2. How does discourse analysis alter the use of language in qualitative
social research? Answer with reference to one major application of
discourse analysis in social research.
66

The chapters that make up this third part of the subject guide are designed
to assist your learning about quantitative social research. In Chapter 5, we
will outline the various types of question that quantitative social research
can answer and will argue that all of these imply a causal model. Causal
models are made up of concepts measured as variables and the links
between concepts are expressed as contingent probabilistic relationships.
The nature and technical requirements of these causal models will also be
described in Chapter 5.
After having defined the aims of quantitative social research, it is then
necessary to consider the various sources of quantitative data that may
be collected or are available to social research practitioners. Up until
the 1970s, this would have concentrated on data collected by academic
sociologists and other social scientists using the survey method. What has
changed since then is the increasing potential to analyse data collected by
the government, either through its own offices or by quasi-autonomous
research agencies. It is the importance of analysing these data sources, and
what they can tell us about the contemporary social world, that provides a
very strong case for the use of quantitative research methods in sociology.
Having considered the sources of quantitative data, we proceed to describe
and discuss the design of large-scale government surveys such as the
General Household Survey, British Social Attitudes Survey and the British
Household Panel Survey. Here the focus will be on questionnaire design
and the art of asking questions. Particular importance will be attached
to the different types of questions and the implications for validity of the
survey method in social research.
The next step is to review those aspects of research design that are
concerned with the definition and selection: sampling techniques, subjects,
households or any other unit of analysis. This includes spatial aspects of
design and the role of time order decisions in survey design.
Having designed a framework for the collection of data, the next step is to
consider how this will be processed and analysed.
Since causal models are made up of concepts, a first stage in data
analysis is to consider conceptual modelling. Concepts can be analysed
descriptively by use of single indicators, but the requirement for
measurement validity ensures that multiple indicator approaches are
considered. Here we will be concerned with attitude scales. Then there
are issues about measurement and its assumptions, and about the validity
of measurement. Assessing internal validity requires consideration of the
criteria for making valid causal inferences and for dealing with threats
to the external validity of findings. Having reviewed the principles of
research design that structure the process of data collection in quantitative
social research, it is possible to review the criteria of validity that have
been developed to assess the quality of measurement and causal inference
in social research. Here we will be concerned with measurement validity,
internal validity and external validity.
Quantitative data analysis is a large and complex subject. We will deal
with those aspects that are relatively simple to convey and that relate
to the evaluation of causal models. We will be limited to exploratory
data analysis using simple three-variable models and using a well-
67
established methodology known as the elaboration paradigm. The final

section introduces multiple regression analysis. This technique requires
assumptions to be made about the quality of measurement, and allows the
proper evaluation of complex causal models of the kind we have argued
are central to the project of quantitative social research.
68
Chapter 5: Designing quantitative research
Chapter 5: Designing quantitative social

research
Aims and objectives
This chapter will:
identify the aims of quantitative social research
describe the main sources of quantitative data
describe the main principles of social survey design
assess the potential and limitations of social survey data.
Learning outcomes
outline the principles of model construction and conceptual modelling
describe the process of translating concepts into empirical indicators
through operationalisation and instrumentation
design questions for social surveys that include attitude measurement
and scaling
discuss the principles of survey sampling.
Essential reading
Bryman, A. Social Research Methods, Chapter 2, pp.3355; Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6,
7 and 10.
Further reading
** = particularly recommended
**Arbor, S. Secondary Analysis of Survey Data in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching
9780761972457].
de Vaus, D. Research Design in Social Research. (London: Sage Publications,
2001) [ISBN 9780761953470]. Chapters 1, 2 and 3.
Marsh, C. The Survey Method: The Contribution of Surveys to Sociological
Works cited
Abell, P. Model Building in Sociology. (London: Weidenfield & Nicholson. 1971).
Blalock, H. Review of P.M. Blau and O.D. Duncan The American Occupational
Structure, American Sociological Review, 33(2), pp.29697.
Blalock, H. (1991) Are there really any constructive alternatives to causal
modelling?, Sociological Methodology, 21, pp.32535.
Blau, P. M. and O.D. Duncan The American Occupational Structure.
(New York: Wiley, 1967).
Bryman, A. (2006) Paradigm Peace and the Implications for Quality,
International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 9(2) (April)
pp.11126.
Bulmer. M. (1980) Why dont sociologists make more use of official statistics?,
Sociology, 14, pp.50523.
69

Cicourel, A.V. Method and Measurement in Sociology. (New York Free Press,
1964).
Cook, T.D. and D.T Campbell (1979) Quasi-Experimentation: Design and
Analysis Issues for Field Settings. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching Social Life. (London: Sage Publications, 2001)
second edition.
Jowell, R. et al. (eds) British Social Attitudes: The 18th Report. (London: Sage,
1998).
Kaplan, A. The Conduct of Inquiry. (San Francisco: Chandler, 1964).
Macintyre, S. et al. (1998) Do housing tenure and car access predict health
because they are simply markers of income or self esteem?, Journal of
Epidemiology and Community Health, 52, pp.65764.
Pawson, R. and N. Tilley Realistic Evaluation. (London: Sage Publications,
1997).
Introduction
In this chapter, we are concerned with the design of quantitative social
research. In Chapter 1, social research was defined as a practical activity
aimed at answering a research question by means of a research strategy, a
research design, and a method or methods of data collection and analysis.
In Chapter 1, we learned that understanding social research involved
being very precise about the meaning of each of the following:
research strategy
research design
research method
If you are still not sure about the precise differences between these
components of social research, you should read Chapter 1 again.
Also in Chapter 1, we identified the characteristics of the quantitative
research strategy. These are listed again in Table 5.1.
Defining characteristic
Variable-centred
Descriptive aims
Level and spread of social variables and the

degree of confidence in these estimates.
Summary descriptions
Theory Testing via the establishment, within a

specified context, of contingent relationships
between variables.
Relationship between theory and

research
Deductive testing of theories by measurement of

variables, theoretical constructs and criteria of
causal inference.
Epistemology
Positivist or post-positivistic.
Ontology
There is a knowable social world independent of

our constructions of it.
Theoretical perspectives
Structural behaviourism. Meanings and action

derive from occupancy of structured social
locations.
Table 5.1 The nature of quantitative social research

Bryman (2004), in his discussion of the preoccupations of quantitative
social research, maintains that social surveys, as with other forms of
quantitative social research, attempt to achieve the following outcomes:
The measurement of concepts to test and refine theories.
Causal inference (and model building).
Generalisation of findings from a sample to a wider population.
70
The replication of studies by other researchers.

In this chapter and the next, we are concerned with one research method:
the survey method. This chapter discusses the problems involved in the
design of social surveys: how the instruments of data collection used in
surveys (interview schedules and questionnaires) are designed and how
samples are selected.
In Chapter 1, we introduced the dualism of the two research strategies
of qualitative and quantitative social research. This dualism is useful
as a learning device, but it suggests that the conduct of quantitative
social research implies a commitment by the social researcher to the
philosophical assumptions of positivism. In fact, contemporary research
practitioners are likely to reject simplistic concepts of scientism (the
ideological use of science), objectivism (social constructs are objects)
and determinism (human beings are simply a product of social forces).
It appears that professional social researchers are able to conduct their
qualitative and quantitative projects without having to resolve the
philosophical problems of ontology and epistemology (Bryman, 2006).
Quantitative social research does insist that theoretical models must
be capable of being rejected by reference to empirical findings. This
belief that theories should be fallibilistic presumes the existence of a
knowable social world that is independent of our constructions of it. In
quantitative social research, this knowable social world is revealed, even
if only indirectly, by research that establishes the existence of contingent
relationships between concepts. Since our models of the social world
are expressed in terms of contingent relationships between variables,
empirical social research will pose direct implications for the validity of
our models.
For many, the social survey epitomises the strengths and weaknesses
of quantitative social research strategy. It is the major mechanism by
which governments seek to describe the population for which they are
responsible: it is the means for gathering information to inform and
evaluate government policy. It also has many applications in the private
sector such as market research, health (epidemiology) and actuarial
science (assessing insurance risks).
For social research, the survey method is of historic importance too.
Social scientists development of the techniques of social survey design
and analysis has been one of the most important contributions of the
discipline to the enhanced understanding of the social world. However,
this statement is controversial and the survey method remains a subject of
much debate.
In this chapter, we will focus principally on the design issues involved in
secondary analysis of survey data produced by government agencies. The
design of these surveys exemplifies the current state of the art in survey
research and the best practices in social survey designs. The secondary
analysis of survey data is the most common means by which students
conduct survey research. Most social researchers do not design their own
surveys and are unable to attract funding for the design of the surveys
unless they can show how secondary data sets cannot be used.
71
Research questions and quantitative designs

In this subject guide, we have adopted a position that the value of
empirical social research should be estimated not only by the plausibility
of philosophical assumptions (ontological and epistemological) about
the social world but also by its outcomes. Such outcomes are constrained
by the research questions asked and thus it is important to identify the
specific research questions that can be answered using quantitative social
research methods.
In this chapter, we shall learn that, despite what many textbooks suggest,
it can be misleading to describe the process of quantitative social research
as theory testing. As with the phrase hypothesis testing, the term
theory testing can also over-simplify the logic in use (Kaplan, 1964) of
quantitative social research. Far better, is the description modelling social
data sometimes called conceptual modelling (Abell, 1971). In Chapter 1,
we identified the aims of quantitative social research as the investigation
and establishment of working models of the social world that describe
contingent relationships between theoretical concepts that may or may
not be confirmed by the establishment of empirical relationships between
variables that are taken to be indicators of theoretical concepts.
This general statement covers much of what is defined as quantitative
social research and it remains an ideal that practitioners may aspire to. In
practice, however, quantitative research may have more limited aims, and
these are important. These are described in the next section.
Descriptive quantitative social research

What is the mean or average income of UK residents? How typical is
this income of all incomes? What is the average difference between all
incomes and the mean income? These are essentially descriptive research
questions, but they can tell us important things about the social world. It
would be interesting to know whether the average income level is typical
of most people in the UK or whether it was a poor guide since there was
wide variation around that average. Sometimes description is all that is
wanted, but descriptive research findings often raise explanatory research
questions such as:
Why do some people in the United Kingdom earn more than others?
Is it because they have differences in ability that is measured by
academic and professional qualifications?
Do highly educated women get roughly the same pay as highly
educated men?
Descriptive social research, although important in its own right, can lead
on to more theoretically informed research questions that require a modelbuilding approach.
Hypothesis testing and evaluation research

Sometimes quantitative social research is solely concerned with the
impact of one variable on another. For example, we might be interested in
whether closed circuit television (CCTV) helps to reduce crime in public
places such as car parks or city centres late at night. Bryman (2004, page
63) states that this form of research question is typical of experimental or
quasi-experimental research. What is missing from the statement of the
research question is the necessary condition that the relationship between
72
CCTV and crime in public places must be found to exist, when all other
rival explanations (or alternative hypotheses) have been eliminated.
We might discover that where there is CCTV, crime rates are lower, but
this might be because CCTV has been installed in areas of lower crime
rates. This could be the case, for instance, if better off areas with relatively
lower crime rates find it easier to generate the extra taxation to finance
CCTV. Areas of high crime rates may be precisely the same areas that
have insufficient local resources to pay for the installation of CCTV. In a
true experiment, the researcher would select some areas to have CCTV
and some not to have CCTV. These two groups of areas would have been
selected at random to ensure that the two groups are likely to be equally
subject to all the other social factors that influence crime rates. In fact, the
only difference will be the presence and absence of CCTV. In practice, such
experiments are rarely found in social research, and thus in the absence
of random selection of comparison groups, the researcher draws on an
extensive survey of the literature related to the causes of crime and by
use of statistical techniques. In the absence of experimental data, the role
of CCTV can only be evaluated as one explanatory variable in a complex
multivariate model of the causes of crime. (See also Bryman, 2005, page
40, Box 2.12; and Pawson and Tilley, 1997.)
Interpretative model building

A common occurrence in social research is that an association is found
between two variables. Often the mechanism that helps us explain the
association is not known or not well established. For example, there may
be a correlation between two concepts that is quite strong, but there is no
obvious explanation for the association. For instance, housing tenure and
access to a car are both associated with better health, but the reasons that
explain this linkage remain unclear. Self-esteem or income were thought to
be underlying reasons for the link, but these were not sufficient to account
for all of the association (MacIntyre et al. 1998).
In another example, a number of research reports have established a
changing relationship between gender and educational achievement.
Male students used to outperform female students at the various stages
of assessment; now the reverse is often the case. Given the changing
association over time, what social factors enable us to account for this
change? The shift from end-of-course examinations to coursework
assessment may have benefited female students, but to assess whether
this was the case would require the researcher to develop a model of
educational achievement that:
evaluated all the possible explanations that might account for the
improved performance of female students: changes in motivation,
expectations of teachers, general cultural changes including patterns of
employment. So it is not just changes in the form of assessments that
are considered
assessed the importance of gender via these variables when other
causes of variation in educational achievement have been assessed.
Social class, ethnicity and age may influence the results of any
attempt to account for the changing relationship between gender and
educational achievement.
Simple research questions do seem to require quite elaborate models if
they are to be answered.
73
Synthetic model building

In considering research questions, we have seen that although many types
of quantitative research question do not explicitly refer to the aim of
constructing a causal model, in practice they may beg the need to do so.
Thus, it is suggested that a developed causal model is a requirement of a
proper answer to most quantitative research questions (Blalock, 1999).
The fundamental aim of quantitative social research is to contribute to the
development of a specific body of empirical and theoretical research aimed
at explaining variations in a dependent variable. For example, one such
field is social mobility research that has developed a relatively
sophisticated approach to the measurement of social class and the related
study of intergenerational social mobility. Having defined and measured a
dependent variable as the degree of upward and downward mobility
experienced across generations, a model of the factors influencing mobility
may be developed. In social mobility research there is a prominent theme
that links educational achievement to social mobility. An example of the
use of causal models is the classic study published in 1967 by Peter Blau
and Otis Dudley Duncan of The American Occupational Structure. In one of
their more simple models, a persons occupation status was seen as a
function of the status of their first job and their educational qualifications,
then their fathers occupation and finally, fathers education (Blalock,
1968). These variables, forming a simple causal chain to be evaluated, use
path coefficients. This will be described in the next chapter.
Fathers education
Educational
qualification
Current occupation
Fathers occupation
First occupation
Figure 5.1 Modelling occupational status (After Blau and Duncan, 1967)
We have intentionally used the phrase developing casual models as we
want to counter the simplifying assumption found in many social research
methods texts, that quantitative social research is exclusively deductive
testing or concerned with one specific hypothesis. As we shall see,
although there is a tendency for quantitative social research to be more
deductive than qualitative social research, it is important to recognise the
elements of induction that are present in most quantitative social research.
Modelling is best seen as an interaction between theoretical thinking and
empirical research findings.
Activity: forming a causal model
Read and make notes on Bryman (2004) Box 10.2 on page 203. Summarise the research
question by Ginn and Arber (1995) on married women aged 4064 in the form of a
causal model with the following concepts:
Personal characteristics (age, social class, health).
Household characteristics (husbands social class and income, number of children).
Womens employment.
74
Question: What variables were found to be most important for:

a. women over 40 years of age but under 50
b. women over 50 years of age
Now repeat this exercise using causal models to summarise the study described in
Bryman, 2004 Box 10.3 on page 203.
Causal models in quantitative social research

Following Blalocks work in the 1960s, in its most advanced form,
quantitative social research seeks to develop complex models that attempt
to account for variation in a dependent variable. A necessary starting point
for quantitative social research is the development of a model comprising
all the known and measurable variables that contribute to the explanation
of variation in the concept.
In practice, apart from very large-scale research projects, modelling may
be restricted to selected aspects of the general model developed.
To evaluate the developed model, all the concepts that make up the model
must be measured as far as possible by established operational definitions
of the concepts and by accepted instruments of measurement such as the
survey questions utilised in a sample survey design.
It is important to describe the different types of variables that are found in
causal models:
A dependent variable has variation that is thought to be explained
by other variables in the model.
For example, we might be interested in understanding why some
women (aged between 4064) are employed and others are not.
Independent variables are those that explain variation in the
dependent variable.
For example, womens employment may be explained by their health,
or the level of their husbands income.
Intervening variables are those whose variation is explained by
an independent variable, but that, in turn, explains variation in the
dependent variable.
For example, husbands pay may be intervening between social class
and paid employment since upper class women may have highly
paid husbands and this explains why they are less likely to be in paid
employment.
A model usually has one independent variable, several intervening
variables and one dependent variable. Models are often simplified to
permit one-one-way causal relationships. The relationships between
concepts in the model are described in terms of probabilistic contingency
rather than determinant association. This can be described as the degree
to which an independent variable significantly increases or decreases
the likelihood of the outcomes measured by the dependent variable. For
example, probabilistic contingency measures the impact of educational
achievement on the likely attainment of highly paid occupations. When
evaluating the model, it will be possible to assess the relative importance
of the concepts and indicators that make up the model, including their
direct, indirect and contextual effects.
Causal modelling has very specific requirements:
All known concepts must be included.
All concepts must have valid measures.
75
Prior to data analysis, but not necessarily after, all concepts must have
a specified relationship to each of the other concepts in the model.
Each of the causal pathways specified in the model must meet the
established criteria of causal inference defined below, and there must
be no other threats to the internal and external validity of the model.
An example of the simplest model is displayed in Figure 5.2.
Education (knowledge
and skills)
Round items are

absract concepts
Epistemic
correlation
Income
Social class
Educational
qualifications
Square items are
variables or indicators
Self-reported
income
Occupational
classification
Figure 5.2 Illustrative model from research review
Validity in social survey research

The design of social surveys and research using other forms of quantitative
data must be such that it avoids the following threats to the validity of
research findings:
measurement validity
internal validity
external validity.
Measurement validity
Measurement validity can be assessed by using other measures as
criteria of validity. Bryman (2004) describes two methods of assessing
measurement validity: concurrent and predictive validity. Concurrent
validity assesses the validity of a measure by setting up a criterion variable
that should have a high correlation with the measure in question. In
attitude research, one approach is to compare a behavioural criterion
with the attitude measure. Thus Bryman provides the example of a new
measure of job satisfaction which, if valid, should be associated with a
behavioural measure of job satisfaction such as absenteeism. We would be
concerned about the validity of a measure of job satisfaction that was not
associated with the level of absenteeism. One way to enhance validity is to
use multiple indicators of a concept we will deal with this technique in a
later section of this chapter.
Similarly, predictive validity assesses the ability of a measure to predict
some future behaviour. Thus if we had a measure of political attitudes that
was a very poor predictor of how people voted in a subsequent national
election, we would be concerned as to its validity.
76
Measurement validity is about the relationship between concepts and

indicators. This relationship may be evaluated by using the idea of
reliability that means the stability of measures over time. In a testretest reliability assessment, if a maths test was administered more than
once to the same group of students, we would expect to report similar
findings. If the findings did not report similar levels of maths ability,
then we would conclude that the test was unreliable and therefore not
valid. Such tests of reliability only reveal a lack of validity since a reliable
measure might still be invalid. For instance, if we attempted to measure
household incomes by asking a household member how many cars were
owned by the household, this might be much more reliable than asking
questions about the actual income received by household members, but
it would not be a more valid measure. See Bryman (2004) pp.7072 for
other measures of reliability.
Since it is impossible to measure how well an empirical indicator is
related to an abstract concept, validity can only be measured indirectly,
by developing criteria of evaluating the measures and assessing the
implications of applying these criteria
Internal validity of causal relationships

Internal validity is concerned with the contingency relationships between
measured concepts. Using the idea of causality as an as-if model, before
we can accept the relationship between two variables as being a causal
relationship between two concepts we must be convinced that:
there is a probabilistic contingent relationship between the two
variables (covariation)
the sequence of cause and consequence can be established (time order)
all other rival explanations of the covariation can be eliminated (lack of
spuriousness).
Covariation and lack of spuriousness can be established by the statistical
data analysis covered in the next chapter, but causal order should be
observed by the time order relationship between cause and effect. To
observe causal order, a before and after or time series design is required.
In survey research this is known as a panel design, (see Bryman Chapter
2), and involves the administration of a questionnaire to a sample and
then a second administration after a lapse of time. Time series designs
have the great benefit of being able to establish the time order of variables
and this is a boon to causal analysis. Unfortunately, there are many
drawbacks that have been detailed in the work of Cook and Campbell
(1979) as described on page 78 of this guide.
External validity
Unless we can study the whole population as in a census, social research
employs a sampling method whereby a smaller number of people can be
surveyed. In opinion polls this is often 1,200 people. However we still
need to be confident that the results will apply to the population from
which we drew the sample.
External validity refers to the process of generalising results from those
studied to the population from which the sample was taken. Generally,
the degree of external validity is safeguarded by taking large samples
using a method of sampling such as multi-stage cluster sampling that
approximates to the ideal of simple random sampling.
77
External validity is concerned with the process of inference. We analyse

data and then assess whether we can generalise the finding to the
population. In quantitative social research, we analyse data using
techniques to measure sample statistics (such as averages, proportions,
differences in means and proportions between sub-groups in the data and
measures of association that measure relationships between variables).
These sample statistics are valid for the data analysed but for external
validity we have to assess whether the sample statistics are good estimates
of the same measures in the population. The population measures are
called parameters. Thus, we measure sample statistics to make inferences
about population parameters.
Causal inference in the classical scientific experiment

Following the work of Campbell (Cook and Campbell, 1979), there is a
standardised means of considering the implications of alternative research
designs for the internal and external validity of research findings. In this
body of literature, the classical experiment defines one ideal of causal
inference, but it too can be vulnerable to threats from internal and
external validity. The format of the classical experiment is described in
Figure 5.3.
t1
R
O1
O2
t2
X
O3
O4
Figure 5.3 The format for the classical experiment

R1 and R2 signify that two groups of subjects have been selected using
random sampling. O1 and O2 signifies that at t1 both groups were subject
to the same set of measurement instruments and that these were also
administered some time later at t2. The only difference between the groups
is X known as the treatment. The X factor is either not made apparent to
the subjects being studied or some form of equivalent known as a placebo
is applied to the non-treatment or control group.
Glossary of terms in experimental design
The treatment or experimental group is the group of randomly selected subjects that
are exposed to the treatment.
The Control Group is a randomly selected group that is not exposed to the treatment
(may be given a placebo).
The Pre-Test (O1 O2) refers to the observations taken from the treatment O1 and
control group O2 prior to treatment (t1).
Post-Test (O3 O4) refers to observations taken from the treatment O3 and control
groups O4 after treatment (t2).
The aim of the research is to confirm that the presence of the independent
variable (X) in the treatment group produces changes in the level of
dependent variable at t2 compared with that observed at t1. These changes
are not observed in the control group observations. If this is the case, the
classical experiment establishes covariation between the independent
variable and changes in the treatment group at t2. The changes in the
dependent variable are measured over time (t1 to t2) and the independent
variable (the treatment) is introduced before the changes in observations
in the treatment group are observed as consequences of the treatment.
Both groups are selected using random samples so they should differ only
78
in the treatment variable. All other variables are held constant (e.g. the
average values on all variables (e.g. age, sex) in two random samples will
be the same).
Threats to internal validity

The following factors may provide a correlation between an independent
variable (or X factor) measured at T1and a dependent variable measured at
T2.
History events apart from the independent variable may cause
consequences at T2.
Maturation passage of time rather than the independent variable
may cause consequences at T2.
Testing observation or measurement can produce consequences at
T2 and not the independent variable.
Instrument Decay consequences at T2 may flow from changes in
measurement process at T2 compared with T1.
Statistical Regression extreme scores at T1 can only move to the
centre of the scale at T2.
Selection differences between groups at T2 are the product of
differences in recruitment to groups (sampling errors).
Dropout those not observed at T2 may produce differences between
groups (initially random).
Activity: threats to internal validity
Read Box 2.6 and Box 2.7 on pages 3637 in Bryman (2004) and make notes on each of
the threats to internal validity in the Rosenthal and Jacobson study.
Threats to external validity

Reactive effects of observation participation in a test may
interact with treatment and cause consequences (need placebos).
Unrepresentativeness non-random samples (e.g. studies of
students) cannot be the basis of generalisation to non-students.
Artificiality observations in non-natural circumstances magnify the
impact of observation itself (the Hawthorne effect).
The main problems of using the classical experimental design in social
research stem are twofold. First, in social research, it is impossible isolate
the experiment from its social context (contextual effects). For example, all
random samples are random within a context such as the UK population
and so the result may not apply to those outside the context, such as in
other countries. Second, it will be unusually ethical to deny benefits to the
control group that are experienced by the treatment group.1
It is important to understand the logic of the classical experiment as
it explains why social research involves statistical analysis. This is a
substitute for the process of randomisation that is rarely possible or
desirable for practical and ethical reasons.
Matching samples
is a possibility, but is
complex and relies on
the assumption that
all possible matching
criteria are both known
and measured.
The panel study

t1
R1 O1
t2
O3
Figure 5.4 The panel study

79
In panel studies, such as the British Household panel study, surveys are
administered at two points in time to a randomly selected sample of
subjects. There is no control group to compare results.
Threats to internal validity in a panel study

In the absence of a control group, randomisation does not perform
the function of eliminating rival causal explanations. Comparison of
differences over time within one sample must control for all possible
influences other than X and in order to do so, these rival explanations
must be measured and included in the model operationalised in the survey
instrument.
Even then, there remains the possibility of:
History events, rather than measured variables produce changes at T2.
Maturation personal development rather than measured variables
accounts for changes at T2.
Testing observations made in the pre-test produced changes peoples
responses to second wave.
Instrumentation changes in questionnaires, for instance, may account
for changes observed.
Measurement error changes observed at T2 might be due to
unreliability of measures.
Regression extreme scores measured at T1 will tend towards the
centre at the post-test stage.
Drop Out observations at T2 may reflect differential drop out rates
(need to match pre-test group with post-test).

Panel attrition differential drop out results in non-random,
unrepresentative sample (need to weight sample by population
characteristics).
Panel conditioning participation may change observed values
undermining description, but should not influence explanatory
inferences.
Immigration and migration population from which panel initially
drawn changes in ways to make sample less representative of the
population.
The social survey the random sample one-group, posttest only design
t1
R1
O1
Figure 5.5 The social survey

This is the design used for the General Household Survey and the British
Social Attitudes Survey. At first, this seems to be further from the ideal
of the classical experiment than the panel study, yet it manages to avoid
many of the threats to internal and external validity that result from the
time series elements of the panel study.
80
Threats to internal validity

Lack of time order (has to be assumed or based on subjects recall).
As with panel studies, checks for rival causal explanations are limited
to known and measured variables (specification errors).

With large-scale random sampling, errors can only come from:
Sampling frame post coded database may not be complete.
Sampling error inherent in any sampling process.
Systematic non-response/missing data.
Causal modelling and survey design

Quantitative social research aims to be cumulative and so a good starting
point for the modelling process is a summary account of the research
that has been conducted, and the creative development of a new or
revised model to be investigated. An existing body of knowledge might be
improved by:
better conceptualisation
improved model building
improved research designs (e.g. inclusion of time series data)
the exploration of new datasets.
Derived from previous theoretical and empirical research, a series of
concepts are linked in a creative research process into a working model.
This forms a basis for the initial exploration of the contingent relationships
between concepts to be explored and evaluated using a set of wellestablished data analysis strategies.
In the study of health inequalities, where health status is the dependent
variable, factual questions will be used to measure variables such as
age, marital status, occupational class, income and education. Similarly,
factual questions will address descriptive questions about lifestyles such
as drinking, smoking, frequency of exercise, etc. Attitudes may be tapped
to measure beliefs about the links between lifestyle and health outcomes
as these beliefs may inhibit adoption of healthy lifestyles. Such arguments
raise difficult questions about causality. It might be the case that people
who drink and smoke excessively tend not to believe that these activities
are linked to health outcomes: the behaviour explains their denial of the
consequences. A time series design is needed to sort out whether the
beliefs explain the behaviour or the behaviour explains the beliefs.
To establish time order in surveys that do not measure changes in variables
over time, the researcher has to resort to answers to questions that rely
on recall from an earlier time in the respondents life. When interviewing
adults, questions may be asked about their parents usual occupation, or
they may be asked what qualifications they have acquired during their
education. These recall questions measure variables that are assumed to
have preceded attitudes measured in the questionnaire and variations
in income. In a study of variations in income, variables such as age,
gender, education, and occupational class may be assumed to be causes of
variations in income and not vice versa. However, if it was proposed that
the influence of education on income was influenced by the intervening
attitudinal variables such as attitudes to private and public sector
employment, the model would require a time series design to ascertain
81
whether the attitude influences income or whether the attitude was a

consequence of income.
One of the tenets of realism is that causality only occurs under defined
conditions. Blaxters study of Health and Lifestyles, (summarised in Box
2.14 on page 42 of Bryman), illustrates this point. She found that there
was no overall relationship between healthy lifestyles and actual health
status (whether people were healthy or not), but a relationship did exist
among people in non-manual occupations. This means that social class
specifies when there is a relationship between healthy lifestyles and
health status. This example illustrates how complex causal arguments
can become and it is one of the major advantages of quantitative social
research that this degree of complexity can be managed. The example
also illustrates how the process of forming causal models is not one of
simply translating the results of a research review into an oversimplified
arrow diagram. It should be a creative process of theorising all the
possible complexity that might inform the process of data collection and
subsequent data analysis.
Designing social surveys: interview schedules and

questionnaires
A preliminary research review and model-building exercise will have
resulted in a list of concepts that need to be operationalised in the
survey. In drawing up the survey instrument the decision about question
ordering should sequence questions with dependent variable first, working
backwards to exogenous structural variables. In secondary analysis,
the survey design stage will be replaced by a search of the data set for
indicators of concepts in the model. All possible indicators should be
reviewed.
Review all indicators in the dataset as potential causes of variation in the
dependent variable:
Personal facts and facts about other known persons (household).
Demographic variables (age, gender, occupation, ethnicity, country of
birth).
Self-reported history (location, housing, education, occupation).
Self-reported data (income, family, consumption, hours of work).
Self-reported behaviours.
Activity: what is wrong with these questions?
Do you attend lectures regularly?
Do you find this course interesting and useful?
How satisfied are you with this course?
Tony Blair misled Parliament about the supposed existence of WMD in Iraq. Please
tick one of the following:
true___
possible not true___
certainly not true___
Which party did you vote for at the last general election?
Students should not be required to take loans to finance their higher education.
strongly agree___ agree___ disagree___ strongly disagree___
82
Multi-dimensional attitude scales

The study of causes of variations in attitudes is often more salient to the
interests of politicians, market researchers and public agencies than it is to
social scientists. In social science research, understanding the social basis
of attitudes is not an end in itself, for attitudes are usually the intervening
variables in the explanation of a social action or social outcome (Marsh,
1982). The attitude concepts used by social scientists are usually multidimensional since, as we have seen in Chapter 2, just one indicator cannot
measure complex concepts such as social exclusion. Thus, it is rarely
acceptable to measure attitudes to gender roles by just one question such
as:
Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay.
Agreement with this question is one item measuring the degree to

which the person has a positive view of the gendered role of housewife.
However, there is more than one dimension to the assessment of the
gendered role of housewife, and the following additional questions were
asked in the ISSP survey:
A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship
with her children as a mother who does not work.
A pre-school child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works.
Overall, family life suffers when the woman has a full-time job.
A job is all right, but what most women really want is a home and
children.
Having a job is the best way for a woman to be an independent person.
The assumption is that multidimensional attitude scales capture the full
range of attributes involved, whereas a single measure may not reflect
accurately the complexity of the subjects views on gendered roles.
The greatest limitation of survey data is the lack of measurement of actual
behaviour and the reliance on subject-reported behaviours, attributes,
opinions and attitudes. Surveys are not naturally occurring contexts and
the factual and attitudinal data may not be a good representation of data
collected in other contexts. The survey interview is not a natural setting
and answers to questions are recorded in the form of ticked boxes often
indicating answers structured by the researcher.
The validity of the survey measurement strategy may be more easily
established in the case of factual matters. There is the possibility of
measurement error in reporting facts, as they may rely on accurate recall
under- or over-estimates of sensitive topics such as income, smoking,
alcohol and sexual activity. Much more problematic is the measurement of
attitudes. Questions about values and beliefs must assume that a stable,
simple and well-defined answer has already been formed and this is what
is being measured. This may apply to some topics such as the monarchy
but not to all topics.
This serves to remind us of the basic comparison made between qualitative
and quantitative social research in Chapter 1. Survey research in general,
and attitude research in particular, is best suited to measurement in
well-defined social contexts (and not suited for ill-defined contexts). This
applies particularly to attitude measurement. Attitudinal research tends to
make assumptions that attitudes are always well-formed and that attitudes
are stable.
83
Sample design, sampling theory and statistical inference

Surveys are often aimed at producing accurate descriptions of a population
and valid statements about contingent relations between variables. The
ability to be confident in the results of sample data analysis rests on the
quality of sample design and size of the sample. Statistical Inference is
concerned with external validity. This links to estimating how confident we
can be that the descriptions and associations, found by statistical analysis
to be true for the sample, can be said to be true for the population (or
other universe) from which the sample was taken. It asks whether sample
statistics are likely to be the same or good estimates of the population
parameters they are attempting to measure.
Statistical Inference aims to determine the level of confidence we can have
in our known statistical estimates of unknown population parameters.
Remember:
A population parameter is the true value we are trying to estimate.
A sample statistic is our estimate of the parameter based on analysis of
sample data.
Statistics and parameters

The statistics produced by the analysis of sample data are estimates of
population parameters, where the population is the aggregate of all the
cases that meet a specification e.g. all the people living in households in
the United Kingdom.
Setting confidence levels

During data analysis, we can use significance tests and standard errors
to assess the degree of confidence we can have in our findings. However,
these confidence levels can be set in advance of data collection and
thereby guide decisions as to sample size, sampling methods. For example,
in political opinion polling it may decided that it is necessary to be 99.9
per cent confident that the estimate of the parameter is within + or 1
per cent of the estimate.
Probability sampling
The aim of probability sampling is that the sample should be an accurate
representation of the population from which it is drawn. In the case of
simple random sampling for a list of population elements, each element
(e.g. each person), in the population has the same probability of being
included in the sample. Sampling without replacement of those included
in the sample means that the probability of inclusion for remainder is
increased.
Random Sampling is rarely used because of the difficulty in listing
everyone in the sample. Cluster Sampling is less complex to administer.
It is more economical even though it requires larger samples because the
unit sampled is a group of individuals defined by household or other larger
unit (e.g. schools, hospitals).
Sampling design in the British social attitudes survey

An example of Multi-stage Cluster sampling methods is the British Social
Attitudes survey that aims to select a representative sample of adults aged
over 18 years. The Postcode Address File (PAF) listing household addresses
(not institutions) is used in a three-stage design. First, postcoded sectors
with less than 1,000 addresses are amalgamated with adjacent sectors
84
(households in northern Scotland excluded for reasons of costs). A sample

of postcode sectors is selected at random from the comprehensive list of
sectors. The sectors are then stratified by:
37 sub-regions.
Population density to create three equal-sized strata per region.
Ranking by percentage home ownership (and per cent manual HOH in
Scotland).
Second, two hundred sectors selected with probability proportionate to
the number of postcodes in each sector then 31 addresses selected for each
area giving 6,200 (200 31) addresses.
Third, starting with an address selected at random and thereafter by fixed
intervals, interviewers call at each address and establish the number of
households residing there. They then select one at random using random
number procedure. The interviewer lists all individuals over 18 years and
selects one of these using random numbers.
Weighting is applied to overcome the following sources of error:
a. Households living with other households at the same address were less
likely to be included than other households where one household =
one address.
b. Adults living in larger households were less likely to be included
compared with those in smaller households. Thus all proportions based
on weighted data.
In the BSA 2000, the response rate was 62 per cent and of those not
responding 29 per cent were refused or broken appointments; nearly four
per cent of cases were defined as no contact with household or selected
person and just over five per cent other types of non-response.
Secondary analysis of large-scale social surveys

It is accepted that quantitative social research is best suited to the study
of relatively well-defined social contexts where there is an established
body of research covering measurement strategies, choice of concepts and
indicators and even some model-building experience. However, even less
well-defined contexts, can benefit from the exploration of quantitative
datasets, using inductive modelling to explore possible models.
One of the undoubted causes of renewed interest in quantitative social
research has been the increase in the availability of large-scale datasets. In
Britain, examples are:
The General Household Survey.
The British Social Attitudes Survey.
The British Household Panel Survey.
The British Crime Survey.
Bryman (2004, 2089) provides a longer list.
Added to these and resulting from the increased use of sophisticated
information systems. are the dataset based on records of routine
administrative procedures such as postcoded health activity data (NHS),
results of designed statistical returns to central government (ONS) and
supra-national organisations (EU, OECD).
85
Although there are quite extensive processes of consultation with

academics about the quality and scale of government data collection
activities, these activities are inevitably driven by the information needs
of government and such needs are more concerned with the management
of activities, the evaluation of policies and the routine gathering of
descriptive statistics. The evaluation of causal models is not a primary
focus. However, since both the quality and scale of government surveys
offer many benefits, they are often a primary source of data since they are
readily available and large in scope. Indeed, it is perhaps now the case that
research-driven independent social surveys, designed by academics, are
only considered viable when there is no government data available that
can provide a reasonably valid answer to the research question. (Bryman,
2005, pp.2026, reviews the advantages and limitations of Secondary
analysis.)
Activity: retrieve a technical report on a large-scale survey
The British Social Attitudes Survey is the British part of the International Social Survey
Programme (ISSP), which is aimed at obtaining comparable data about social attitudes for
38 countries. The questionnaires are available online at the question bank, (http://qb.soc.
surrey.ac.uk), and the BSA publishes Technical Reports that provide for a comprehensive
insight into research design issues when conducting a social survey. These reports are
available online at the Data Archive, www.dataarchive.ac.uk/findingData/ bsaTitles.asp.
Conclusions
The process of research design in quantitative social research is well
exemplified by Survey design. Such has been the improvement made to
the design of government funded social surveys that a strong case has to
be made to conduct a special survey. Much contemporary survey analysis
involves the secondary analysis of large-scale government social surveys.
All social research should be theoretically informed, once theoretical
arguments can be summarised in a causal model, the problem is to
optimise the measurement of concepts. The questions used to measure
concepts should cover all concepts in a developed model for the chosen
dependent variable. There are various guides to question formation that
should prevent common mistakes. All new questions should be piloted
and where possible the pre-tested questions available from the question
bank should be used. Social Surveys are best used to model well-defined
contexts, where much is known about levels of knowledge and opinion in
the sample and the language in use.

outline the principles of model construction and conceptual modelling
outline the process of translating concepts into empirical indicators
through operationalisation and instrumentation
design questions for social surveys that include measurement and
scaling
discuss the principles of survey sampling.
86

1. What are the criteria of causal inference? Consider how causal
inferences may be established in the following:
a. The classic experimental design.
b. The panel survey (e.g. the BHPS).
c. The one-shot case study or post test only design (e.g. the BSA or the
GHS).
2. Why is multi-stage cluster sampling used in preference to simple
random sampling techniques? Answer with reference to one major
British social survey.
87
Notes
88
Chapter 6: Analysing quantitative data

Aims and objectives
This chapter will:
explain the aims and methods of quantitative data analysis
describe the ways in which data are tabulated to measure association
describe how percentages, odds ratios and measures of association are
used to establish contingency relationships between concepts
describe how the process of multivariate analysis of layering provides a
case for making causal inferences
introduce the elaboration paradigm as a method for interpreting the
results of multivariate crosstabulation.
Learning outcomes
illustrate the strategy of multivariate analysis
write up a contingency table using percentages, odds ratios, measures
of association and the Chi-square test
discuss the role of control variables in multivariate tables
identify the possible outcomes of multivariate analysis as provided by
the elaboration paradigm
illustrate multiple regression analysis and discuss its role in the
evaluation of causal models.
Essential reading
Bryman, A. Social Research Methods, Chapter 11.
Further reading
Aneshensel, C.S. Theory-Based Data Analysis for the Social Sciences. (London:
Pine Forges Press, 2002) [ISBN 9780761987369].
Blalock, H. Are there really any constructive alternatives to causal modeling,
Sociological Methodology 21 (1991), pp.32535.
Dale A., S. Arber & M. Procter Doing Secondary Analysis. (London: Allen and
Unwin, 1988) [ISBN 9780043120422]. Chapters 811.
de Vaus, D. Analyzing Social Science Data. (London: Sage Publications 2002)
[ISBN 9780761959380 ]. Especially Chapter 32, How and When to
Use Cross Tabulations, and Chapter 35, How to Interpret a Correlation
Coefficient.
de Vaus, D. Research Design in Social Research. (London: Sage Publications,
2001) [ISBN 9780761953470] Chapter 12.
de Vaus, D. Surveys in Social Research. (London: Routledge, 2002) fifth edition.
[ISBN 9780415268585].
Healey, J. Statistics: a tool for social research. (Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth,
2005) seventh edition [ISBN 9780534627942] Chapter 16.
Marsh, C. The Survey Method: The Contribution of Surveys to Sociological
89

Procter, M. Analysing survey data in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching Social
Life. (London: Sage Publications, Second Edition, 2002) [ISBN
9780761972457].
** Seale, C. Statistical Reasoning: Causal Arguments and Multivariate
Analysis in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society and Culture. (London: Sage
Websites
www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa765/crosstabs.htm
Introduction
Modern statistical analysis software such as SPSS and computing
power help us to unravel the complexity of the social world through
data modelling. Statistical techniques have been developed in the
natural sciences. Social statistics originated in the need to count whole
populations for purposes of taxation and possible military service. In the
late nineteenth century, the study of sub-areas and sub-groups within the
nation were necessary to monitor the threat of poverty and infectious
diseases. Developments in sampling theory, (e.g. the concept of sampling
distributions), led to cheaper descriptive research. The main aim was
to establish the degree of confidence in descriptive findings by using
the idea of standard error. The power of sampling theory is reflected
in contemporary research practice where, in the case of public opinion
polling, about 1200 randomly sampled individuals will give a good
estimate of national opinion on a topic.
By the late 1950s there were two related developments institutionalised in
research practice:
Lazarsfelds elaboration paradigm provided a means of analysing
crosstabulations in order to reject spurious correlations, to detect
intervening variables and to specify the conditions under causation.
Use of the Chi-square to establish confidence in an association.
By the 1960s, there appeared to be limitations of the crosstabulation
in terms of the scale and complexity of the models to be evaluated.
There was widespread abuse of the Chi-square test which appeared to
legitimise significant correlations even when the explanatory power of
the relationship was minimal. The 1960s saw increasingly sophisticated
measures of association for crosstabulations based on an assessment of
the proportionate reduction in error in predicting values of the dependent
variable. These measures of association for crosstabulations mirrored the
logic of the most powerful statistical technique developed for assessing
causality up to that point: multiple regression analysis.
Blalock started the causal modelling movement in the mid-1960s, and
complex multivariate modelling (path analysis imported from biology)
replaced the highly restricted elaboration of crosstabulations. Path
analysis, or structural equation modelling as it came to be known, applied
regression analysis to the formal evaluation of causal models. Path analysis
and ordinary least squares regression assumed interval measurement or
assumed ability of regression analysis to withstand the failure to meet the
measurement assumption (robustness).1
Table 6.1 classifies statistical techniques by the questions they are designed
to answer.
90
The 1980s saw

the rise of log-linear
modelling and logistic
regression that allowed
use of nominal and
ordinal data for causal
modelling.

Statistical analysis
Statistical inference
Descriptive research
questions
Univariate Analysis
Measures of level and
spread e.g. mean and
standard deviation.
Univariate Inference
Standard error and
confidence intervals for
percentages and means.
Explanatory research
questions
Multivariate Analysis
Crosstabulation and
elaboration.
Measures of association.
Path analysis and causal
modelling.
Multivariate Inference
Significance tests e.g.
the Chi-square test
for bivariate and for
layered multivariate
crosstabulations.
Table 6.1 Types of statistics by purpose
Univariate analysis
One of the main purposes of social statistics is to be able to present a
numerical or graphical summary of the collected data and some of its
important characteristics. Taking one variable at a time, a summary
description of a variable involves the following dimensions:
the level of the data as determined by the average category of the
data these are called measures of central tendency (mode, median,
arithmetic mean)
the spread of the data these are means of dispersion (variation
ratio, inter-quartile range, standard deviation) and assess how good a
summary of the data is, provided by the level average
when data are presented graphically in a pie or bar chart we can
summarise the shape of the distribution of cases across the categories
by saying the variable distribution is bell-shaped, skewed or bi-model,
etc.
You should grasp conceptually (rather than just mathematically) the
importance of measures of central tendency and dispersion.
Sampling distributions, standard error and confidence

intervals
Sampling Error is the risk of making erroneous inferences on the basis of a
sample taken at random a statistical concept that applies even when the
ideal sampling conditions apply.2
Example: National Lottery sampling error

The National Lottery draw mechanism aims to randomise the selection
of winning numbers. In fact, in 2005, the number 30 was selected in 21
per cent of all draws and number 16 in only 5 per cent of all draws. Thus,
random sampling may result in unbiased selection due to sampling errors
and statistical estimates may not always reflect population parameters.
The theory of sampling distributions

A sampling distribution is a frequency distribution of results obtained
when a sample statistic, (e.g. a percentage, mean or Chi-square), is
estimated from an infinite number of samples The Sampling Distribution.
The sampling distribution is a function of sampling error. If there was no
sampling error, each sample estimate of a population parameter would be
Sampling Error does

not included Sampling
Related Error which
occurs when adverse
sampling conditions
undermine a valid
design, e.g. errors in
sampling frame and
non-response. Nor does
it include measurement
error that occurs when
poor data collection
instruments or poor
data processing produce
inaccurate recordings of
variables.
91
correct. For example, if everyone had the same age, the mean parameter
would equal the mean sample statistic in every sample we took.
However, there is sampling error and this will vary in measurable ways.
The degree of sampling error is nil when there is no variation in the
parameter we are trying to estimate, but sampling error is likely to
increase the greater the variation around the population parameter. For
example, there is less variation in the age of students than there is in the
whole population, so in taking a sample of students to estimate the mean
age we are faced with less sampling error than when estimating the mean
age of the UK population. Thus when estimating a mean or proportion we
can use measures of variation around the mean (the standard deviation)
and proportion (variation ratio) to estimate the variation in the sampling
distribution for the parameter being estimated.
The normal distribution

The sampling distribution of a statistic is likely to resemble a normal or
bell-shaped curve, and like all distributions it would have a level or most
typical estimate and some measure of the average degree of departure
from the typical. The mean of a sampling distribution is the Grand Mean
and the mean deviation from the Grand Mean is the Standard Error of
the Estimate.
A normal sampling distribution has certain useful characteristics called
areas under the normal curve. In a normal sampling distribution:
95 per cent of all estimates will be between 1.96 and +1.96 standard
errors from the grand mean.
99 per cent of all estimates will be between 2.33 and +2.33 standard
errors from the grand mean.
99.9 per cent of all estimates will be between 2.58 and +2.58
standard errors from the grand mean.
The only way we can estimate features of theoretical sampling
distributions is by using our sample data. Hence, to establish confidence
intervals, we must assume that:
our statistical estimate is close to the mean of the sampling distribution
the standard error is a function of the amount of variation in the
sample and the size of the sample taken.
If we assume our estimate is close to the mean of the sampling
distribution, because this is the most likely result, then the standard error
is a function of the amount of variation in the sample. If there were no
variation in the population, there would be no error in the estimate, and
if all population were sampled, there would be no error in the estimate.
Therefore, the standard error is a function of the variation in the sample
and the sample size. This can be seen in the formulae for the standard
error of a percentage and the mean.
Calculating the standard error of an estimated percentage
The Standard Error of an estimated percentage is: pq/n or the square root
of the percentage (p) multiplied by q (=100p) and divided by n (=sample
size). The standard error of a percentage is a function of variation in the
sample (the size of the variation ratio or 100p) and the sample size (n).
The smaller the variation ratio, and the larger the sample size, the smaller
the standard error will be.
92
Calculating the standard error of an estimated arithmetic mean

The Standard Error of an estimated arithmetic mean is: s/ n or the
standard deviation of the mean (s) divided by the square root of the
sample size (n). The standard error of a mean is a function of variation in
the sample (standard deviation) and the sample size (n). The smaller the
variation in the sample, and the larger the sample size, the smaller the
standard error will be.
Activity: establishing confidence intervals
1. Calculate the standard error of the estimate.
2. Determine the required level of confidence (i.e. 95 per cent, 99 per cent or 99.9 per
cent).
3. Multiply the standard error by the number of standard deviations of a normal curve
relevant to areas under the normal curve.
4. Add and subtract the value determined in stage three from the estimate to arrive at
the confidence intervals.
5. If the mean pay in a sample of 400 people is 100 and the standard deviation is 20,
what is the standard error?
6. What are the 95 per cent confidence intervals for the mean pay of 100?
Sampling design involves practical compromises of the ideal of simple
random sampling. Most large-scale surveys are stratified, multi-stage,
cluster samples. Statistical Inference is based on the theoretical idea
of sampling distributions. It uses sample data to estimate features of a
theoretical sampling distribution for the statistic concerned. It also uses
the idea of a normal curve to establish confidence intervals (at varying
levels of confidence), that can be placed around the sample estimate of the
population parameter.
Exploring causal models

As is the case in many textbooks on research methods, Bryman uses
the phrase hypothesis testing to describe the theoretical aspects of
quantitative social research. I prefer to use the term Modelling. The term
modelling implies the shaping of some materials (concepts and data),
into a representational form, acknowledging that the materials have
been selected (as data) from a universe of potential materials. A model
is not meant to reproduce the reality but is intended to be an insightful
version of the whole and thus can be evaluated in terms of its purposes
(pragmaticism).
Modelling social data can involve synthetic causal modelling summarising
whole areas of research, more usually in quantitative social research. The
number of variables is limited and the depth of multivariate analysis is
limited to two or three independent variables. In such circumstances, the
approach to the analysis of contingency tables developed by Lazarsfeld
and his colleagues in the 1950s is sufficient. More complex multivariate
methods, such as logistic regression and ordered probit analysis, are
beyond the level of this course.
Bivariate data analysis

If 20 per cent of men are in high status occupations and 10 per cent of
women are in high status occupations we can say men are more likely to
get top jobs. Since 20 per cent is 20/100 and 10 per cent is 10/100 we can
divide ten into twenty and then make the statement men have twice the
93
chances of getting a top job as women. In these two sentences, we have

analysed a bivariate relationship between gender and occupational status.
Phrased in this manner, the statistical interpretation of bivariate tables
does not seem to be difficult or obscure.
Bivariate analysis is used to assess the possible impact of the independent
variable on the dependent variable by means of comparisons of
probabilities of an event occurring across each category of the independent
variable.
Highest educational qualification
Higher
Social
class
Prof-mgt
Non-man
Skilled man
Unskilled
Total
Intermed.
Some
None
Total
1069
1810
606
371
3856
83.8%
39.3%
19.6%
10.6%
30.9%
130
1324
1126
688
3178
10.2%
26.8%
36.5%
19.6%
25.5%
32
925
628
874
2459
2.5%
20.1%
20.4%
24.9%
19.%7
44
642
724
1582
2992
3.5%
13.9%
23.5%
45.0%
24.0%
1275
4611
3084
3515
12485
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Table 6.2 Social class by highest educational qualification

Examine Table 6.2.3 Here the dependent variable (social class) varies in
the vertical plane and in the rows of the table. Occupational class may be
taken as dependent upon educational qualifications, as employers tend
to use qualifications as one basis for choosing employees. The time order
assumption that education precedes employment and causes variation
in access to higher status occupations is based on subjects recalling their
past educational qualifications. It is assumed that very few people would
have acquired their qualifications as a result of entering an occupation,
although this will have occurred in some instances.
The lower figure in each cell is the column percentage. It is very important
to array the dependent and independent vary correctly and then to use
only column percentages (see Healey, 2005, pp.3445). The column
percentage is the ratio of the cell frequency or count to the column
total multiplied by 100. To simplify the analysis we are going to examine
the professional managerial row only and compare those with higher
qualification with those who have no qualifications. The two percentages
mean the following (after rounding):
84 per cent of those with higher qualifications enter professional
managerial occupations
11 per cent of those without qualifications enter professional
managerial occupations.
To compare the odds, we divide the lower percentage into the higher
percentage (84/11) which is just over seven and this finding allows us
to comment that those with higher qualifications are seven times more
likely to enter professional managerial work compared with those with no
qualifications. This simple but extremely powerful statement makes use of
an odds ratio.
If the odds of the unqualified entering high status occupations was
the same as that for the highly qualified we would be able to say that
educational qualifications made no difference to the chances of entering
94
All the data analysis presented

in this guide is for illustrative
purposes only and is taken from
the authors analysis of the
General Household Survey 1985.
high status occupations and thus there was no bivariate relationship

between educational qualifications and occupational status.
The comparison of probabilities summarised in the odds ratio of
percentages in a row is one way of detecting association in a table. It
allows us to detect a simple contingent relationship between two variables.
This is usually accompanied by interpreting the value of a measure of
association. There are many such measures but they usually vary between
zero or no association and one or perfect association. While odds ratios
convey, in a commonsense way, the meaning of a table, the measure of
association is a more comprehensive assessment since it is based on all
the data in the table and not just one row. Finally, the Chi-square test
of significance is used to assess how much confidence there is that the
findings of the table are likely to be true for the population from which the
sample was drawn. The Chi-square test is used to assess whether we can
generalise the findings of our sample data analysis to the wider population
from which the sample was drawn.
Measures of association and bivariate tables

Measures of association are often called correlations, although Pearson
coined that term to describe his linear correlation coefficient. There are
many other measures of association and we will be using two: gamma
and Cramers V. Measures of association are based on all the data in the
table and offer a comprehensive assessment of the degree of association
between the two variables.
An important group of these measures of association use the logic of
predicting the values of the dependent variable. If a variable is a good
predictor of the dependent variable, it can be a good explanation of
it. Insurance companies want variables that predict the chances of an
event occurring (such as a claim on a car insurance policy) and may use
variables such as the number of previous claims, the age of the driver,
the driving experience of the driver to make these predictions. If the
independent variable improves, our ability to predict the values of the
dependent variable has explanatory power since a good explanation is the
basis of a good prediction and vice versa.
By comparing accuracy of prediction, when the association with the
independent variable is not known, with the accuracy, when knowledge
of the independent variable and its relation to the dependent variable is
known, we can assess how much the independent or causal variable helps
us to predict values of the dependent variable.
Measures of association based on proportionate

reduction in error (PRE)
Measures of association based on the logic of prediction are called
proportionate reduction in error (PRE) statistics. These measures compare
two estimates of errors made in predicting values of the dependent
variable:
Error One: the number of errors made when knowledge of the
distribution of the dependent variable is used to predict the values of
the dependent variable.
Error Two: the number of errors made when knowledge of the
independent variables association with the dependent variable is used
to predict values of the dependent variable.
95
If the independent variable predicts correctly all the values of the

dependent variable then the Error One errors made will be reduced by 100
per cent: a perfect degree of association. If, however, the independent
variable reduces none of the Error One errors, then there is no relationship
between the two variables. If we divide the errors reduced by Error One
errors we change the absolute reduction in error to a proportionate
reduction in error. PRE measures of association vary in their value between
1.00 a perfect relationship, and 0 when there is no relationship. It also
has the useful feature that multiplying the value of the coefficient by one
hundred allows us to give a percentage interpretation of the findings. For
example, a PRE statistic of 0.50 means that the independent variable
reduces error of prediction by 50 per cent, or more commonly that the
independent variable explains 50 per cent of the variation in the
dependent variable.
Gender
Total
Male
Female
1973
586
2559
High income
Age-adjusted
weekly
20.0%
32.2%
8.8%
income
1633
925
2558
Upper middle
26.7%
13.9%
20.0%
1098
1462
2560
Middle income
17.9%
21.9%
20.0%
833
1725
2558
Lower middle
13.6%
25.9%
20.0%
586
1974
2560
Low income
20.0%
9.6%
29.6%
6123
6672
12795
Total
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Table 6.3 Weekly income (adjusted) by gender
Ordinal by Ordinal
Gamma
Value
.538
Asymp.
Std. Error
.010
Approx. T
50.987
Approx. Sig.
.000
Table 6.4 Gamma

Table 6.3 shows the relationship between gender and age-adjusted weekly
income. Note that men are approximately three and one half times more
likely to be in the higher age-adjusted income category than women
are. Table 6.4 shows that the gamma for the table is 0.538 which when
rounded and multiplied by a hundred is 54 per cent which means that at
the bivariate level of analysis gender explains 54 per cent of the variation
in age-adjusted weekly income.
Measures of association based on Chi-square: Cramers V

Cramers V is based on the Chi-square test. Here we are using a measure of
association, Cramers V, that uses the logic of the Chi-square test. If there
is no relationship between two variables, the cell frequencies will exactly
reflect the numbers of cases in the marginal row and column totals. Thus
if we were to predict the cell frequency we would multiply the row total by
the column total and divide by the grand total. This gives us the expected
frequency.
96
Health on
the whole
in last
12
months
Total
Good
Fairly
good
Not
good
No. children aged under 16 at household

3 plus
0
1
2
6313
1671
1496
632
56.1%
67.6%
71.1%
66.9%
3255
584
441
226
28.9%
23.6%
21.0%
23.9%
1691
216
166
87
15.0%
8.7%
7.9%
9.2%
11259
2471
2103
945
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Total
10112
60.3%
4506
26.9%
2160
12.9%
16778
100.0%
Table 6.5 Subjective health status by number of children in the household

Cramer's V
Value
.092
Approx. Sig.
.000
Table 6.6 Measure of association

Table 6.5 illustrates how the number of children in a household influences
subjective health status. The odds ratios would tell us that the number
of children in the household make little difference to a persons chances
of feeling in good health and this is confirmed by the Cramers V of
0.092 which, being nearly zero, suggest a very weak relationship between
numbers of children and self-assessed health status. It is very important
to remember that Cramers V is not a PRE statistic and that phrases using
logic of prediction should not be used when it is interpreted.
Which measure of association do we use in our

crosstabulations?
There are numerous measures of association (see Bryman, 2002, 230) and
some have been designed for specific combinations of variables (e.g. a
nominal variable by ordinal variable crosstabulation).
Statistics textbooks offer a comprehensive guide to all the possibilities.
However, such tables are only useful if the research is concerned with
only one crosstabulation that has specific combinations of variables and
the levels of measurement. In almost all imaginable research contexts,
there is one or a small number of dependent variables and five or more
independent variables. When modelling a dependent variable against five
or more independent variables, the key research question is the relative
importance of each variable in explaining variation in the dependent
variable. The only way to answer that question with any degree of
certainty is to choose one measure of association.
The test statistic chosen must meet the measurement assumptions of all
variables in the model. The levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal and
interval form a hierarchy defined by the mathematical operations that can
be performed. Those operations that can be performed on lower-level
nominal variables can also be used on higher-level ordinal and interval
level variables but not vice versa. This means that the variable in the
model that has the lowest level of measurement will determine the choice
of measure of association.
There is one qualification to this rule: where a nominal variable has
only two categories, it may be treated as ordinal because two nominal
categories can be ranked unambiguously high-low purely for the purposes
of calculation.
97
Example: Ethnicity
If we use a dichotomous variable ethnic where white is 1 and other is
given the value 2 we can treat this as a ranked set of two categories and
assess the explanatory power of ethnic differences using an ordinal level
PRE statistic, such as gamma. This assessment of explanatory power would
be the same if we made the category other number one and the category
white number two. This choice of number will affect the direction of the
relationship (and thus the sign of the measure of association), but will not
affect the magnitude of the coefficient, which is the explanatory power
of the variable (how variation in the dependent variable is explained by
ethnicity).
If we have a three-category nominal variable ethnicity: 1 White, 2 Afro
Caribbean, 3 Asian, then we cannot rank these in any uncontroversial
way. With only two categories, the choice of ranking makes no difference,
but in the three-category case it does, because different orderings would
give different results. Hence, if you have a nominal variable with three
or more categories you must use those measures of association designed
for nominal variables i.e. Cramers V. If you have some combination of
dichotomous nominal variables and ordinal or interval variables then
Gamma may be used.
The external validity of findings: The Chi-square test

Measures of association (e.g. gamma or Cramers V) are based on the
sample of data collected. The results obtained are always true for the
data collected, but to assess whether we can say the findings are true
for the population from which we drew the sample we need a test of
significance. There are many significance tests, but the most common for
crosstabulations is called the Chi-square test and this can be used where
random sampling has been applied to the collection of data. The Chisquare test compares:
actual values or the cell frequencies in the table
expected values as predicted from ratio of row/column totals to the
grand total for the table.
The expected frequency is influenced by the univariate distribution of the
two variables making up the crosstabulation. Therefore:
The expected cell frequency = (row total x column total)/table total
Degrees of freedom
The total squared differences between the actual and expected frequencies
are likely to be affected by the number of cells in the table, so the value
of Chi-square is measured relative to the degrees of freedom in the table
where:
Degrees of freedom = (Nrows1)x(Ncolumns1)
The results of a infinite number of Chi-square tests performed on
randomly generated cell frequencies forms a sampling distribution (see
Phillips, 2002, Chapter 5). The logic of Chi-square is to test the null
hypothesis that the two variables are independent of each other (i.e. no
correlation), in which case the actual cell frequencies would be identical to
the expected values. If the actual cell frequencies are sufficiently different
from what we would expect from the marginal totals, we can be confident
that the results are not simply occurring by chance, rejecting the null
hypothesis. The logic of Chi-square asserts that the greater the difference
between the actual and expected frequencies, the more confident we can
be that actual distribution of cell frequencies is not the product of chance
98
or sampling errors. The Chi-square test produces a probability estimate

that is then compared to three standard levels of confidence. The three
possibilities are:
a Chi-square probability of less than .05 means that the data suggest
that the chances of the results reflecting the null hypothesis are five
in every hundred samples, or conversely that we can be 95 per cent
confident that the results are true for the population
a Chi-square probability of less than .01 means that the chances of the
results reflecting the null hypothesis are one in every hundred samples
or that we can be 99 per cent confident that are results are true for the
population
a Chi-square probability of less than .001 means that the chances of the
results reflecting the null hypothesis are one in every thousand samples
or that we can be 99.9 per cent confident that are results are true for
the population.
There are only three standard levels of confidence and the Chi-square
probability (rounded up to two or three decimal places) must be smaller
than or equal to the value of the level concerned.
Prof -mgt
2906
69.8%
Working
475
part-time
11.4%
Working
10
NA hours
.2%
Govt
9
scheme
.2%
Unemployed
166
4.0%
Econ.
598
inactive
14.4%
Total
4164
100.0%
Working
full-time
Social class
Non -man Skilled man
1439
1795
43.1%
65.1%
201
855
25.6%
7.3%
5
7
.3%
.1%
18
13
.5%
.5%
172
270
5.2%
9.8%
470
848
25.4%
17.1%
3337
2756
100.0%
100.0%
Unskilled
1125
34.9%
784
24.3%
9
.3%
16
.5%
326
10.1%
962
29.9%
3222
100.0%
Total
7265
53.9%
2315
17.2%
31
.2%
56
.4%
934
6.9%
2878
21.4%
13479
100.0%
Table 6.7 Employment status by social class
Stages in writing up a crosstabulation

Here are the steps which you should use to write up a crosstabulation:
Describe the table, referring to the table number, the independent and
the dependent variable.
Interpret one of the rows of column percentages. This is usually the
highest or the lowest row, or in this case the unemployed row, chosen
for its special relevance to the research question.
Interpret the percentages as odds (e.g. 4/100 professional managerial
workers are likely to be unemployed compared with 10/100 unskilled
workers). Then compare the odds across columns (e.g. dividing
the lower ratio into the higher ratio: four into ten goes 2.5 so
unskilled workers are two and a half times more likely to experience
unemployment).
Interpret the measure of association, being careful to reserve phrases
like percentage variation explained for those instances where PRE
99
measures are used. When using Cromers V use weak or moderately

or strong to describe the explanatory power of the independent
variable.
Compare the Chi-square probability with the three standard levels. If
the Chi-square probability is less than 0.001 then we can be 99.9 per
cent confident that the results obtained could not have been produced
by chance or random factors. Another way of saying the same thing is
that only in one of a thousand studies would these findings be false.
Use only the standard levels of 0.01 to refer to 99 per cent confident
and 0.05 to 95 per cent confident following conventions, no other
levels should be referred to in you report.
Remember that the results obtained (including the assessment of
explanatory power) are TRUE for the data being analysed. Chi-square
and other significance tests are measures of how confident you can be
in generalising from your results to the wider population from which
the sample was drawn.
Activity: writing up a bivariate crosstabulation
For the following tables follow the guidance printed above to write a full description of
the tables for inclusion in a report.
Gender
Age-adjusted
weekly
income
Male
1973
32.2%
1633
26.7%
1098
17.9%
833
13.6%
586
9.6%
6123
100.0%
High income
Upper middle
Middle income
Lower middle
Low income
Total
Female
586
8.8%
925
13.9%
1462
21.9%
1725
25.9%
1974
29.6%
6672
100.0%
Total
2559
20.0%
2558
20.0%
2560
20.0%
2558
20.0%
2560
20.0%
12795
100.0%
Table 6.8 Weekly income (adjusted) by gender
Ordinal by Ordinal
Gamma
Value
.538
Asymp.
Std. Error
.010
Approx. T
50.987
Approx. Sig.
.000
Table 6.9 Gamma
Pearson Chi-Square
Value
2043.293 a
df
4
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
.000
a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5.

The minimum expected count is 1224.12.
Table 6.10 Chi-square tests

Activity: comparing results of bivariate crosstabulations
Write up the results of the following table. At each stage compare your findings
with those obtained when gender was the independent variable. Which variable
has the greater impact on age-adjusted weekly income? Is it gender or educational
qualifications?
100
Ageadjusted
weekly
income
High
income
Upper
middle
Middle
income
Lower
middle
Low
income
Total

Higher
Intermed.
Some
708
1084
320
58.9%
24.7%
10.8%
175
1074
618
14.5%
24.4%
20.9%
82
828
720
6.8%
18.8%
24.3%
93
723
675
7.7%
16.4%
22.8%
145
688
625
12.1%
15.6%
21.1%
1203
4397
2958
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
None
201
6.0%
473
14.2%
725
21.7%
935
28.0%
1007
30.1%
3341
100.0%
Total
2313
19.4%
2340
19.7%
2355
19.8%
2426
20.4%
2465
20.7%
11899
100.0%
Table 6.11 Weekly income (adjusted) by educational qualifications
Ordinal by Ordinal
Gamma
Value
.378
Table 6.12 Gamma
Pearson Chi-Square
Value
2180.486 a
df
12
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
.000

Table 6.13 Chi-square test
Multivariate analysis
Quantitative data analysis allows us to explore complex contingencies
in social life. The potential for complexity using advanced statistical
techniques is enormous; however, it is sufficient to introduce just one
further level of complexity. For this course guide, multivariate analysis is
limited to the three variable cases. This section of the guide is concerned
with the process called elaboration: the introduction of a third control
variable and the use of changes in the pattern of association (as measured
by Gamma or Cramers V) to detect one of the major types of elaboration.
In the first example, highest educational qualifications is the dependent
variable and we are going to look at the relationship between the
dependent variable and two independent variables:
gender
age group.
To simplify the analysis, we are going to focus only on those without any
educational qualifications. Since compulsory education was introduced
in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the opportunities for women
have been limited. We would expect a sample of people in 1995 to show
that women were more likely not to have any qualifications.
101
Sex
Male
Female
771
518
13.0%
7.6%
Intermed.
2457
2256
41.3%
32.9%
Some
1212
1946
20.4%
28.4%
None
1508
2138
25.4%
31.2%
Total
5948
6858
100.0%
100.0%
Table 6.14 Highest educational qualification by gender
Highest
educational
qualification
Higher
Ordinal by Ordinal
N of Valid Cases
Value
.197
12806
Gamma
Total
1289
10.1%
4713
36.8%
3158
24.7%
3646
28.5%
12806
100.0%
Asymp.
a
b
Std. Error
Approx. T
Approx. Sig.
.013
14.572
.000
a. Not assuming the null hypothesis.

b. Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis
Table 6.15 Gamma
Pearson Chi-Square
N of Valid Cases
Value
274.410 a
12806
df
3
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
.000


Table 6.14 shows that 25 per cent of men have no qualifications and 31
per cent of women. This means that women are one and a half times more
likely to have no qualifications. However, we know that women live longer
and thus some older women might have received their education when
opportunities in general were more restricted. Table 6.17 shows the
relationship between age and chances of obtaining qualifications: 50 per
cent of the oldest age group have no qualifications compared with only 12
per cent of the youngest age group (the older age group is four times more
likely to be without any educational qualifications).
Highest
Higher
educational
qualification Intermed.
Some
None
Total
1830
336
9.7%
1690
48.9%
1004
29.1%
425
12.3%
3455
100.0%
Age category
3140
4159
447
301
13.8%
10.0%
1267
1024
39.2%
33.9%
872
675
27.0%
22.3%
648
1022
20.0%
33.8%
3234
3022
100.0%
100.0%
51 64
205
6.6%
732
23.7%
607
19.6%
1551
50.1%
3095
100.0%
Table 6.17 Highest educational qualification by age group
102
Total
1289
10.1%
4713
36.8%
3158
24.7%
3646
28.5%
12806
100.0%
Ordinal by Ordinal
N of Valid Cases
Value
.307
12806
Gamma
Asymp.
a
b
Std. Error
Approx. T
Approx. Sig.
.009
31.770
.000

Table 6.18 Gamma
Pearson Chi-Square
N of Valid Cases
Value
1387.594 a
12806
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
.000
df
9


Of those that received their education before 1945, (the 5164 age
group), only half would obtain a qualification. Therefore, it is possible
that our bivariate finding, that women are more likely to be without any
qualifications may be because women as a group tend to be older and thus
received their education when the chances of obtaining any qualification
was much lower. To explore this further we must control for age.
Controlling for a variable means holding it constant, that is, only looking
at those with the same age or in the same age group. Table 6.20 shows the
relationship between gender and educational qualifications within each
age group. To simplify the table for this example, I have removed all the
rows apart from the one that refers to no qualifications.
Age
Group
1830
Sex
Male
% with No
Qualifications
3140
% with No
Qualifications
4159
% with No
Qualifications
51 64
% with No
Qualifications
170
10.9%
253
17.5%
421
29.1%
664
44.3%
Female
255
13.4%
395
22.1%
601
38.2%
887
55.6%
Total
425
12.3%
648
20.0%
1022
33.8%
1551
50.1%
Table 6.20 Highest educational qualification by gender controlling for

age
In examining Table 6.20, it is important to remember that the bivariate
odds ratio was 2.5 meaning that women were two and one half times
more likely to have no qualifications. However, if we look at the odds
ratios for each age group, these are much lower. Notice also that the older
group has the greater differences between males and females. The older
the subjects are, the greater is the impact of gender on their chances of
obtaining a qualification. Since 1945, when the older group would have
left education, the differences between male and female life chances in
education have reduced.
103
Age category
18-30
31-40
41-59
51 -64
Value
.187
3455
.236
3234
.251
3022
.221
3095
Gamma
N of Valid Cases
Gamma
N of Valid Cases
Gamma
N of Valid Cases
Gamma
N of Valid Cases
Table 6.21 Gamma for each age group

This finding is confirmed by the Gamma results for each layer. Overall they
tend to increase with age. The explanatory power of gender in explaining
educational achievement tends to increase as the age group increases. This
does not apply strictly to the oldest age group, but it remains the case that
the gamma for the oldest group is higher than that for the youngest.
Age group
18-30
31-40
41-59
51 -64
Pearson Chi-Square
N of valid cases
Pearson Chi-Square
N of valid cases
Pearson Chi-Square
N of valid cases
Pearson Chi-Square
N of valid cases
Value
50.970 a
3455
113.318 b
3234
103.213 c
3022
65.446 d
3095
df
3
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
.000
.000
.000
.000
a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 151.22.
b. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 199.73.
c. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 144.32.
d. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 99.29.
Table 6.22 Chi-square tests for each age group

The Chi-square test results indicate that we can be 99.9 per cent confident
in these results and that since no cell has an expected frequency of less
than five we have met this condition of the Chi-square test.
The bivariate analysis presented in Table 6.14 might have been used to
display how much men outperform women in the educational system.
This shows how misleading it can be to take bivariate results at face value.
Multivariate analysis has shown that this higher level of achievement is
historically located and, if the trend indicated continues, it may have a
limited future.
This example also illustrates an important aspect of complex contingency.
Quantitative social research is not searching for universal social laws that
apply in all circumstances. The aim is in line with realist philosophies
that suggest that social life is an open-system, which in turn means that
observed relationships between variables exist within a context and are
influenced by that context. Here we have found that there is no universal
relationship between gender and educational qualifications, but that
relationship is historically variable and this is explained by the different
social arrangements for education that prevailed at the time.
104
The elaboration paradigm

Bivariate analysis examines the relationship between one independent and
one dependent variable.
Multivariate analysis involves the use of a third variable (whose categories
define two or more sub-samples in the data) to examine the same bivariate
relationship between the independent and dependent variable within each
of these sub-samples.
The basic task is to compare the nature and strength of the bivariate
relationship with the nature and strength of the relationships found in the
sub-samples defined by the third or control variable. This comparison
involves three separate but related questions:
What happens to the cell percentages in the multivariate tables?
What happens to the value of the measures of association?
What happens to the cell percentages in the multivariate tables?

Here we are comparing the row of percentages in the bivariate table with
the equivalent row in each of the bivariate tables produced for each subsample, defined by the control variable. There are only a limited number
(five) of logical possibilities and we will cover each of them in turn.
In the tables for each sub-sample, the percentages and thus the differences
between the column percentages in each sub-sample table are the same
or very similar to those found in the bivariate tables. This is an instance of
replication since the bivariate results are repeated in each sub-sample.
Compare the odds ratio for one row of percentages as displayed in each
sub-sample. If the odds ratio in the sub-samples defined by the control
variable are consistently higher that the odds ratio for the bivariate table,
this represents a finding of suppression since the control variable has
revealed a stronger relationship than that observed at the bivariate level of
analysis.
When the percentages in the sub-sample tables are compared with those at
the bivariate level, there may be an observed lack of consistency between
the bivariate and multivariate percentages. Thus, the odds ratio for the
bivariate table might be 2.5 but may be variable between one and four
across the sub-samples defined by the control variable. This instance
defines a case of specification because the categories of the control
variable effectively determine the strength of the relationship when it is
present or absent.
This leaves us with one final case to consider where the percentage
differences in the row are consistently smaller compared with the
percentage differences found in the bivariate table. This would make
the odds ratios for the sub-samples, defined by the control variable,
significantly smaller than that found in the bivariate table. This case is
more complicated than the other logical possibilities of the elaboration
paradigm in that the label we apply to this finding depends on how the
control variable is specified in a causal model of the three variables. The
control variable is part of a three-variable causal model and it can only be
one of two types of variable: it can either be an intervening variable or a
rival independent variable.
An intervening variable is dependent on the independent variable in a
three variable model, but independent and determining of the variation in
the dependent variable. This is illustrated in Figure 6.1.
105
The independent
variable
The intervening
variable
The dependent
variable
Figure 6.1 A three variable model with an intervening variable
If the control variable is not regarded theoretically as an intervening
variable then it must be another rival independent variable. It cannot
be another dependent variable because there can only be one truly dependent variable in any model.
The independent
variable
The rival independent

variable
The dependent
variable
Figure 6.2 A three variable model with a rival independent variable
If the control variable is a rival independent variable and the odds ratios
found in the sub-samples are consistently lower than those found in the
bivariate table (even approaching zero), then it is the control variable that
is responsible for the appearance of the variation at the bivariate level.
Furthermore, when it is controlled for the relationship, it disappears. In
effect, there is not a true relationship between the two variables, there
only appears to be because the control variable, a rival causal variable,
is a common antecedent to the two variables in the bivariate table. The
relationship between the two variables found at the bivariate level is
not a true relationship it is a spurious relationship a false association
produced by the presence of the control variable.
If the control variable is regarded as an intervening variable, and
compared with the bivariate percentages the percentage differences are
reduced or even approach zero, then it means that the intervening variable
is a tap in the causal flow between the independent and the dependent
variables. Turn the tap off by controlling for it and the causal relationship
between the independent and the dependent variable disappears. In this
case, it means that all the explanatory power of the independent variable
flows to the dependent variable via the intervening variable. Thus, it is the
intervening variable that is seen to explain or interpret the relationship
between the independent and the dependent variable found at the
bivariate level. This is the instance of explanation sometimes called
interpretation. The intervening variable explains why the independent
variable is related to the dependent variable.
What happens to the value of the measure of association?
106
Below I have tabulated the logic of the elaboration paradigm by forming

a decision-tree linked to the findings expressed in terms of the values of
the measures of association. Here the task is to compare the two or more
multivariate (MV) coefficients with that obtained for the corresponding
bivariate (BV) table.
Are the MV coefficients of

the same magnitude as the
bivariate coefficient?
Yes = Replication
No
Are they consistently higher

than the bivariate coefficient?
Yes = Suppression
No
Are they consistently lower?
Yes
Control variable is
intervening
Yes = Explanation
No
Control variable is
independent
Specification
Yes = Spurious
Figure 6.3 The logic of the elaboration paradigm
Example
In this example, we are looking at the dependent variable, health status.
People vary in assessing how good their health is and we can attempt to
explain why this variation occurs. Education is taken to be a factor that
directly contributes to a sense of well being. Highly educated people tend
to look after their health more, they avoid risks to good health and their
educational achievement may bring positive self-esteem.
Table 6.23 shows the relationship between subject health status and
educational qualifications. Only 52 per cent of those without qualifications
felt their overall health was good during the previous 12 months, whereas
57 per cent of those with a degree ot higher felt their health was good
over the same period. Subject health status was highest among the A-level
group. Therefore, education has a positive effect of health status, and
those with A-levels are much more positive about their health than
graduates.
Health on Good
the whole
in last 12 Fairly good
months
Not good
Total
Higher
2953
56.7%
1487
28.6%
765
14.7%
5205
100.0%

A-levels
Some
None
2616
2267
2276
69.9%
65.8%
51.9%
857
842
1320
22.9%
24.4%
30.1%
271
337
787
7.2%
9.8%
18.0%
3744
3446
4383
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Total
10112
60.3%
4506
26.9%
2160
12.9%
16778
100.0%
Table 6.23 Subjective health status by highest educational qualification
107
Ordinal by Ordinal
N of Valid Cases
Value
.049
16778
Gamma
Asymp.
a
b
Std. Error
Approx. T
Approx. Sig.
.011
4.455
.000

Table 6.24 Gamma
Pearson Chi-Square
N of Valid Cases
Value
407.929 a
16778
df
6
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
.000


The gamma for education and health is 0.049. That means that at the
bivariate level education explains 4.9 per cent of the variation in subjective
health status. Is this finding replicated if we distinguish between ethnic
groups? If, for example, we agree with the often-expressed opinion that
education is the means by which minority ethnic groups seek to combat
racism and discrimination, then we might expect education to have a
greater impact on subjective health status than it does for the white
group.
Ethnicity
White Health
on the
whole
in last
12
months
Good
Fairly
good
Not
good
Total
Other Health
on the
whole
in last
12
months
Total
Good
Fairly
good
Not
good

Higher
A-levels
Some
None
2838
2468
2112
2168
56.6%
70.0%
66.0%
52.2%
1435
802
771
1249
28.6%
22.7%
24.1%
30.1%
740
258
317
739
14.8%
7.3%
9.9%
17.8%
5013
3528
3200
4156
100.0%
100.0% 100.0%
100.0%
115
148
155
108
59.9%
68.5%
63.0%
47.6%
52
55
71
71
27.1%
25.5%
28.9%
31.3%
25
13
20
48
13.0%
6.0%
8.1%
21.1%
192
216
246
227
100.0%
100.0% 100.0%
100.0%
Total
9586
60.3%
4257
26.8%
2054
12.9%
15897
100.0%
526
59.7%
249
28.3%
106
12.0%
881
100.0%
Table 6.26 Subjective health status by highest educational qualification

controlling for ethnic group
Asymp.
a
b
Ethnicity
Value Std. Error Approx. T Approx. Sig.
White Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma
.044
.011
3.841
.000
N of Valid Cases
15897
Other Ordinal by Ordinal Gamma
.158
.048
3.270
.001
N of Valid Cases
881
Table 6.27 Gamma for each ethnic group
108
Ethnicity
White
Other
Value
379.412 a
15897
35.738 b
881
Pearson Chi-Square
N of valid cases
Pearson Chi-Square
N of valid cases
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
.000
df
6
.000
a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 413.46.
b. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 23.10.
Table 6.28 Chi-square tests for each ethnic group

Table 6.26 shows the relationship between educational achievement and
subject health status controlling for minority ethnic groups. Among whites,
the gamma indicates that educational qualifications explain 4.4 per cent of
the variation in subjective health status, where among minority ethnic groups
the explanatory power raises to 15.8 per cent and we can be confident in
these findings at the .001 level.
Activity: multivariate analysis with crosstabulations
In this exercise, the model has three variables:
A dependent variable age adjusted weekly pay.
An independent variable gender.
An intervening variable education.
Our causal model is that gender influences education that then influences pay. The
theory behind this model is that women get paid less because, historically, they have not
gained as high a level of qualifications as men have. Let us see what happens to this
theory as we elaborate the bivariate findings.
Sex
Age-adjusted
weekly income
High income
Male
Female
Total
1973
32.2%
586
8.8%
2559
20.0%
Gamma = .54 Confidence = .001

Table 6.29 Age-adjusted weekly income by gender
Age-adjusted
weekly income
High income
Education
Higher Intermed. Some
None
Total
708
58.9%
201
6.0%
2313
19.4%
1084
24.7%
320
10.8%
Gamma = .38 Confidence = .001

Table 6.30 Age-adjusted weekly income by highest educational qualification
Gender and education both influence income, but gender is more important at the bivariate
level. How do we know this?
Controlling for the intervening variable: educational qualifications. Is the impact of gender
on income the same at every level of educational achievement?
109
Sex
Education
Higher
Male
505
70.8%
824
36.0%
253
22.5%
174
12.9%
High age-adjusted
weekly income
Intermed.
High age-adjusted
weekly income
Some
High age-adjusted
weekly income
None
High age-adjusted
weekly income
Female
203
41.4%
260
12.3%
67
3.7%
27
1.4%
Total
708
58.9%
1084
24.7%
320
10.8%
201
6.0%
Table 6.31 Age-adjusted weekly income by gender controlling for educational

qualifications
Education
Higher
Intermed.
Some
None
Value
.492
.458
.555
.632
Table 6.32 Gamma
The bivariate relationship between gender and income produced an explanatory power of
54 per cent.
What happens to this gamma when we examine it in each category of educational
achievement?
Do all the gammas go up in value?
Do they all go down in value?
Do some go up and some go down?
How can we account for the pattern of change in gamma values displayed in Table 6.32?
Now we can control for the other variable, the truly independent variable: gender. Is
educational achievement more important in determining womens income than it is for
men?
Sex
Male
High age-adjusted
weekly income
Female High age-adjusted
weekly income
Higher
505
70.8%
203
41.4%
Education
Intermed. Some
824
253
36.0%
22.5%
260
67
12.3%
3.7%
None
174
12.9%
27
1.4%
Total
1756
32.1%
557
8.7%
Table 6.33 Age-adjusted weekly income by educational qualifications

controlling for gender
Sex
Male
Female
Gamma
Gamma
Value
.366
.370
Table 6.34 Gamma
Causal modelling and path analysis

In this last section of the chapter, we are covering some of the more
advanced techniques that are available in quantitative social research. The
purpose of this section is to demonstrate how these techniques allow us
to form much more complex models than is possible using the elaboration
paradigm. Useful though it is, the elaboration paradigm is limited in the
number of variables that it can deal with without running into problems
of sample size. This section draws on the coverage of bivariate correlation
110
and regression in Statistics 1.

Figure 6.4 displays a bivariate scatterplot of a health spending measure
and a mortality rate. The data are taken from a study of small areas in
England and Wales. The theory is that health spending in an area should
reflect the health standing of the population in that area, as this is
measured by the death rate. The relationship between the two variables
can be expressed by a straight line, which indicates how much increased
spending is caused by each extra increase in the death rate. The position of
the line of regression is determined by a mathematical formula. This
formula finds the position of the line that minimises the total squared
distances between the line and the data. Let us say ^
Y is the predicted
value of Y (i.e. the line of regression) and then distance between the line
^). The least squares criteria mathematical determines
and the data is (YY
^)2.
the line than minimises? (YY
3.5
ratio all Hospital Services
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
.5
0.0
.5
0
100
200
Standard mortality ratio all ages actual over expected
300
Figure 6.4 All NHS spend by mortality rate.

Source: authors analysis of the York 1992 RAWP dataset
The formula for the line of regression is:
Y= a+ b(X) + e
Where Y is spending, a is a constant amount allocated to all authorities
and b(X) is a spending factor weighting (b) that is multiplied by need
to predict total spending needed. The error term (e) is the remaining
variation in spending.
Table 6.35 displays the results of a bivariate regression analysis using
standardised mortality rates (the actual number of deaths divided by that
expected on the basis of the age/sex characteristics of the population) to
predict variations in the NHS spending ratio (the actual spending in an
area divided by that expected on the basis of its population). The spending
ratio measures the estimated expenditure relative to that expected from
its population size. The coefficient of determination for the model (R) is
positive which indicates that, as expected, health authorities with high
death rates tend to spend more than would be expected. The R Square
indicates that at the bivariate level 22 per cent of the variation in the
spending ratio is explained by variation in mortality rates. As there is only
one independent variable in the model, the beta approximates to the R at
0.47. This beta is significant at beyond the .001 level indicating that we
can be 99.9 per cent confident in this analysis if it derived from a random
sample of health authorities.
111
Model Summary
Model
R Square
Adjusted R Square
.465
.216
.215
.1728
Coefficients
Unstandardized
Coefficients
B
Std. Error
Model
1
Std. Error of the Estimate

a
Standardized
Coefficients
Beta
t
(Constant)
.325
.029
Std mortality ratio
- all ages actual 5.357E-03
.000
.465
over expected
a. Dependent Variable: ratio all Hospital Services
Sig.
11.115
.000
18.572
.000
Source: analysis of York 1992 RAWP dataset
Table 6.35 NHS spending ratio and mortality rates

The coefficient of determination (R2) is the PRE (proportionate reduction
in error) measure obtained by comparing the error (E1) in prediction made
with knowledge of the dependent variable (X2) alone, and that error (E2)
made when knowledge of the relationship between the independent (X1)
and dependent variable (X2) is known.
E1 uses the mean to predict values of the dependent variable and the sum
of the errors made is the sum of (X2 X2)2 where X2 is the arithmetic mean
of X2.
^ = a + bX ) to predict values of the
E2 uses the line of regression (X
2
1
dependent variable. The reduction of error is the sum of (X ^
X )2 where ^
X
is the predicted value of X2 for each value of X1 thus
R2 = (E1 E2)/E1.
With two independent variables, the regression formula estimates a plane
with one intercept and two slopes (b coefficients). The three variable
cases can be extended to an infinite number of variables. About 15 cases
per independent variable are needed for minimum confidence levels to
remain favourable.
The raw b coefficients define the value by which independent variables
must be multiplied to produce the predicted value based on all
independent variables. However, since the value of b is influenced by
the measurement scale used for the independent variable, b coefficients
should not be compared in order to assess relative explanatory power.
Coefficients
Unstandardized
Standardized
Coefficients
Coefficients
B
Std. Error Beta
t
Model
1
(Constant)
.252
.027
1.443E-03
.000
.125
NHS acute hospital accessibility 5.672E-02

Standard illness ratio - all ages 3.335E-03
Std mortality ratio - all ages

actual over expected
9.510
.000
4.164
.000
.006
.219 8.880
.000
.000
.398 12.717
.000
Table 6.36 Multiple regression analysis: NHS spending by mortality,

accessibility and illness
Regression analysis with standardised4 variables produces beta
coefficients or beta weights that can be used to estimate the variance
explained by each independent variable in the causal model. The square
112
Standardisation involves
subtracting the mean of the
variable from each value and
then dividing by the standard
deviation (the mean deviation
from the mean). This
transformation expresses each
value of a variable as the number
of standard deviations that
value is above or below to mean
value of the variable. Thus, when
standardised all variables have
a mean of zero and all variation
around that mean is measured in
terms of the standard deviation
from the mean.
Sig.
of the beta coefficient gives a partial PRE statistic for each independent
variable. This can be multiplied by 100 to obtain the percentage of the
variance in the dependent variable that is explained by each independent
variable controlling for the effects of all other independent variables in the
model.
While the practical application of regression results requires use of a and
b coefficients (intercept and slope respectively) causal inference requires
only reference to the PRE value for the model (R2) and to the beta2 for
each of the independent variables. After that, measures of confidence may
be used to estimate the external validity of the findings. The regression
model is assessed by the value of R2 and the relative importance of each
variable is assessed by its beta2 value.
In Table 6.36 there are three independent variables and thus three beta
coefficients. The square of the beta coefficient gives us the estimate of
variance explained by each independent variable controlling for the effects
of the others in the model. Thus:
Mortality
.13
.016
1.6 per cent
Accessibility
.22
.05
5.0 per cent
Illness
.40
.16
16.0 per cent
Morbidity, as measured by a standardised illness ratio, is the most

important cause of variations in health spending. Multiple regression
analysis is limited to the estimation of direct effects of each independent
variable on the dependent variable. This does not estimate the influence
of each independent variables indirect effect. These indirect effects are
resulting from the causal impact of one or more independent variables on
other independent variables.
The assessment of indirect effects

Ordinary Linear regression aims to evaluate a model of the direct effects of
each one of a list of independent variables on a dependent variable.
However, it would be wrong to conclude from this that the explanatory
power of each independent variable is summed up by the partial beta
coefficient. This is because each independent variable can have direct and
indirect effects. The total effect of an independent variable on a dependent
variable can only be assessed in the context of the model proposed. This is
the one that specifies correctly the direct and indirect effects of each
variable.
X1
b31
b21
X3
b32
X2
Figure 6.5 Path coefficients

In the figure 6.5, X1 has both a direct effect on X3 and an indirect effect
via X2. The coefficients are the partial beta coefficients. The square of the
beta coefficient is the PRE explanatory power of the independent variable
controlling, if it exists, for the other independent variable in the model.
113
The coefficient b21 is a bivariate beta coefficient.

The indirect effect of X1 on X3 via X2 is estimated by multiplying the path
coefficients b21 and b32 and taking the square of the product. The square
multiplied by 100 is the percentage of the variation in X3 that is explained
by X1 through its impact of X2.
By using more powerful techniques, we can develop and evaluate much
more complex models than is possible with crosstabulations. When five or
more independent variables are involved, a properly specified model must
be drawn up following these rules:
there is only one-way causation (non-recursive modelling)
there is one exogenous variable
there is one truly dependent variable
each variable has an arrow-specified one way relationship to each of
the other variables in the model.
Once the model has been specified, there is one regression for the truly
dependent variable to obtain the direct effects, and then a further
regression analysis for each of the intervening variables.
.24
Percent in
minority
ethnic
groups
Per cent
75+ living
alone
.38
Standard
illness ratio
.07
.39
.25
.09
.57
Housing
deprivation
All health
services
spending
.58
.11
.38
Standard
morality
ratio
Figure 6.6 An illustrative causal model for health spending

This level of complexity is illustrated in the model with path coefficients
presented in figure 6.6. Regression analysis is also capable of dealing with
non-linear, interaction effects and multi-level effects. To assess the power
of our developed model we can ask:
How much variation in the dependent variable is explained? Which is
the same thing as saying how good our predictions of the values of the
dependent variable are?
How much of the variation is explained by intervening variables
compared with independent variables?
Quantitative social research and causal models can be used to evaluate
areas of social research where considerable theoretical and empirical work
has been done. We need to be confident that all possible determinants of
the dependent variable are known and can be measured to some degree.
If this is the case, it has great potential to reveal aspects of the social
world that would otherwise remain inaccessible to experience. In time,
models will be challenged and new concepts, new measures and improved
datasets will be developed. Models only reflect our current understanding
of the complex contingencies that shape life chances in the social world.
114
Conclusions
This chapter has presented a contemporary view of the aims and
methods of quantitative social research that is informed by pragmatic
assumptions of realism and complex contingency. Modern quantitative
sociology attempts to approximate the social world as a dynamic geometry
of contingent probabilities, still highly consequential but riven with
complexity. Part of that complexity derives from the fact that all findings in
the social sciences are contextual: there are no natural experiments where
extraneous factors are controlled (Pawson and Tilley, 1997). Rather than
experiments and hypothesis-testing, modelling conveys a more realistic
version of the interaction between data, concepts and theory that is at the
heart of the process and practice of quantitative social research.
Quantitative social research excels in the modelling of well-defined
complex social settings. However, it requires a level of previous qualitative
and quantitative research to establish how well defined the setting is, how
it is structured and traversed by complexity.
Surveys and other official sources provide valuable data to explore
the social world and model social outcomes. Social research is able to
deal with the inherent complexity of the social world where causality
is complex, multi-layered and highly specific and involves interaction
effects. If our models do not work in the sense that they have only limited
explanatory power, then it is likely to be because our models are too
simplistic. Results may thus be trivial and fail to provide insights into the
answers to key research questions.
Quantitative social research tends to focus attention exclusively on the
variation explained since its aim is to maximise the explanation of that
variation. This is in direct contrast to qualitative data analysis where the
analysis of so-called deviant cases can prove so useful for theoretical
development. The role of deviant case analysis could be enhanced in
quantitative social research, perhaps by means of a qualitative narrative
account of the data that doesnt fit the model developed.

illustrate the strategy of multivariate analysis
write up a contingency table using percentages, odds ratios, measures
of association and the Chi-square test
discuss the role of control variables in multivariate tables
identify the possible outcomes of multivariate analysis as provided by
the elaboration paradigm
illustrate multiple regression analysis and discuss its role in the
evaluation of causal models.
115

1. Critically assess the aims and outcomes of quantitative social research.
2. Illustrate the aims and techniques of quantitative data analysis by
writing up the crosstabulations attached to this paper. Ensure that your
analysis interprets the following:
a. column percentages and odds ratios
b. the measure of association and the Chi-square test
c. the elaboration paradigm
In Tables 14 the category of marital status labelled cohabits includes
legal marriages, heterosexual and homosexual partnerships. Single
includes never married, separated, divorced and widowed.
Marital status
Frequency
Per cent
Valid per cent
Cumulative per
cent
Cohabits
5808
49.3
49.3
49.3
Single
5972
50.7
50.7
100.0
Total
11783
100.0
100.0
Table 1 Marital status in the UK 1985

Marital status
Cohabit
Single
Total
Age group
Total
Under 25
2549
Over 50
204
3198
2406
5808
5.2%
75.4%
67.1%
49.3%
3754
1042
1179
5975
94.8%
24.6%
32.9%
50.7%
3958
4240
3585
11783
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Table 2 Marital status by age group

Statistic
Value
Gamma
.696
Chi-square P=
0.001
Table 2.1 Summary statistics

Marital status
Cohabit
Single
Total
Gender
Female
2920
2888
5808
51.4%
47.3%
49.3%
2757
3214
5971
48.6%
52.7%
50.7%
5677
6102
11779
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Table 3 Marital status by gender
116
Total
Male
Statistic
Value
Gamma
.082
Chi-square P=
0.001
Age Group
Under 25
Marital status
Cohabit
Single
2549
Cohabit
Single
Over 50
Cohabit
Single
Gender
Male
Female
79
125
4.0%
6.3%
1898
1856
96.0%
93.7%
1557
1641
75.5%
75.5%
506
532
24.5%
24.5%
1284
1122
78.4%
57.6%
506
532
21.6%
42.4%
Table 4 Marital status by gender within age groups

Age group
Gamma value
Under 25
.236
2549
.001
Over 50
.456
Table 4.1 Gamma for marital status by gender within age groups
Age group
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
Under 25
.001
2549
N.S.
Over 50
.001
117
Notes
118
Part D: The context of social research
Part D: The context of social research

In this final chapter, we consider the role of values in social research.
Values are a major influence on the choice of research topics and can
influence the way in which research is conducted.
Values may be described as preferences regarding existing social
arrangements and their desired changes in these arrangements. These are
essentially political values. Values are also reflected in the micro politics of
organisations and institutions such as schools and families.
In assessing the role of values in social research, we are going to examine
two specific contexts, the ethical context and the part played by the
individual researcher in deciding on how ethical issues should influence
social research practice. Here we will examine the role of professional
organisations in providing ethical principles that should regulate research
practice. More recently, the debate about ethics has shifted away from
individual practice in the context of publicly announced principles, to
the need for a properly instituted regulatory framework or system of
governance to control research practice.
Governments, research groups and individual academics often conduct
theoretically informed empirical research acknowledging their own
political standpoint. Although there are others, in this chapter we seek to
assess the stance taken by feminist researchers since this is the example
that is most systematically addressed by Bryman in the course textbook.
119
Notes
120
Chapter 7: The ethics and politics of social research
Chapter 7: The ethics and politics of

social research
Aims and objectives
This chapter will:
examine those classic studies that are used to illustrate violation of
ethical principles in social research
consider the ethical principles that have been proposed to government,
the conduct of social research and their application in practice
discuss the role of a system of governance in ensuring compliance to
ethical principles
consider the role of politics in social research in particular as this
applies to the feminist critique of social research methods.
Learning outcomes
discuss how ethical principles can be violated in the conduct of social
research
distinguish between ethics as a moral framework for individual social
researchers and ethical governance as a set of procedures for ensuring
compliance with announced ethical principles
assess the validity of the feminist critique of social research methods
evaluate the contribution of standpoint theory to our understanding
of the politics of social research and the role political perspectives can
contribute to the development of our understanding of the social world.
Essential reading
Bryman, A. Social Research Methods, Chapter 25 and indexed references to
feminism.
Further reading
**Ali, S. et al. Politics, Identities and Research in Seale, C. (ed.) Researching
Society and Culture. (London: Sage Publications, 2004)
[ISBN 9780761955986].
Blumer, H. The Ethics of Social Research in Gilbert, N. (ed.) Researching Social
Life. (London: Sage Publications, 2002) second edition
[ISBN 9780761972457].
Palgrave, 1999) [ISBN 9780333666326]. Chapter 9 Disarming Patriarchy.
Hammersley, M. The Politics of Social Research. (London: Sage Publications,
1995) [ISBN 9780803977198].
Websites
www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/Images/ ESRC_Re_Ethics_
Frame_tcm6-11291.pdf
121
Works cited
Hammersley, M. Taking Sides in Social Research. (London: Routledge, 2000).
Harding, S. Feminism and Methodology. (Milton Keynes: Open University Press,
1987).
Mills, C. Wright The Sociological Imagination. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000) Originally published 1959 [ISBN 0195133730].
Oakley, A. Gender, Methodology and Peoples Ways of Knowing, Sociology, 32,
1998, pp.70731.
Oakley, A. Interviewing Women: a contradiction in terms? in H. Mies, Stanley,
L. and Wise Breaking Out Again.
Reinharz, S. Feminist Methods in Social Research. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992).
Roberts (ed.) Doing Feminist Research. (London Routledge, 1981).
Silverman, D. Qualitative Methodology and Sociology: Describing the Social
World. (Aldershot: Gower, 1985).
Skeggs, B. Feminist Ethnography in P. Atkinson, et al. Handbook of
Ethnography. (London: Sage Publications, 2001).
Stacey, J. Can there be a feminist ethnography? in Womens International
Studies Forum, 11, 1998, pp.217.
Introduction
In this final chapter, we confront two issues related to the values of the
social researcher: their ethical principles and how these are applied in the
practice of social research, and the role of political values in the conduct
of social research. Ethics and politics are two elements that may influence
what is studied. Ethics and political values may also influence the design
of research, the data collection techniques and as a result, the findings that
are produced.
The ethics of social research

Bryman says that the coverage of ethics debates in social research is
often unsatisfactory because the impression is often given that ethical
issues only arise in extreme cases and with certain methods such as
covert observation. The literature of ethics is characterised by such lists
accompanied by, sometimes gruesome, examples of research that violates
them.
Study and ethics violated
Nature of the study
The Tuskeegee syphilis study

Lack of informed consent.
Harm to participants.
Dishonesty.
Participant gave blood samples for testing

in belief that this is a medical treatment.
They are not informed of their illness and
not treated when antibiotics available.
The Milgram Experiments

Deception.
Harm to subjects.
Told research is about learning, not

willingness to inflict pain. Subjects
experience stress when inflicting pain on
others.
The Tearoom Trade Research Deception.

Lack of honesty.
Violation of privacy.
The researcher takes the covert role of a

protecting watch queen as men engage
in homosexual act in public toilets. Uses
car numbers to conduct follow up covert
interviews.
Table 7.1 Social research ethics violated in three classic examples

122
A more interesting discussion of these issues is possible when there are no

easy solutions to ethical dilemmas posed. For example, those situations
where one attempts to put into practice the announced ethical criteria
such as that provided by the ESRC. There are many such lists and they
state ideal principles that should be applied in practice.
The ESRC research ethics framework

This is a good example of a scheme designed to guide decisions about
the ethics of social research. In summary form, it covers six core ethical
principles:
Integrity
Research should be designed, reviewed and undertaken in a way that
ensures its integrity and quality.
Honesty
Research staff and subjects must be informed fully about the purpose,
methods and intended possible uses of the research, what their
participation in the research entails and what risks, if any, are involved.
Confidentiality
The confidentiality of information supplied by research subjects and the
anonymity of respondents must be respected.
Voluntary participation
Research participants must participate in a voluntary way, free from
any coercion.
The avoidance of personal risk
Harm to research participants, individuals or social groups, must be
avoided.
Impartiality
The independence and impartiality of researchers must be clear, and
any conflicts of interest or partiality must be explicit.
Not many people would want to argue with this list of prescribed values.
Principles into practice
Let us take some of the above principles and identify some cases where it
might be necessary to violate these principles.
Take honesty, for example. Social researchers often wish to be economical
with the truth. There will be cases where to be completely honest might
prevent any further access to data or affect the results obtained. Therefore,
the principle of honesty may directly clash with the aims of completing the
research and maximising the validity of the measurements taken. This is
a dilemma where the subjects right to know is balanced with the need to
know and with the researchers need to conduct valid social research.
The principle of voluntary participation is another instance where ethical
dilemmas can arise. What exactly is voluntary? Students on social
psychology courses might feel the need to comply with requests to take
part in experiments because they do not want to mire their relationships
with staff that will be marking their assessments. Similarly, payments for
participation in research question the notion of voluntary participation
since pure voluntarism would not require payment and financial
inducements to participate. In the case of low-income subjects this could
amount to an offer they cannot refuse.
123
Such voluntary participation assumes informed consent to which the

ESRC attached the highest importance. However, what exactly is informed
consent? There may be practical difficulties of time and opportunity to
allow all the relevant information to be passed to and assessed by subjects
(Bryman, page 512). While it is easy to point to the many studies of covert
observation (Fielding, 2001) that violate this standard of ethical practice,
there are many other instances where a degree of compromise to the ideal
is necessary, let alone justifiable.
Activity: use of covert roles in social research
Read Box.14.13 and 14.14. Given the advantages, was Giulianotti justified in using
covert participation observation?
Let us take impartiality. In the case of much organisational research, access
is gained by convincing management of the benefits of the research to the
organisation. If one has a conflict model of the organisation, then what
benefits management might not always benefit employees and thus doing
organisational research may bring dilemmas regarding impartiality to
those who undertake such research. This is a version of the whose side are
you on? debate that will be covered in the next section.
At first glance, the concept of risk of harm to participants should be more
clear-cut as it is in the case of physical harm. However, what about stress
or emotional costs paid by subjects of research? Interviewing people with
HIV/Aids can cause great emotional cost to interviewer and subject when
the latter is forced to consider or review the implications of their own
death from the illness, and is forced by the interviewer to report on their
feelings about this.
Activity: social research and ethical stances
Write short notes to define what Bryman (Box 25.3) means by each of the
following stances on ethics:
Universalism.
Situational ethics a) the end justified the means.
Situational ethics b) I/we have no choice.
Ethical transgression is pervasive.
Anything goes.
The importance of a regulatory framework

The major limitation of many discussions of the ethics of social research
is that the issues are restricted to providing a moral framework designed
to inform the decisions of individuals or teams of social researchers.
More important than statements of moral principles are the institutional
arrangements for protecting the public from any negative consequences
that might result from the involvement in social research. The quality of
institutional arrangements is as important as any formal commitment to
ethical practice.
To assess the nature of regulation in UK social science visit the ESRC
framework at:
www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/Images/ ESRC_Re_Ethics_Frame_tcm6
11291.pdf
This more recent development in the debate illustrates how the debate has
shifted from reliance on principled statements and the moral stance of the
individual professional to the design of effective institutional arrangements
124
that confront the ethical dilemmas and the degree to which these are
capable of safeguarding the interest of those who are willing to participate
in empirical social research.
Feminism and the politics of social research

Max Weber made the point that it was impossible to be objective in the
choice of research topics. Although the study of one area of research may
lead to the identification of a crucial research question, the decision to
study the topic must be based on values. Weber, however, propose that
the answer to that research question could be examined in an unbiased,
objective manner and that arguments about the validity of answers to the
research question could be resolved by a logic not influenced by the value
positions of the parties to the dispute.
Feminists have challenged many aspects of social research practice,
including notions of objectivity. This feminist critique of orthodox research
practice contested the idea of objectivity and value-free social research
and argued that this should be replaced by a conscious partiality (Mies,
1993) that aims to expose the structured inequality that women confront
in the domestic and professional spheres.
Activity: Feminism and social research practice
Look up the indexed references to feminism in the Bryman textbook.
Make notes on each section and produce a summary of the influence of feminist ideas on
the practice of social research.
Other criticisms were focused on a critique of traditional methodological
practices, especially those linked to quantitative social research. Oakley
(1981) challenged the male paradigm of interviewing whose objectivity
was incompatible with the opposing female paradigm of cooperation
and sharing. Such relationships, whether or not they are linked to the
male paradigm of social research practice, seems of questionable validity
for sensitive topics like rape and domestic violence where, for example,
much higher levels of incidence of these crimes are revealed when the
more sensitive approach to interviewing has been used (Walby and
Myhill, 2001). Thus the face-to-face interview is sometimes seen as the
feminist method (Bryman, 2005, page 336) because it facilitates rapport,
mutual respect and a degree of reciprocity that allowed the subjects own
perspective to be explored in a non-hierarchical relationship.
The traditional social research interview was described as a power
relationship in which information defined by the researchers perspective
is extracted with little return for the powerless subject of the interview.
Feminists challenged the unequal exchange relationship between the
researcher and the researched. This should be replaced by a model
where the research process enhances peoples sense of self-worth and
provides an opportunity for the participants to be valued as interesting
people (Skeggs, 1994, page 81). As a result focus groups are preferred
by feminist social researchers since they approximate normal social life,
especially if the recruitment process follows naturally occurring groups.
Focus groups avoid the decontextualisation (Wilkinson, 1999b), the sense
of separateness from normal social life, that is more usually the case in the
survey interview. In focus groups, subjects are invited to respond to the
social groups discussion rather than the questions posed by a controlling
individual researcher. Under the right conditions, focus group methods
can be seen by participants not as the extraction of information but as
125
an opportunity to express themselves; to voice their critique of social

arrangements and conditions. In such circumstances, the subjects of social
research may find the process empowering, especially lower class women,
and women from disadvantaged minority groups.
Much of these criticisms were addressed at quantitative survey research
and it was argued that qualitative methods were seen as more compatible
with feminist research questions and values. However, quantitative
research played an important role in establishing the case for equal
opportunities legislation and is likely to do so when we live in a society
where numbers talk (Silverman, 1985) More recently, the feminist case
against quantitative research has been reassessed (Bryman, 2004, page
289; Oakley, 1998).
The politics of identity

New social movements have arisen to challenge traditional paradigms of
social research, especially in relation to the concept of objectivity. Social
research should intentionally reflect political commitments by reflecting
ethnic, gender and sexual diversity. Social research should not act to
reproduce existing oppressive social relationships, but should be explicitly
emancipatory. For this reason, new research methods and epistemologies
were needed. One of these is known as standpoint epistemology.
Standpoint epistemology
New social movements are often associated with claims that different
social locations produce different bodies of knowledge because they
relate to different experiences and produce new research questions to be
addressed questions that dominant groups would not have shown any
interest in. Feminist standpoint epistemology is aimed at countering the
spurious objectivity of malestream social research. The knowledge gained
by undertaking research from a feminist perspective and armed with the
feminist critique of orthodox research methods will benefit from womens
privileged access to a more complete and less distorted view of the social
world (Harding, 1986).
The value of standpoint theory is that it forces social researchers to be
reflexive about their role as social researchers, to see how the research
questions, methods and techniques may be linked to the social context.
Research should be undertaken explicitly to benefit disadvantaged or
oppressed groups.
What is interesting about the contemporary debates is that the actual
techniques, the research methods, are less central to the argument. The
key concerns are now with notions of objectivity and epistemology rather
than sources of data.
Ethnocentrism and going native

A fundamental methodological problem for social science is that of
ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view other cultures
from the standpoint of ones own culture. Standpoint theory is a radical
corrective to any tendency for social research to develop concepts and
theories that reflect the culture of dominant groups. It is easier to accept
the idea of standpoint theory that viewing the social world from the
perspective of oppressed or marginal social groups is an important
corrective to any tendency for social science to reflect the perspectives,
concepts and values of dominant social groups. It is not to agree that the
viewpoints of the oppressed can claim epistemological privileges.
126
In classical anthropological studies, the problem of ethnocentrism was

balanced by the problem of going native: the danger that as a result of
taking on the perspectives of the social world being studied, the social
researcher begins to see that world solely from the perspective of those
being studied (Bryman, 2002, Box 14.6, page 302). In Dick Hobbs study
of East London detectives his willingness to defend the ducking and
diving practices of local detectives against the efforts of those seeking to
impose discipline and counter malpractice might be seen as evidence of his
going native (Devine and Heath, 1999, page 141).
Since social research is largely funded by governing agencies and powerful
corporations, there is always the possibility that the topics chosen and
the theories and methods informing research practice reflect the interests
of the powerful. The conduct of social research using the standpoint of
oppressed, is a necessary corrective to any tendency for social science to
become the social science of dominant groups.
It should not be taken for granted that the only means of challenging the
perspectives of the powerful is with qualitative methods. The counter
information movement of the 1970s committed many to the use of
government social research and official statistics to challenge official
accounts, or to expose social problems that governments might wish to
ignore.
Rather than take the perspectives of the oppressed as a definitive
standpoint to be adopted, these perspectives can be used as resources
to inform social research practice. It also serves to remind us again that
conduct of social research should not be shaped solely by philosophical,
theoretical or political perspectives, but more concerned with the
outcomes of social research. The place of social research is to assess the
consequences of existing social arrangements.
The consequences of social research can lead to improvements in the social
lives of the public, but social research methods can also have political
consequences. For instance, the invention of the public opinion poll,
and the widespread use of social surveys has changed the nature of the
political dialogue between public and the political institutions. Politicians
are now forced to monitor their popularity by means of survey results.
Public expression of policy preferences is no longer limited to elections.
In Britain, we have seen how much the Blair government used focus
groups to monitor changes in opinion and how the public might react to
proposed policy developments. Finally, it remains to be seen how far the
institutionalisation of social research in government policy making will
progress.
Conclusions
Social research reflects its social context and part of that social context
is the ethical context of social research practice. In the classic examples
of unethical social research, such as the Tuskegee syphilis study, the
conduct of the research informs us of the values and perspectives of those
responsible.
The nave positivist dream of an objective social science untainted by
social and political influences is a non-starter. Social research is a social
activity and as such, it is embedded in the power relationships that
structure social settings.
The theories and concepts we bring to social research have developed
over time and may often reflect the perspectives of powerful institutions
127
and groups. Much social theory has been concerned with the problem of
order: a common concern for those threatened by disorder and revolution.
The problem of crime is often blamed on the criminals rather than social
circumstances that encourage and facilitate it.
Feminists in their critique of social research have illustrated the limitations
of much social research. Research methods may be biased against
recording womens position and experiences. Feminism is one example, of
how an oppressed group may challenge the basis of social research and
claim that its perspectives can help develop new insights into the social
world, not apparent to those working in the malestream tradition.
In the final section of this chapter we have returned to the theme of
research strategies that opened this subject guide in Chapter 1. The
paradigm wars continue between those who, with some reservations,
pursue objective, politically neutral research and those who take sides to
explicitly promote the social causes of politically disadvantaged groups.
Bryman (2004, page 463) notes a growing preparedness not to think of
research methods as techniques encumbered with epistemological and
ontological baggage. However, the remnants of the paradigms wars remain
but are not so much concerned with the distinction between quantitative
and qualitative strategies but more with ontological and epistemological
debates. Contemporary realists, critical and subtle, are committed, at
least pragmatically, to the idea of a knowable social world and they are
confronted by variant strands of post-modernist thinking that deny that
possibility.

discuss how ethical principles can be violated in the conduct of social
research
distinguish between ethics as a moral framework for individual social
researchers and ethical governance as a set of procedures for ensuring
compliance with announced ethical principles
assess the validity of the feminist critique of social research methods
evaluate the contribution of standpoint theory to our understanding
of the politics of social research and the role political perspectives
can contribute to the development of our understanding of the social
world.

1. Discuss the influence of politics on the practice of social research.
2. Assess the view that the ethics of social research is a matter for the
individual research practitioner.
128
Appendix: Sample examination paper

Important note: This Sample examination paper reflects the
examination and assessment arrangements for this course in the academic
year 20102011. The format and structure of the examination may have
changed since the publication of this subject guide. You can find the most
recent examination papers on the VLE where all changes to the format of
the examination are posted.
Time allowed: three hours
Candidates should answer THREE of the following TWELVE questions:
ONE from Section A, ONE from Section B and ONE from Section C. All
questions carry equal marks.
A calculator may be used when answering questions on this paper and it
must comply in all respects with the specification given in paragraph 10.6
of the General Regulations.
SECTION 1: The nature of social research

Answer one question from this section.
1. Assess the view that quantitative and qualitative research strategies
form two opposing paradigms in social research.
2. Assess Brymans argument that there is no necessary connectedness
between the philosophy of social science and the practice of social
research.
3. Discuss the view that approaches to the ethics of social research have
been overly concerned with the morality of the individual social
researcher.
4. To what extent have feminist ideas influenced the conduct of social
research?
SECTION 2: Qualitative social research

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of designing qualitative
social research prior to the collection of data?
6. Outline the grounded theory approach to qualitative data collection
and analysis. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this
approach?
7. Contrast the interpretation of language in discourse analysis with that
found in more traditional approaches to qualitative social research.
Answer with reference to one major application of discourse analysis in
social research.
8. Assess attempts to develop criteria of validity specifically for the
evaluation of qualitative research.
SECTION 3: Quantitative social research

9. What are the criteria of causal inference? Consider how causal
inferences may be established in the following:
(a) classic experimental design
(b) panel survey
(c) a one-shot case study or post test only design.
129
10. Why is multi-stage cluster sampling used in preference to simple

random sampling techniques? Answer with reference to one major
social survey.
11. In what ways can the process of translating abstract concepts into
empirical measures (operationalisation) be evaluated? Answer with
reference to appropriate examples.
12. Illustrate the aims and techniques of quantitative data analysis by
writing up the cross-tabulations below. Ensure that your analysis
interprets the following:
(a) column percentages and odds ratios
(b) the measure of association and the Chi square test
(c) the elaboration paradigm
Tables for question 12
In Tables 24 the category of marital status labelled cohabits includes
legal marriages, heterosexual and homosexual partnerships. Single
includes never married, separated, divorced and widowed.
Marital status
Frequency
Per cent
Valid per cent
Cumulative
per cent
Cohabits
5808
49.3
49.3
49.3
Single
5972
50.7
50.7
100.0
Total
11783
100.0
100.0
Table 1 Marital status in the UK 1985
Marital status
Cohabit
Single
Total
Age group
Under 25
2549
Over 50
Total
204
3198
2406
5808
5.2%
75.4%
67.1%
49.3%
3754
1042
1179
5975
94.8%
24.6%
32.9%
50.7%
3958
4240
3585
11783
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Table 2 Marital status by age group
Statistic
Value
Gamma
.696
Chi Square P=
0.001
Marital status
Cohabit
Single
130
Gender
Total
Male
Female
2920
2888
5808
51.4%
47.3%
49.3%
2757
3214
5971
48.6%
52.7%
50.7%
Total
5677
6102
11779
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Table 3 Marital status by gender

Statistic
Value=
Gamma
.082
Chi-square P=
0.001
Age group
Marital status
Under 25
Cohabit
Single
2549
Cohabit
Single
Over 50
Cohabit
Single
Gender
Male
Female
79
125
4.0%
6.3%
1898
1856
96.0%
93.7%
1557
1641
75.5%
75.5%
506
532
24.5%
24.5%
1284
1122
78.4%
57.6%
353
826
21.6%
42.4%
Table 4 Marital status by gender within age groups
Age group
Gamma value
Under 25
.236
2549
.001
Over 50
.456
Table 4.1 Gamma for marital status by gender within age groups
Age group
Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
Under 25
.001
2549
N.S.
Over 50
.001
END OF PAPER
131
Notes
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Social research methods

University of London International Programmes

145 Social research methods

Concept formation in sociology: the case of social exclusion ......................................... 41

Aims and objectives ..................................................................................................... 69

Causal models in quantitative social research ............................................................... 75

145 Social research methods

145 Social research methods

Models and Modelling in Social Research: Ontological and epistemological

Qualitative Social Research: Sources of qualitative data: the interview,

The importance of social research methods

Example: Breastfeeding and educational achievement

145 Social research methods

the ability to deploy an informed scepticism when making judgments

Structure of the course

Parts A and D: The nature of social research and The context of

Part B: Qualitative social research

Part C: Quantitative social research

145 Social research methods

145 Social research methods

Online study resources

Making use of the Online Library

Using the internet

145 Social research methods

documents use Google scholar as available on the free browser from

Online journals and texts

How to use the textbook and readings

The kinds of research questions addressed by qualitative social research

Logics and logics in use

145 Social research methods

process can be mechanistic or highly structured processes, others are not.

Hours of study and use of this subject guide

The examination and examination advice

145 Social research methods

Read the introduction to the

Sections and topics

Buy Bryman, Social Research

Complete reading and note

Complete reading and note

Begin observing and making

Complete reading and note

Practise answering one

Complete reading and note

Prepare outline examination

Complete reading and note

Practise answering one

Complete reading and note

Practise answering two

Practise full examination paper

Part A: Social research strategies

Part A: Social research strategies

145 Social research methods

Chapter 1: What is social research?

Chapter 1: What is social research?

145 Social research methods

Chapter 1: What is social research?

145 Social research methods

Chapter 1: What is social research?

Epistemology and research strategies

Ontology and research strategies

145 Social research methods

Summary descriptions (averages

Theory generation by means