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Summary Methodology for Premasters (Fall) (800550-B-6)
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All lectures of the course Methodology for Premasters of the pre-master Communication and Information sciences
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Summary Methodology for Premasters(Fall)
Tilburg University 2021
800550-B-6
This document contains all relevant material for the exam, including the lectures and chapters of the
course Methodology for Premasters
Celeste Graumans
,Inhoud
Lecture 1; Introduction ............................................................................................................3
Lecture 1 – Introduction ......................................................................................................3
Chapter 1: getting started: possibilities and decisions .........................................................5
Lecture 2; Starting your research............................................................................................5
Lecture 3; Theory & hypotheses; variables .............................................................................8
Lecture 3 – Theory & Hypotheses; variables .......................................................................8
Chapter 2: First Decisions: From Inspiration to Implementation ........................................11
Lecture 4; Research Ethics...................................................................................................12
Lecture 4 – Research Ethics .............................................................................................12
Chapter 3: Ethics. What are my responsibilities as a researcher? .....................................15
Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2018) .............................................15
Lesson 5: Literature Review & Systematic Reviews .............................................................16
Lecture – Literature Review ..............................................................................................16
Chapter 4: You Could Look It Up: Reading, Recording, and Reviewing Research ............18
Lecture 6; Experiments.........................................................................................................18
Lecture 7; Sampling .............................................................................................................21
Lecture 7 - Sampling .........................................................................................................21
Chapter 6: Sampling: Who, What, and How Many? ..........................................................27
Lecture 8; Surveys ...............................................................................................................27
Lecture 8 - Surveys ...........................................................................................................27
Chapter 9: Surveys: Putting numbers on opinions ............................................................33
Lecture 9; Reliability & validity ..............................................................................................33
Lecture 9 – Reliability & Validity ........................................................................................33
Chapter 5: Measurement: research using numbers...........................................................36
Lesson 10: Content Analysis & Big Data ..............................................................................37
Lecture 10 – Content Analysis and Big Data .....................................................................37
Chapter 11: Quantitative understanding of content: content analysis ................................40
Lesson 11: Qualitative Research & Case studies .................................................................40
Lesson 12: Interviews and Focus Groups .............................................................................43
Lecture 12 – Interviews & Focus Groups ..........................................................................43
Chapter 13: Qualitative Understanding of Communication Behavior; interviews, focus
groups and Ethnography ...................................................................................................46
Lesson 13: Contextual Inquiry & Diary Studies .....................................................................47
Lesson 14: The Future of Science ........................................................................................53
, Lecture 1; Introduction
Lecture 1 – Introduction
Scientific research
Starts with an interest in or question about phenomena, situations and behavior
- Research question scan be of all kinds
Find out what’s already known about the topic
- Literature review (already available)
- Description of the situation
Provides its own attempt to describe or explain the phenomenon/situation/behavior (or tests
an existing description/explanation)
- There are multiple ways of approaching a description/explanation
(worldviews/epistemologies)
May use various types of data to do so
- Different types of research methods (typically tied to the choice of
worldview/epistemology)
- Introduction for all kind of different types of research
Question: when should we believe an explanation/description?
- Only if the research is reliable: when you do it again – it will have the same outcome
- Only if the research is valid: measure what you want to measure
- Always provisionally (voorlopig): someone might come up with a better explanation
– no absolute truth – so you cannot use ‘prove’.
In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to
withhold provisional assent’ – so never the whole truth but it can be a fact.
Scientists
Have strict rules to try and guarantee the quality of academic research
Characteristics of a ‘true’ scientist
- Critical
- Someone who is curious to always know more about a subject
- Objective – you have to try
Research methods (~ the basics thereof)
- What to consider before starting (worldviews, designs, ethics)
- How to find/read/understand what others have done
- Using theory and formulating hypotheses
- Experimental research
- Survey research
- Interviews/case studies/focus groups
- Analyzing existing data (including ‘big data’)
- Reliability and validity
When doing research you can choose among many different methods.
, Basic assumptions behind communication research
- Observation’s capture / do not capture an underlying reality: what we choose to
look at tells us something about an underlying reality we cannot see but assume
exists – attitude – they exist.
- Theories about human behavior can/cannot be generalized: if you were able to
make a general statement such as ‘young people are more likely than older people to
have a Twitter account’. This then can be generalized – and can be interesting for
advertisers etc.
- Researchers should/should not distance themselves from their research
participants: the level of engagement with participants. The more distant the
observer becomes, the more neutral or dispassionate she can be in the reporting. But
not able to get insights when closer to the group.
- Research should/should not be done for a specific purpose: researchers may
see their research as helping to solve society’s problems or refining a highly
theoretical model of human interaction.
- There is/is not one best position from which to observe human behavior: some
aspects of a question are more important to look at than others and, related, that
there is one best standpoint form which to observe human communication. Given the
complexities of human communication, it is an overly simplistic model:
o Source: the provider or initiator of content
o Message(s): the content of communication
o Channel or medium: the vehicle for communication content; social media
o Receiver(s): the recipients or consumers of information
o Noise: extraneous information or distractions that can disrupt an interaction
o Context: the relationships between individuals, the situation in which the
interaction occurs, and the cultural norms around the interaction
A series of unavoidable decisions
Communication researchers have different agendas and assumptions that underpin the
methods they use.
- The field of study (wide or narrow): we must research the available and the
achievable. Focus on one of the many specific interest areas.
- The researcher (dispassionate or involved): involved with their human ‘subjects’.
The scientific tradition values objectivity and dispassionate observation.
o Action research: research engaging with groups or communities specifically
to solve problems (closely involved with people in order to better their lives.
- The approach (objective or subjective): social scientists – an external ‘real’ world
that can be observed, understood and agreed on to the study of human interaction
(objective). Phenomenologists and ethnographers – try to understand people’s
subjective worlds (subjective).
o Social scientists: researchers who share the assumption that the methods of
science can be applied to researching and understanding human behavior.
- The perspective (your questions or their answers): there are two basic options.
The first is to ask men and women a series of specific questions that will provide an
answer to the researcher’s question (survey). Fail to capture how users feel about
social media. To elicit respondents’ views of social media in their own words (typically
a qualitative process)
- The sample (large or small): how many people do you need to talk to in order to
know that you have ‘an accurate picture’ of a communication phenomenon?
, - The data (quantitative or qualitative): are humans storytelling animals, counting
animals or both? Numbers are important; they are how democracies make decisions.
o Triangulation: the use of two or more research methods to address the same
research question. If results from different methods agree, researchers can
have greater confidence in their findings.
o Q methodology: a research approach used to assess individuals’ subjective
understanding. Typically, participants rank a series of statements about a
topic according to their perceived accuracy. Quantitative analysis of these
ranking typically identifies factors that show the patterns of subjectivity within
the participant group.
- The report (subjective or objective): different ways or writing research.
Researchers interested in interpreting the subjective world of their informants may
use the primarily qualitative languages of ethnomethodology and phenomenology and
report what their informants have to tell them (in own words). Social science
researchers typically use statistics to report and interpret the data they have
collected.
Ethnomethodology: the study of how people make sense of their culture and communicate
that understanding to others. Ethnomethodology seeks to describe and explain cultural
understandings in terms of the culture’s own language and concepts.
Phenomenology: a research approach that attempts to understand human behavior and
consciousness from the individual, subjective point of view.
Chapter 1: getting started: possibilities and decisions
This chapter introduced the ways scholars think about communication research, their main
areas of research, and the methods they use. In summary:
- Communication research is a process of posing questions about human
communication and designing and implementing research that will answer those
questions.
- Communication researchers typically specialize in one aspect of communication.
- Researchers may use qualitative methods, quantitative methods, or both.
- Researchers have empirical, interpretive, or critical perspectives on communication.
Human communication research inescapably involves ethical decisions.
Terms
Action research: research engaging with groups or communities specifically to solve
problems.
Appeals: the bases of persuasion – e.g., sex appeal and fear appeal in advertising.
Lecture 2; Starting your research
Lecture 2 – Starting your research
World views
People have different takes on what the purpose of research should be, which shapes their
approaches: epistemology ~ how to get to knowledge? Being aware of your own worldview
allows you to refine your research questions.
, Major conceptual frameworks for understanding the world, e.g., one worldview might
consider humans to be essentially similar, allowing their behavior to be measured and
predicted, while another might view humans as individuals and unpredictable, making it
possible to describe their behavior but not predict it.
World view 1 / nomothetic approach
(From Greek, nomos = law, thetēs = one who establishes) kwantitatief
A research approach with an emphasis on measurement with a view to making
generalizations about human behavior.
- Human behavior is generalizable, predictable, and motivated by events, personality,
and other people.
- Understanding behavior is best done by isolating factors
- Privileges the researcher’s perspectives
World view 2 / idiographic approach
(From Greek, idios = own, private, graphein = to write) kwalitatief
A research approach with an emphasis on understanding the subjectivity and individuality of
human communication, rather than universal laws of human behavior.
- Each person is unique, unpredictable, and self-motivated (subjective)
- Understanding behavior is best done form the participant’s perspective and by
considering the whole situation
- Privileges participants’ perspectives
Creswell and Creswell (2018) identify four worldviews, as follows:
- Postpositive: a worldview that the world is governed by laws or theories that can be
tested or verified, but recognizing that observations are fallible and that theories and
findings are always subject to revision.
- Constructivist: the worldview that individuals construct their own views of the world
in which they live, primarily through interaction with others.
- Transformative: the worldview that argues for mixing research with politics to
address social oppression and change lives for the better.
- Pragmatism: a worldview focusing on solutions to problems and allowing a variety of
approaches to understand a problem.
Craig’s (1999) communication methotheory
Methotheory: a theory about theories or that embraces two or more theories; a basis for
comparing, evaluating, and relating theories in a field.
- Rhetorical: the study of the principles and means of persuasion and argumentation.
- Semiotic: the tradition of studing the relationships betweens sings and their
interpretation and meaning.
- Phenomenological: a research approach that attempts to understand human
behavior and consciousness from the individual, subjective point of view.
- Cybernetic: a view of communication as the flow of information or a system of
information processing and feedback.
- Sociopsychological: a view of communication as the interaction of individuals.
- Sociocultural: a view of communication as producing and reproducing shared
meanings and social order.
- Critical: a communication research tradition that focuses on power and oppression
so as to challenge common assumptions and effect emancipation.
It’s not all binary choices
More nuanced categorization of worldviews (e.g., postpositive, constructivist, transformative,
pragmatic)
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