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SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODS

HK Revisited 香港再遇

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What is social research?

  • A systematic way of seeking answers to questions about the reality
  • Logical, guided by standardised and systematic procedures and techniques
  • Based on evidence
  • Method as a way of knowing
    • Particular general
    • Empirical theoretical
  • The ultimate purpose: to find social regularities or patterns

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Purposes of research

  • Exploratory
    • The issue is new or researchers had written little on it
  • Descriptive
    • Begin with a well-defined subject
    • Conduct research to describe types of people or social activities accurately
  • Explanatory
    • An issue that is already known and have a description of it
    • You wonder why things are the way they are and why something occurs.

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Time dimension of a research

  • Cross-sectional

Observe the samples at one point of time

  • Longitudinal

Observe the change of a variable / samples over time

1. Time-series research

2. Panel studies (follow the same group of individuals)

3. Cohort analysis (follow a group of individuals with a common characteristic)

  • Case studies

Observe only a few cases on many features of these cases over time

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The research process

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Research design

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Quantitative

Qualitative

1. Research strategy

Structured, many cases, generalisations

Unstructured, few cases, locate study in settings, thematic

2. Nature of data

Hard, focus on variables

Rich, deep, focus on interactive processes and events

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Research questions

  • What? How? Why?
  • Quantitative research questions: specific, measurable, closed-ended
  • Qualitative research questions: broad, complex, open-ended

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Methods of observation / data collection

Quantitative (numerical)

  • Experiment
  • Survey
  • Content analysis
  • Existing statistics analysis
  • Evaluation research

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Qualitative (non-numerical)

  • Field research
  • Interviews, focus groups
  • Case study
  • Historical-comparative research
  • Oral history

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Two types of sampling

  • Non-probability sampling (非隨機抽樣)
  • Probability sampling (隨機抽樣)

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Types of non-probability sampling

  • (1) Reliance on available subjects (現成樣本)
  • (2) Purposive / judgmental / theoretical sampling (立意抽樣)
    • To select a sample on the purpose of the study – critical / rare / exemplary / theoretical case
  • (3) Snowball sampling (滾雪球抽樣)
  • (4) Quota sampling (配額抽樣)

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Cont’d

  • (4) Quota sampling
  • Used when
    • Uncertain of the sampling frame
    • BUT know the characteristics of the population
    • Want to get a relatively representative sample
  • Begins with a table that describes the characteristics of the target population
  • e.g., sex - M 40% / F 60% (the target population)
  • age - young 30% / middle age 55% / old 15% …
  • Collect data from targets available and having all these characteristics

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Oral history: a field of study and a method

  • As a method: oral sources (data)
  • Beyond ‘unstructured qualitative interview’
  • As a field of study, it aims to
    • Include what is hidden / neglected / missing from history
    • Reconstruct peoples’ experiences, micro histories, micro narratives, ordinary histories, public histories, histories rather than History
    • Challenges traditional History by providing histories and how ordinary people understand their experiences

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Cont’d

  • Keys
    • Reminiscence: act of recalling
    • Oral history as memories, narratives, events and meaning leading to theories
    • Make histories
  • Examples: black history, women’s history, working class’s history, protest history, …

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Oral history interviews (lived experience)

  • Share many of the features of unstructured qualitative interview (different from survey questionnaires which are rigidly structured)
  • Interview is
    • Much longer
    • Like an interaction between an interviewer and a respondent
    • The interviewer introduces the purposes of study and areas to be covered in the interview

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Cont’d

    • Explains notes will be taken and the interview will be recorded, asks for permission, ensures confidentiality
    • The interviewer has a general plan of inquiry in which order and wording of questions are not fixed.
    • From general to specific questions
    • Postpones tough questions to the end
    • Questions are open-ended, rarely asks yes or no questions

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Cont’d

  • The interviewer
    • Is familiar with the questions
    • Shows interest, encourages elaboration
    • Allows respondents do most of the talking; a good interviewer is a good listener
    • Lets the interviewee set his own pace, tries not to cut the narrator off to steer him to what our concerns are

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Cont’d

    • Would not offer alternatives and says ‘was it this way or that’?
    • Probes deeper into certain matters, goes back to what he had already said, raises points he missed, asks for examples of generalisations he had given
    • Avoids jargons
    • Endures silence
    • Listens, thinks, talks almost at the same time

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Cont’d

  • Analysing and verifying, e.g.,
    • Returns to an important subject from different angles
    • Finds out how good the memory of the interviewee is
    • Finds out indirectly how close the person was to the events he was discussing
    • Finds out who was involved in a certain matter
    • Seeks proof: what other things would have existed for the things they were talking about
  • Transcribing: creating a written text of the interviews
  • Sends our transcripts back to be edited by the interviewee

Morrissey, Charles T. (1998) On oral history interviewing. In Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds.). The Oral History Reader, London and New York: Routledge, 107-113.

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Example: transcript

  • Q: What is challenging for women directors on a daily life?
  • A: Surviving.
  • Q: OK. Could you develop a little bit on that?
  • A: Yeah, I mean it’s all about trying to get, you know, in trying to get the job, and try, you know, to do a great job so that you are invited back to the next thing. And particularly since there are so many, you know, difficulties in women directing. It makes it twice as hard to gain this position …

Babbie, Earl. 2001. The Practice of Social Research, 9th edn, Belmont, CA.: Wadsworth, p. 296.

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The rest …

  • Transcripts
  • Data analysis
  • Report writing

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HK Revisited 香港再現

  • 願景
    • 探討過去香港人在英的既定敘事
    • 重新探討香港人在英的角色和位置
    • 在保留文化和生活習慣之中，和本地人的交流
  • Focus on diasporic experience
    • Facts, action, relationships
    • Understanding, expectations, values and meaning, feelings, evaluation

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Research questions

  • Identify which wave the interviewee belongs to
  • Personal background: family background, social class, previous education and life in HK
  • Background and reasons of migration, e.g., study, a better life, career development, planned/unplanned, for how long, …
  • Personal migration histories, different phases
  • Relationship networks and roles, e.g., family, social circles, work, within the UK, outside the UK
  • Navigating multiple cultures and adaptation
  • Navigating life goals
  • Identities and sense of belonging, e.g., changes of Chinese and/or HKers identity, British identity, other identities
  • Difficulties and challenges, frustrations, strategies of coping, personal growth, feelings
  • Self-evaluation of achievements and contributions, sense of satisfaction
  • How do the interviewee’s migration histories reflect the different phases of development of HK and the world?

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Selection of project interviewee

  • Based on the ‘generation of migration’
  • Should be 1st person narrative, and not on their 2nd & 3rd generations

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Consent form

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www.hkinalbion.com

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