Analysing and Integrating Research

Methodologies

Jodi ArrowSociety and Culture Association PIP Day

6 March 2009

Syllabus Requirements

• 25-30 Mark range

• Efectively applies social and cultural research methodologies and makes informed judgments on the usefulness, validity and bias of information that contributed to the PIP

• Demonstrates a thorough and sustained synthesis of accurate and relevant ideas, issues and information relating personal experience and public knowledge and draws from a number of perspectives and resources

• Source: NSW Board of Studies Marking Guidelines - Personal Interest Project

Step 1: Collation

• Ongoing process which makes the writing process easier

• Quantitative data - Excel spreadsheets, tables and graphs

• Qualitative data - transcripts, summary notes

• Organise thematically as you go

Example 1: Collation• Topic: You Want Me To Do The Washing Up Too?:

A study into the Recalcitrance of the Traditional Male Gender role and the Defeat of Second Wave Feminism

• Secondary research

• Interviews with 10 women of difering social status and age, 10 teenage girls and with 3 teenage boys and 2 older men, and an expert interview with feminist author Anne Summers

• Focus group with 3 women

• Quantitative survey - 140 teenage girls and 40 women

• Content Analysis of TV and magazines

• Personal refection

Collating Content Analysis• Thematic content analysis of 2 TV

shows (The Simpsons and Neighbours) and 2 magazines (Dolly and Girlfriend) - 3 editions of each

• Raw data in minutes and seconds/space allocated in cms

• Turn into percentages and construct a table - still raw data, but easier to interpret

Example 1: Collation

ShowMen -

Domestic Duties

Women - Domestic

Duties

Men - Career

Women - Career

Simpsons 1 6% 2% 26% 0

Simpsons 2 4% 5% 25% 0.5%

Simpsons 3 0 2% 17% 1%

Neighbours 1 0 8% 12% 3%

Neighbours 2 0.5% 7% 6% 2%

Neighbours 3

0 7% 15% 2%

Step 2: Selection• What has been useful and relevant?

• May have asked the wrong question

• People may have misunderstood your questions

• Too much information

• Red herrings

• Interesting but not right for your project

• Don’t lose your focus!

Step 3: Analyse and Interpret

• Progressive task

• Each time you complete a methodology, write an interpretive response (usually about a page)

• What does this tell me about my hypothesis/question?

• How does this contribute to my understanding of my topic?

• WHY are the results the way they are?

Example: Interpreting Survey

Data• Survey of the division of household labour - teenage girls and women

• 70% of teenage girls reported that their mothers completed more than half of the domestic (indoor) duties, while 60% reported that more than half of the outdoor duties were completed by their father.

• 75% of women completed more than half of the domestic (indoor) duties (like cooking, cleaning and washing), and 60% said that their male partner completed more than half of the outdoor duties (mowing the lawn, washing the car, maintenance)

Example: Interpreting Survey

Data• Supports her hypothesis about a cultural shift

back to traditional gender roles

• Possible reasons: socialisation of women and men in their childhood, diferent working hours and expectations, women’s unwillingness to delegate household chores, men’s unwillingness to participate?

• Possible implications: if teenage girls are in such a highly gendered environment, they are learning that such gender roles are normative and therefore they will continue this imbalance when they are adults, in spite of the messages of gender equality they may be receiving at school?

Step 4: Organise your results thematically• Once you have conducted initial

analysis on each set of data, you need to identify themes

• A complex mind-map will be useful

• Helps you to divide your work into chapters - these should be thematic, NOT by methodology

• Your teacher can help!

Example

Step 5: Synthesise• Combining your data to support

your ideas

• Within each chapter you will be making a series of points to construct your argument

• Each point should be supported by at least two pieces of data from diferent sources

• Triangulation - the best way to ensure validity

• Avoid over-generalising

Example: Synthesis• Identify the point you wish to make:

• that the difculty of obtaining childcare makes the juggle between home and work even more difcult for women and reinforces the mythology that they ‘belong’ in the home

• Identify the evidence you have to support this:

• Interview with Joanne where she states the importance of childcare and its lack of afordability

• Secondary research: the dramatic increase in childcare fees in recent times and lack of places(The Age, 2006)

• Surveys: use of childcare by survey respondents

Synthesise

• Start by making your point:

• “In order for women to juggle their two very diferent identities with younger children women seek the help of family and childcare institutions.”

Synthesise• Provide support from your research:

• “Childcare has become an essential institution for most working mothers, as Joanne, a private owner of her own kindergarten, explains that childcare is “necessary in today’s society for women ... as it’s especially great in the freeing up of women to allow them the choice to go back to work ... and maintain their careers.” Through the distribution of surveys to older women throughout the Western suburbs I sought to discover how popular childcare is. Figure 4.1 depicts the use of childcare among working mothers, refecting the importance and usefulness this institution has within society to enable women to maintain and juggle their careers.”

Synthesise• Triangulate your data:

• “However, securing places within childcare institutions has become increasingly difcult due to the increasing demand and need placed upon these facilities in order for women to continue to work. “The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2005) ...[identified] a shortage of long-day care places for 43,000 children. An extra 37,600 needed access to occasional care and 29,100 needed access to family care.” [footnote]. As childcare is becoming increasingly hard to secure for women, women are faced with the added problem of afordability, “as over the past financial year, daily childcare fees increased by 38%” [footnote]”

Synthesise• Triangulating your data (cont):

• “Joanne believed that continued increased costs have made the institution of childcare “now-a-days ... generally over-priced and out of reach for the everyday family who might be able to aford one or two days a week.” This increased cost and afliating results are shown in Figure 4.2. The popular choice of childcare chosen by women surveyed remained largely within the one-two day period, in comparison to the small number that chose four days plus.”

Synthesis• Final analysis - YOUR analysis which

clearly links your point to your hypothesis

• “For women who use childcare, it is an expensive necessity which is afliated with difering conficts that are infused by the problem of securing a spot and for women working full time, being able to collect their children before closing. These difculties combine to ensure that, for many women, achieving the post-feminist dream of ‘having it all’ is beyond reality.”

Making Judgments• Judgments on the usefulness,

validity and bias of your methodologies

• crucial to obtain a mark in the 25-30 range

• must be judgments on how YOU have used them, not general comments on the methodologies

Making Judgments: Example• Judgments:

• “It is impossible to assume that every household perpetuates the same stereotypical norms and values that were present amongst the people interviewed and surveyed. It is possible that my survey results were skewed by the high number of teenage girls interviewed that were from conservative, non-English speaking backgrounds. Further research would be useful in discovering the continuity of traditional gender roles upon the lives of individuals and families living in alternate suburbs, to reveal if difering locations and status infuences the continuity of traditional gender role norms and values upon the socialisation of individuals.”

A final note on research...• Proliferation of online ‘research’ in

recent years

• 2007 HSC Notes from the Marking Centre: “‘Carrying out surveys ‘of the net’ does not constitute primary research”

• Markers are becoming more tolerant when it makes sense

• Question on a MySpace page is not the same as a survey on surveymonkey.com

Some final hints...

• Remember ethics at all times

• NEVER plagiarise - you will get caught!

• Apply referencing for all research

• Interviewees - “name used with permission” etc

Some final hints ...• All research data must be analysed

and interpreted

• tables and graphs - ONLY use if you will interpret them

• quotes from interviews & focus groups - do not use unadorned

• statistics of any kind - again, MUST be analysed

Last point!

• Your hypothesis/question - keep it in mind at all times!

• ANALYSE don’t DESCRIBE!

• pippa@scansw.com.au

• Good luck!