Chapter 11 Field Research
Define: members 276, explicit knowledge 277, tacit knowledge 277, naturalism 278, gatekeeper 282, covert research 283, attitude of strangeness 284, empathy 285, normalize social research 286, jotted notes 289, direct observation notes 289-90, researcher inference notes 291, analytic memos 291, internal consistency 294, external consistency 294, member validation 295, descriptive question 298, structural question 298, contrast question 298, informant 299, focus group 300, guilty knowledge 302
1. T F In field research, the individual researcher directly talks with and observes the people being studied. 276
2. What kind of setting does the text recommend for beginning field researchers? 276
3. Know six examples of research sites/topics from the table on p. 277. (Yes, there are other sites, too, but I want you to know sites on this list.) 277
4. Is knowing the proper distance to stand next to someone explicit knowledge or tacit knowledge? What about knowing to stay to the right when driving and to stop at stop signs? What about knowing when someone has finished what they were going to say in a conversation?
5. The kind of social research most likely to reshape the researcher's friendships, family life, self-identify, and personal values is ______ . 276
6. What techniques of developing field research skills does the text recommend? What skills do these techniques help with? 280
7. How critical are hypotheses when one begins the field work process? 280
8. What is the double marginality field researchers sometimes experience? 280
9. Why are gatekeepers important to field research? 282
10. T F The field researcher expects to negotiate and explain what he or she is doing over and over in the field. 282
11. How can ascribed personal features affect field work? 285 (also 281)
12. How can normalizing social research be important? 286
13. T F A sign of an inexperienced field researcher is someone who pays careful attention to the physical setting. 287
14. What is serendipity? (You may have to look it up in a dictionary.) What does it have to do with waiting? 288
15. Give six of the text’s recommendations for Taking Field
Notes (
16. You are in the field studying rock musicians. You hear an argument between two rhythm guitar players you don’t know (yet) about whether the Crickets or Tom and Jerry was the best rock group of the sixties. You’ve never heard of either group. So you’ll remember, you surreptitiously whip out the only piece of paper you can find, your receipt from the last time you bought gas, and write on the back, Crickets – Stratocaster rhythm; Tom and Jerry – Gibson hollow body rhythm. What type of field note have you just made? 289 [What were you doing in the field without notepaper? Bad boy/girl/person!]
17. Be able to describe the difference between jotted notes, direct observation notes, researcher inference notes, analytic notes, and personal notes. 288ff I may give you examples of each and have you identify which types they are.
18. What are three functions of personal notes? 291
19. What are the differences between spatial, social, and temporal maps? 292
20. What are the pluses and minuses of tape recorders and videotape cameras in field research? 293
21. What does validity refer to when we are talking about field research? Discuss ecological validity, natural history, member validation, and competent insider performance as indicators of validity. 294-5
22. In writing his masterpiece, Streetcorner Society, William Foote Whyte often showed draft chapters to Doc, one of the men he was studying. What kind of validity was he trying to obtain this way? 294
23. T F A field researcher generally comes to the field with a very specific hypothesis or set of hypotheses which gradually expand to include more ideas and phenomena as time in the field passes. 294
24. How does the field interview differ from a survey interview and how does it differ from a friendlu conversation? 296-8
25. Compare and contrast descriptive, structural, and contrast questions. 298-9. I may give you a question and have you tell which kind it is.
26. What are the four characteristics of an ideal informant? 299 IMPORTANT
27. What is the typical size of a focus group? 300
28. Describe three advantages and three limitations of focus groups. 301
29. T F The text encourages doing covert field research rather than overt research whenever possible. 301
Chapter 12 Historical-Comparative Research
Define: primary sources 312-3, archive 312-3, secondary sources (314), running records 314, recollections 314, oral history 314, external criticism 316, internal criticism 316, Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) 320, back translation 323
1. Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber are today generally considered the intellectual founders of sociology. Which of them used historical or comparative research techniques? 305
2. Does historical-comparative research tend more toward addressing macro issues or more toward micro issues? 305
3. How is historical-comparative research similar to field work? 308
4. Why would comparative research often involve learning a foreign language? 311
5. The text says that, in the process of synthesizing evidence in historical-comparative research, “models [metaphors] are sensitizing devices.” What does this mean? [Figure it out.] 312
6. T F More than in quanititative approaches, the careful crafting of evidence and explanation makes or breaks historical/comparative research.
7. Which kind of evidence do historians prefer to use? 312
8. The Polish Peasant
in America, by Thomas and Znaniecki, was based on
letters immigrants to
9. When writing about Medieval times, sociologists often rely on the work of historian Marc Bloch. What kind of data or evidence would Bloch’s books be? 314
10. Give me a concrete example of some running records (other than the textbook’s example of a church’s record of all the marriages and deaths involving the church, though you should be familiar with that example, too. 314
11. Oral history is a specific form of what kind of evidence or data (other than primary data)? 314
12. List three of the potential problems the text mentions in its rant on using secondary data. 314-5
13. T F The focus of comparative research is on similarities and differences between units. 317
14. T F One of the strengths of historical-comparative research is that it facilitates rigorous theory testing. 318
15. T F One of the strengths of historical-comparative research is that it facilitates the use of experiments. 318
16. What is the Human Relations Area Files database useful for? 320
17. T F Long experience in sociology suggests that comparative survey research is not practical. 321ff (Despite the chapter's emphasis on limitations and difficulties, the answer is F)
Chapter 13 Analysis of Qualitative Data
Define: infer 328, casing 330, open coding 330-1, axial coding 331-2, selective coding 332, analytic memo 334, ideal type 336, illustrative method 338
1. T F Quantitative researchers are more likely to begin data analysis before all the data have been collected than are qualitative data. 328-9
2. In qualitative research, concept formation 329-30
a. must be complete before intelligent data
collection can begin
b. begins during data collection
c. cannot start until all the data have been
collected
d. is irrelevant
3. T F Coding qualitative data essentially involves two activities: 1) deciding what piles to use for sorting your observations and 2) putting your observations into the piles you have created. 330
4. What is the sequence of axial, open, and selective coding? What goes on at each step? 330-3
5. Can you use the qualitative coding process with comparative or historical data? 331-2
6. What do patterns have to do with data analysis? 335
7. T F A strength of narrative is that it usually provides a general explanation that researchers can apply to other people, situations, or time periods. 336
8. What is a heuristic device? 337 IMPORTANT (though the text doesn't emphasize it)
9. How is the illustrative method used? What does it have to do with theory? 338
10. Describe a few of the ways in which computers are now used in qualitative research. 340-2