1. Research Design

2. Main Tasks of Research Design
Specifying what you want to find out: this involves explaining the concepts you are interested in and how they will be measured (explication and meaning analysis).
Determining the best way to do it: this involves determining whom or what you will explore, describe, or explain (unit of analysis); what time dimension is appropriate for your observations; and how you are going to do it (method).

3. Design Depends on Goals
What is the purpose of the research?
What shall we observe, among whom, for what purpose, and in what time frame?
Exploration
Often where inquiry begins
Informal methods, feasibility testing
Description
Detail the features of elements under review
E.g., U.S. Census
Explanation
Usually the aim of social scientists
Relating variables to account for process

4. Unit of Observation & Analysis
What we look at to make observation
E.g., People in a survey, articles in content analysis
Unit of analysis
What we are interested in studying
Usually same as unit of observation; sometimes different:
E.g., Are “traditional” marriages more successful?
Unit of observation: husbands, wives
Unit of analysis: marriage type (couple)

5. Types of Units of Analysis
Individuals
Groups
Organizations
Social Interactions
Social Artifacts
- However, bear in mind this is only one typology. E.g., Lofland’s: practices, episodes, encounters, roles, relationships, groups, organizations, settlements, social worlds, lifestyles, and subcultures.
- What is important is the logic of units of analysis.

6. Units of Analysis: Individuals
Most common unit of analysis in social science/mass communication research
Seek to explain differences between individuals and relationships among individual differences
Variables and Relationships:
E.g., Income, Age, Gender, Education
E.g., Associated with differences in tolerance

7. Units of Analysis: Social Groups
Examples:
Households, families, neighborhoods, gangs
Seek to explain differences between groups and relationships among those differences
Variables:
Households: income, media use (Nielsen)
Marriages: types, communication patterns
Neighborhoods: crime rates, income stratification

8. Units of Analysis: Organizations
Examples:
Corporations, Universities, Governments
Groups with formal organizational structures
Seek to explain differences between formal social organizations and the relationships among organizational differences
Variables:
E.g., Corporations: employees, benefits, productivity

9. Units of Analysis: Social Interactions
Examples:
Kisses, Arguments, exchanges, discussion styles
Social interaction are usually the product of interplay between individuals.
Studies seek to explain different types of social interactions (ex. discussion as unit of analysis), the types of people engaging in certain interactions (ex. Individual as the unit of analysis)
Variables:
Number of arguments, argumentative people

10. Units of Analysis: Social Artifacts
Examples:
TV programs, newspaper articles, documents
Social artifacts are any product of social beings or their behaviors.
Studies seek to explain differences between social artifacts, the artifacts produced by different source, and the relationships among these factors
Variables:
Level of violence, number of sources used

11. Faulty Reasoning & Units of Analysis
Problems of drawing conclusions across units of analysis:
Ecological fallacy
Reductionism

12. Ecological Fallacy Observed characteristic of group leads to:
Inference about individual members
Similar to Prejudice
Individual judgments based on beliefs about group
E.g., Precinct voting records are unit of observation concerning support for democratic candidates
Majority Black precincts vote against gay rights
You can not assume that Blacks uniformly oppose gay rights
Whites within precincts may be more consistently voting against

13. Reductionism
Reducing complex phenomenon in a way that privileges particular units of analysis over others
E.g., Crime is a function of individual characteristics
What about social structures?
Economists: Economic reductionism
Psychologists: Psychological reductionism
Sociologists: Sociological reductionism
Dominant paradigms often limit views

14. Time Dimension & Research Design
Time and issues of causation
Static designs:
Cross-sectional study
Longitudinal designs:
Trend studies
Cohort studies
Panel studies

15. Cross-sectional Studies
Static snapshot
Slice of population at one point in time
E.g., An opinion poll
Inherent limitations:
Inability to capture change over time
Making causal inferences is dangerous

16. Cross-sectional studies
Top Global Concerns for 2003 % who list item among top 3 personal concerns
Source: Roper Reports Worldwide 2003
Study of 30,000 consumers age 13 to 65 in 30 countries

17. Cross-sectional studies

18. Longitudinal Designs Multiple observations across time
Tracking changes across time
Maybe in response to stimulus that occurs between observations
Testing for changes resulting from some intervening factor or event
Pretest-Posttest design in experimentation

19. Longitudinal Designs: Trends
Measures change in population over time
Sequential cross-sections of the population
E.g., Changes over time in:
Public knowledge levels
Voter turnout rates
Presidential approval ratings
Inherent limitations:
Starting point
Inability to capture individual change over time

20. Longitudinal Designs: Trends

21. Longitudinal Designs: Cohort Studies
Tracking changes in a group as they age
E.g., People born in 1940 sampled every 10 years
Measure change across the aging process
E.g., Do people become more conservative?
Cannot answer this question with a cross-sectional design because differences in age may be due to cohort or lifecycle differences.

22. Longitudinal Designs: Cohort Studies

23. Longitudinal designs: panel studies
Goes a step further:
Interviewing the same people more than once
Captures change in individuals over time
E.g., NES (cross-sectional and panel)
How do people react over time?
E.g, Public health/info campaigns
The respondent mortality problem
Are those who drop out different?

24. Longitudinal designs: panel studies
Statement: “Most people are honest”
On a six point scale ranging from definitely disagree to definitely agree.
Source: Life Style Study – conducted
by Market Facts on behalf of DDB-Chicago and
Dhavan V. Shah
Wave 1
Feb. 1999
N= 3,348
Wave 2
June 2000
N= 1,886
Wave 3
Nov. 2000
N= 1,282
Wave 4
July 2001
N= 964

25. Longitudinal designs: comparisons
Cross-sectional study
2000
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
Trend study
1990
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
2000
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
Cohort study
Panel study
1990
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
1990
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
2000
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
71-80
2010
41-50
51-60
61-70
71-80
81-90
2000
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
71-80
2010
41-50*
51-60*
61-70*
71-80*
81-90*