Research Design

Key Terms and Concepts

Archival data: A type of secondary data that consists of documentary material left by people and organizations as a product of their everyday lives.

Case study: In-depth analysis of a single event, situation, or individual.

Content Analysis: A quantitative approach to textual research that selects an item of textual content that can be reliably and consistently observed and coded, and surveys the prevalence of that item in a sample of textual output.

Ethnography: Observing a complete social setting and all that it entails.

Field research: Gathering data from a natural environment without doing a lab experiment or a survey.

Hawthorne effect: When study subjects behave in a certain manner due to their awareness of being observed by a researcher.

Hermeneutic: A theory and methodology of interpretation.

Institutional ethnography: The study of the way everyday life is coordinated through institutional, textually mediated practices.

Nonreactive: Unobtrusive research that does not include direct contact with subjects and will not alter or influence people's behaviours.

Participant observation: Immersion by a researcher in a group or social setting in order to make observations from an "insider" perspective.

Primary data: Data collected directly from firsthand experience.

Research design: the set of methods and procedures used in collecting and analyzing measures of the variables specified in the problem research.

Secondary data analysis: Using data collected by others but applying new interpretations.

Textual analysis: Using data collected by others but applying new interpretations.

Textually mediated communication: Institutional forms of communication that rely on written documents, texts, and paperwork.